One of the few things I truly missed when I came to Hong Kong is German rye bread. Other North Europeans eat it too, but the rest of the world still needs a little convincing :).
A few years ago, I decided to learn how to bake my own, because schlepping 10 breads back on every return trip from Germany was beginning to get a little tedious.
I searched around the internet, and was surprised about the amount of information I could get. Thankfully, there are quite a lot of websites and forums where hobby bread bakers exchange their knowledge and experience with beginners.
The trouble with rye bread is that it needs sourdough as a leavening agent, commercial yeast doesn’t work. Even for wheat bread, sourdough is a good alternative. It improves digestibility, adds flavor, and also extends the time until the bread spoils. Quite a healthy alternative to all the artificial bread improvers that are added to most breads these days.
At first, it all sounded deceptively simple. Grow a sourdough culture from flour and water. Then, make the dough by mixing sourdough, flour, water, and salt. Let the dough rise, and finally bake it in the oven. Baking with sourdough is an age-old tradition, if the ancient Egyptians could do it, I could too… right?
Yes, I could… after a lot of trials and errors. I now have my very own sourdough culture in the refrigerator, and can bake bread that the rest of the family enjoys eating. But I certainly had my share of stone-hard bricks coming out of the oven, and there is still room for improvement.
Which has let me come to the conclusion that baking bread, that is both healthy and delicious, is really a craft, if not an art, for which a lot of knowledge and experience is required. And I am thankful for all the people that keep the tradition alive. The countless hobby bakers, who share their knowledge on the internet, and the commercial bakers, who go against the trend by refusing to use additives in their breads. They are not necessary, if you know your stuff… or even only half of it, like me.
PS: For a German-language forum on baking sourdough bread go here.
A delicious count for sure. Yes, there is nothing like a good loaf of home made bread.
There does seem to be a trend to go back to “how it was done” that I think is very encouraging.
Cheers!
Comment by — March 24, 2007 @ 7:06 pm
excellent count cosima! yes, there is nothing like homemade bread. kudos for learning that skill of your own initiative!
Comment by — March 25, 2007 @ 10:11 pm
Please, did I miss it or did you post the recipe for your rye bread? Is it all rye? I am looking for how to make an all rye bread (wheatless anyway). Thanks!
Comment by — April 10, 2007 @ 7:55 pm
Rwardell…
Do you already have a sourdough culture? If not, I can give you a short how-to for it, but there are plenty of guides on the internet. Just be aware that all you need is flour (rye in your case) and water, nothing else. For your first bread, self-made culture is likely to have not enough leavening power, so you need to add commercial yeast as well (to the dough, not to your culture!).
The following recipe is for a 100% rye bread. Don’t take the quantities all that serious, and do a little bit of experimenting. The right amount of sourdough culture also depends on the particular flour you are using and your personal taste.
For approx. 1kg bread:
-500g rye flour
-500g rye sourdough starter (don’t forget to keep a bit of the starter for your next bread)
(-1 teaspoon of dried yeast, only for your first bread)
-1 tablespoon of salt
-approx. 200ml of lukewarm water
Combine flour, starter, salt, and yeast (only for your first bread), add lukewarm water if needed, and knead until all ingredients are well mixed. Be aware that this is a much stickier dough than from wheat -using a wet hand helps-, and that you don’t need to knead it as long as wheat dough, as rye has a lot less gluten, and will never get the bouncy consistency of wheat dough. It is also much wetter.
Let the dough rest for 20 minutes, then knead it again.
I use a bread tin lined with baking paper for rye bread, as it is much easier than trying to form a loaf. Plop the dough into the lined tin, and smooth it with a wet spatula.
Let the dough rise in a warm place. If you use additional commercial yeast, it’s likely to take about an hour, for a pure sourdough culture dough about 2 hours. Please be aware, that rye bread rises less than wheat dough. Make sure that your bread stays moist during the rising period. I use a water spray bottle, and douse the dough surface one to two times during rising.
Preheat oven to 250C (480F). Bake for 15 min on high heat, then reduce to 180C (360F) and bake an additional 40 min or so, until done.
Let the bread rest for a day before cutting.
Hope this helps!
Comment by — April 11, 2007 @ 3:21 am