Russian Rye Bread

I am still a novice in bread making, and lot of my tries end in failures. I don’t like failures, and after each failure I will try to bake breads with vengeance. I bought Rye flour thinking that I am going to make some multigrain bread. However, I didn’t get any time to bake the multigrain bread. So after a few weeks when I got some time to bake again I thought I would try to bake a Rye bread. 

My hubby is a fan of Rye breads especially the  one with  whole caraway and other spices. Rye flour has lot health benefits; it won’t spike the blood sugar levels as other white breads do. Due to Diabetes genes in our family; I need to take that point into consideration while baking anything. However quite a lot of times I follow my heart and end up breaking the rule regarding blood sugar levels and food types. 

For a prefect recipe to make the Rye bread, I searched with the help of Google friend. Lot of the recipes comes up with sourdough starter which I did not want. Finally I come across this recipe from Smitten Kitchen and I thought I need to give it a try. I have tried her recipes before, and they have always come out well. Two things about this recipe that I had to consider were: there had a lot of ingredients for this bread, and also use of fresh shallots. I read at Kingarthurflour.com that if you use fresh shallots it will prevent yeast action and some time dough will not rise. But Deb (Smitten Kitchen) had tried and tested this recipe so I decided to give a try. I changed the recipe a little bit by adding more whole wheat flour and substituting red wine vinegar for apple cider vinegar and omitted bran as I don’t have apple cider vinegar and bran in my hand. Now adding whole wheat flour to everything makes me feel better. It has becomes an obsession for me. So for all baking I will add some whole wheat flour, at the same time, not enough courage to entirely replace all purpose or bread flour with whole wheat flour.

The Russian Rye bread came out really good. My hubby also told me it is keeper recipe, you can make it again. We enjoyed this bread with our vegetable moussaka, some soup and even for our breakfast with scrambled eggs. If you looking for dark rye bread recipe, try this one.

I made only one loaf first time, next time I am going to make two loaf one for my Russian friend “Maria”. I will update her taste test result too.

What you need
Yeast: 1 package (I used Active dry yeast)
Sugar: 1 teaspoon
Warm water: ¼ cup
Water: 1 cup
Molasses: 1/8 cup
Red wine vinegar: 1/8 cup
Unsalted butter: 2 tablespoon
Whole wheat flour: ½ cup
Rye flour: 1 ½ cup
Bread flour: 1 ½ cup
Caraway seeds: 1 tablespoon
Fennel seeds: ¼ teaspoon
Salt: ½ tablespoon
Instant espresso powder: ½ tablespoon
Unsweetened Chocolate chips: 1 tablespoon
Shallots: 2 no (chopped finely)
Cornmeal: 1/8 cup (optional)
All purpose flour: ½ tablespoon (optional)
Caraway seeds: ½ teaspoon (optional)

How I made

In a small bowl add active dry yeast in ¼ cup lukewarm water along with 1 teaspoon sugar. Keep aside for 10 minutes or until yeast gets foamy. I kept it for about 20 minutes.

In a medium bowl heat one cup of water with molasses, vinegar, butter and chocolate chips until butter and chocolate chips gets melted. Keep aside.

In a large bowl combine all flours and keep aside.

In a big bowl add, mixed flours, caraway seeds, fennel seeds, salt, espresso and shallots.

Gradually add yeast mixture and butter chocolate mixture and mix everything until combined well to make smooth dough. Knead the dough for 15 minutes. More you knead dough become less sticky and smooth. (If you don’t like whole seeds in your bread, grind them in the coffee grinder or mortar pestle. I like to use whole seeds).
I added all flours while mixing, if you want you can add in two portions, that way you may not need entire flour to make smooth dough.

Keep aside knead dough in slightly oiled vessel for doubling. It took about 1hour and 45 minutes to double.

Combine cornmeal, flour and remaining caraway seeds, if using, and set aside.

Transfer the dough into a lightly floured surface and spread into loaf and keep it in loaf pan. Sprinkle loaf with cornmeal mixture, if using. Cover with a proof cover or greased plastic wrap, and let the loaf rise for 45 minutes, or until they're quite puffy. 

Bake them in a preheated 350°F oven for 45 minutes, or until they’re well browned or registered an internal temperature of 200 to 210°F on an instant-read thermometer. . Remove them from the oven, and allow them to cool completely before serving.

Preparation time: Preparation time: 30 minutes for preparing dough,
Doubling time: 1.45minutes + 45 minutes for second rise
Baking time: 45 minutes
Yield: 1 loaf
Verdict: Yummy
Will you make it again: Yes

This bread is Yeasts Spotted

Swathi