Prepare yourselves for an onslaught of rye recipes, starting with this simple rye bread from Near and Far. Heidi Swanson is one of the "early" food bloggers. Her blog, 101 cookbooks, has been active since 2003! and the original concept was similar to mine - she owned lots of cookbooks and was hoping to force herself to try new recipes instead of cooking the same things over and over again. Her blog has evolved to focus on "natural foods" and she's published three cookbooks along that theme. I own all of them, but confess to never having cooked from any of them until now. As much as I love her blog and cooking philosophy, somehow I've never gotten around to making any of her recipes. After making her simple rye bread, I think that will change.
I really like Heidi's simple rye bread. It's so easy to make, doesn't require much rise time, doesn't require much time in the oven either, and is finished with butter. It's a gloriously simple bread, that goes well with just about anything. It's also quite open to improvisation.
I used my rye and white sourdough starters in place of most of the flour and water, I just calculated the percentages of flour and water in my starters and adjusted accordingly. That worked really well actually. I was worried that my dough was too water-y (and perhaps this is unique to my use of the sourdough starter), but it wasn't at all, and actually the crumb on my final bread looks pretty similar to Heidi's. It turns out this is a great little bread for using up the "old" starter that I would otherwise be throwing away.
I baked mine for 35 minutes, and then added butter on top and baked another ~5 minutes. At first slice, I feared I probably could have given it another 5 minutes on top of that, but the bread was actually perfectly cooked through. The end taste isn't sour (even with my sourdough starter), instead this simple rye bread is a very mild loaf that pairs well with cheese or butter (or both, like the French). It would also be quite good with smoked salmon or other toppings along those lines.
Simple Rye Bread
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups 360 ml warm water (110 F / 44 C)
- 2 ¼ teaspoons (1 package) active dry yeast
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 scant cup (125 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 cup (140 g) rye flour
- 1 cup (100 g) rolled oats (not instant)
- 1 ½ teaspoons sea salt
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter melted
Instructions
- Put the warm water in a small bowl, then sprinkle the yeast over the top. Stir until the yeast dissolves into the water.
- Stir in the honey. Let rest 5-10 minutes, until yeast blooms.
- In a large bowl, combine the flours, oats, and salt.
- Add the wet mixture to the dry, stir to combine until dough is uniform (but try not to overmix).
- Brush a 9-by-5 inch loaf pan with some of the melted butter. Place the dough in the pan, cover with a damp, clean cloth. Let rise 30 minutes in a warm place.
- Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 F. Once risen, bake the bread for 30-35 minutes, until golden. The sides should be pulling away from the pan.
- Brush with the remaining butter, then place under the broiler for just one minute to give the loaf a darker color.
- Remove pan from oven and immediately turn loaf out onto a cooling rack (otherwise it will steam in the pan).
- Serve warm, with butter and salt sprinkled on top.
Notes
1. In a small bowl, add 55 g warm water. Add the yeast, stir to dissolve, then the honey. Let rest until yeast blooms.
2. In a large bowl, add 300 g rye sourdough culture (120 g rye + 180 g water).
Add 250 g all-purpose flour sourdough culture (125 g water + 125 g flour).
Add another 20 g rye flour. Add 100 g rolled oats and 1 ½ teaspoons sea salt. Stir to combine.
3. Mix the wet and dry ingredients together to form a dough.
4. Proceed with recipe.
