Rustic rye bread - 'Rustikales Roggenmischbrot'

 

Unfortunately, I don’t manage to bake sourdough loaves nearly as often as I would like to. Admittedly, these breads are a labour of love and require some planning. The making and baking process itself is not too bad, but just getting the dough ready requires a few fairly lengthy periods of rest and proofing in between the individual steps. Over the past few months the day job just didn’t allow me to engage in this more time-intensive kind of baking very often. Having said this, though, the effort is absolutely worth it. This weekend I managed to reinvigorate my sourdough starter that was waiting patiently in the fridge and then baked another variation of rye bread with sourdough. This bread is made of three components, as described below: the sourdough, a pre-dough involving a very small amount of fresh yeast, and also a ‘soaker’, making the bread particularly moist. As most of the flour used for the bread is left to absorb liquid (water) overnight, the bread is not in danger of becoming dry, as all the moisture is ‘locked’ in the flour and seeds. The addition of a few spoons of walnut oil, as well as a small amount of coriander and caraway seed spicing, underlines the bread’s rustic flavour and appearance.

For the sourdough (my PREVIOUS POST describes how to make your own sourdough starter)

140 g wholemeal rye flour

140 ml lukewarm water

30 g sourdough starter

Mix these three ingredients in a bowl, cover with cling film, and leave to rest in a warm place (28 – 30 degrees are ideal) overnight or for about 12-15 hours.

For the pre-dough:

100 g wholemeal wheat flour

100 ml lukewarm water

2-3 g of fresh yeast

Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water, mix in the flour, cover with cling film and leave to rest at room temperature (the room does not need to be heated) overnight or for about 12-15 hours.

For the ‘soaker’:

150 g wholemeal rye flour or coarsely milled rye grain

100 g sunflower seeds, or pumpkin seeds, or walnuts (or a mixture), dry-roasted in a pan

230 ml lukewarm water

15 g salt

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, cover with cling film and leave to rest at room temperature or for 12-15 hours as the pre-dough above.

When all three components are ready to go (the sourdough and the pre-dough should have increased in size and should look bubbly and light) put them all in a bowl. Don't forget to keep a couple of spoons of the sourdough as your starter for the next bread! Then add the following:

250 g plain flour

2 tbsp walnut oil (can be replaced with any other oil)

½ - 1 level teaspoon each of finely ground coriander seeds and caraway seeds (I use a pestle and mortar)

If you have one, leave your food processor to knead the dough for at least 7 minutes. You can also knead the dough by hand (it’s a bit sticky) and a friend told me that he gets his bread maker to knead his sourdough, which also works. Leave to rest for about 20 minutes in a warm place.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and, with wet hands, quickly knead and fold into the desired shape. This dough is fairly sticky, so I usually bake it in a tin, which is easiest. If you are brave, you can leave it to rise in a floured bread proofing basket instead and turn it out onto a baking sheet before baking. 

This is the dough after 60 minutes of rising. It roughly doubled in size.

Leave to rise in a warm place for about 60-90 minutes. Preheat the oven to the highest temperature possible. 250 degrees are ideal. When the bread has visibly increased in size, score the top with a sharp knife or razor blade. Spray some water into the oven (this improves the bread’s crust) and enter the loaf. Bake at the highest temperature for 20 minutes then gradually decrease the temperature to about 190 degrees to finish off. The overall baking time is about 60 minutes. 

When the bread is finished, wrap it in a clean tea towel and leave to cool before eating (if you can, wait until the next day before cutting it). It keeps fresh for at least 5 days and also freezes well.

Spiced Apple Bread - 'Apfelbrot'

 

Yes, this looks suspiciously like a Christmas recipe already with its nuts and fruit and cinnamon. With apples as its main ingredient, though, this seems to me seasonal enough even at the beginning of November (subconsciously, of course, this might well be part of the build-up to the excessive Christmas baking I and many of my fellow country folk traditionally engage in from about the middle of November). Apfelbrot is a very old German recipe. This particular combination is my mother’s favourite and in my view it is the best there is. My feelings about dried fruit and raisins have always been ambivalent, but this recipe is the great exception. The bread is juicy and flavourful with none of this sticky toughness of raisins that I usually object to. Whether it should be classified as bread or cake is a matter of perception. There are no added eggs, milk or butter (which means that this bread is vegan) and it is certainly more wholesome than most cakes. Having said this, the Apfelbrot is sweet and rich and goes very well with coffee and tea. It can be eaten as it is, but it tastes particularly good spread with butter.

This makes one very large tin loaf or two smaller breads:

750 g apples, peeled and chopped

250 g Demerara sugar

250g raisins or chopped, mixed fruit

100 g ground almonds

100g roughly chopped hazelnuts

1 large tbsp dark rum

1 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1 pinch of ground cloves

500 g plain flour

20 g baking powder

Mix the chopped apples with the sugar and raisins. Cover with a lid or with cling film and leave to stand overnight or for at least 8 hours. The sugar encourages the apples to release some of their juice so this period of rest is essential – there has to be enough liquid to absorb the rest of the ingredients.

Add the nuts, rum, cocoa and spices to the apple mixture and stir. Finally add the flour and baking powder and mix until all the flour has been absorbed. The juiciness of apples can vary – add some extra liquid (water, rum or apple juice) if the batter is too tough. The batter should be fairly firm and not runny.

Spoon the batter into one large or two smaller loaf tins. Bake at 180 degrees for about one hour or until a stick inserted into the bread comes out clean. The apple bread keeps fresh for a couple of weeks, but it should not be stored in plastic (tin foil or a tin is best).

Sourdough loaf with rye and walnuts

I am a fan of traditional British cuisine and I love cooking flavoursome stews, savoury pies and especially these wonderful hot desserts, such as bread and butter pudding and fruit crumbles in all varieties. Every Christmas I treat my family in Germany to a slap up British Christmas dinner and everybody loves it (at least that’s what they say). What I never managed to get used to, though, is British bread. I am talking about those sliced loaves sold in plastic bags in supermarkets all over the country. Of course, some traditional bakeries remain and you can find excellent farmhouse loaves and other speciality breads if you are prepared to look a bit more closely. However, earlier this year I really started missing rustic sourdough bread baked with rye flour, which turned out to be really hard to come by in my East Midlands town. Bread baked with sourdough is the rule rather than the exception in Germany, and bread that includes at least a proportion of rye is also common.  Rye bread is darker than wheat, it tends to be less fluffy and it has a distinctive, aromatic flavour. Because of the specific makeup of its gluten (so I have been told) rye flour needs to be ‘acidified’ in order to be used for baking. This is achieved with sourdough, which probably explains the relatively rare use of rye flour in the UK, where yeast is most commonly used as a raising agent for bread.

Rye bread tends to be associated with savoury toppings, but I think it is as versatile as any other bread. It tastes excellent with butter and jam and especially with a good chocolate spread for breakfast. A real advantage of sourdough bread is that it keeps fresh for a lot longer than bread baked only with yeast. If stored correctly a loaf can be eaten for at least a week without getting hard or losing too much of its flavour.

Making sourdough is a science in itself and I spent a lot of time reading and researching the topic on the internet. Of course I am still not an expert and there is a lot more to learn. Making the first batch of sourdough was quite time intensive, but I have now mastered a small repertoire of sourdough breads that are almost as quick to make as regular wheat and yeast loaves in a bread maker. I ‘grew’ my own sourdough from only organic rye flour and water, which took about five days. But I have seen that readymade sourdough culture can be purchased online, which would considerably accelerate the process (but it would also take away a lot of the fun). Whether you grow your own sourdough culture or buy it online – give it a go! It is definitely worth it! For a description of how to make your own sourdough starter click HERE

Recipe for one large loaf:

To make the sourdough:

2 tbsp sourdough starter

140 g wholegrain rye flour

140 ml lukewarm water

For the bread:

280 g sourdough from the ingredients above (keep 2 tbsp in the fridge as a starter for the next loaf)

350g strong white bread flour (or spelt flour)

210 g wholegrain rye flour

300 ml lukewarm water

10 g salt

5 g fresh yeast (optional)

150 g walnut pieces, dry roasted in a pan

1 tbsp walnut oil

For the sourdough combine the starter with the rye flour and lukewarm water. Leave in a warm place (26 degrees are ideal) for about 12-15 hours. When the sourdough is ready it will be bubbly and at least have doubled in size.

For the bread dough combine the sourdough with all other ingredients and knead for about 10-15 minutes (I use the dough hook of my old Kenwood Chef, but you can also do this by hand). Add a bit more wheat flour or warm water if required so the dough can be handled without being too dry or too sticky. Cover with a cloth and leave to relax for about 15 minutes. Briefly knead the dough again on a surface floured with rye flour. Then place in a greased loaf tin or in a floured banneton (proofing basket) to bake a round and crusty loaf. I bought a banneton for very little money on ebay. But you can also use a round bowl or colander lined with a floured tea towel. The purpose of the banneton is to prevent the dough from spreading so you don’t end up with bread as flat as a pancake. 

Leave in a warm place to rise until doubled in size. Depending on the prowess of your sourdough this can take 1-5 hours (the potency of a sourdough tends to improve with age). If you use a small amount of yeast (purists sneer at this, but I usually add a few morsels so I don’t have to take a day off work and/or actually can get some sleep) about 50-60 minutes are sufficient.

Preheat the oven to about 240 degrees. Before you are ready to bake spray some water into the oven – this will give the bread a good crust. If baking without a tin carefully turn the bread from the banneton or bowl onto a baking sheet covered in baking paper. Bake for about 60 minutes, decreasing the temperature gradually from 240 to about 180 degrees. The bread is ready when the bottom sounds hollow when tapped.

Cover the bread with a clean tea towel. Do not be tempted to cut a slice while it is still warm even if it smells extremely good. It will taste best if left alone overnight. The loaf will keep fresh for up to a week if stored in a bread bin or tin. I have been told that the walnut bread tastes particularly good with a piece of brie. But I also recommend trying it with chocolate spread!