This is the ryebread that I bake most often. It is a variation on the recipe by Aarstiderne called Charlies Ryebread. I have added some sesame seeds and dark malted flour to give it a little extra taste. A little yeast alongside the sourdough secures that the recipe is a success everytime. This is also what makes this recipe a good fit for the busy everyday life. Anyways, if you have a healthy sourdough that you feel confident about, then the yeast is not needed. I most often use a litte dry yeast, just too stay on the safe side, as I have no sacramental feelings about sourdough.
Ingredients
This recipe gives 2 x 1.5 L raised dough.
The ingredients
9 dl water
5 dl active sourdough
3 teaspoons of salt
1 tablespoon of sugar
400 grams of cracked rye kernels
50 grams of sesame seeds
600 grams of rye flour
2 tablespoons of malted flour
0.5 teaspoons of dry yeast
How to
Preparation: 15 min | Raising: 12 hours & 3-4 hours | Baking: 2 hours and 15 min at 160 C
Day 1:
The cracked rye seeds and the sesame seeds are left to soak in half of the water (4.5 dl) over night. The sourdough is refreshed with 2 dl of water and 2 dl of rye flour and left on the kitchen table over night.
Active sourdough with lot of bobles
Day 2:
Take a teaspoon of the sourdough and drop it into a glass of water. I the dough floats, it is active and ready for mixing with the rest of the ingredients. If not add 2 tablespoons of water and 2 tablespoons of rye flour to the sourdough and stir it. After an hour the sourdough should be reactivated. You can test again with a glass of water. The sourdough should be full of bobles. Save some for your next bake! The sourdough can now be mixed with the rest of the ingredients . It is a rather wet dough and should resemble porridge in consistency. Fill it into two greased bread pans and remember to leave some space for the dough to raise. After 3-4 hours at room temperature the rye breads are ready to get baked. If the dough has reached the edge of the pan and it have small bobles at the surface it is perfect. Poking holes in the bread using a fork or large needle allows for steam to escape the center of the bread. Bake them in a preheated oven at 160 C for two hours (sometimes a little more depending on oven and pans). The aim is to reach a core temperature of at 98 C. You could check with a thermometer.
The right consistency is like porridgeAfter raising the dough is full of bobles at the surfaceThe end result
I have tried out some rye bread recipes along the way. Some just works in the first try, while others need some adjusting to give good rye breads. In this blog post, I have tried to break down the recipes of some of the successfull recipes I have baked. I will attempt to find the best ratios of ingredients in good rye bread. One of the recipes I most often bake is a modified version of a recipe called “Charlies Ryebread” from Årstiderne. I have also tried out most of the recipes from the book called “Rug” by Rikke Holm. I often ended up adding more water than the recipe suggested. This led me to look at the correlations of rye flour and water across the the recipes that had worked out for me.
Above the ratio between flour, water and seeds are pictured from five good recipes. At first glance, it looks like a ratio of 1:0.5:0.5 (water:flour:seeds) would not be completely off. But the ratios are fluctuating a little. This is due to both rye flour and different types of seeds take up water to varying extents. Looking more closely at the figure the ratio between water, flour, and seeds are more often around 1:0.6:0.4 (water:flour:seeds) or put differently 50% water, 30% rye flour and 20% seeds. You can also assume the 1:0,5:0,5-ratio, but then save some of the water to the end and adjust the consistency. But what is the right consistency to aim for? I go for the consistency of porridge. If you can drag a spoon through the dough and it leaves a dip, then the dough is right.
The other ingredients
So flour, seeds and water doesn’t make a rye bread. The sourdough is of course central to the rye bread. The amounts of sourdough in the recipes are varying. This is also a question of taste, for how long the dough is left to raise, and the condition of the sourdough. If you have an active sourdough and leave your dough out to raise over night, then somewhere between 2-4 dl of sourdough per liter of water will do. Normally, I “feed” my sourdough with an equal amount of rye flour and water and leave it on the kitchen table for 1-2 hours. Then it is most often active and ready to mix in the dough. For two rye breads of 1.5 liter each I use 3 dl of sourdough and save the rest for my next baking.
And finally, salt is needed. By looking at the five recipes the amount of salt is around 2% of the water. So if you use 1 liter of water you’ll add 20 grams of salt. This amounts to approximately 1 table spoon of salt.
The amount of dough
Rye bread is most often baked in bread pans. So often the size of your bread pan decides the amount of dough. Here you need to take into acount that the dough will raise. There is a correlation between the amount of ingredients and the amount of dough after raising even though it can vary. As a rule of thumb you can multiply the amount of water, flour, and seeds (in gram) by 1.5 and this gives you the amount of dough after raising (in milliliter). As an example, if you take 600 grams of water, 400 grams of rye flour, and 250 grams seeds you get 1875 ml of raised dough (600+400+250=1875). The other way around, if you have a bread pan of 3 liters then you divide 3000 ml with 1.5 and distribute the rest to 50% water, 30% rye flour and 20% seeds ((3000/1.5)*0.5 = 1000 grams of water, and 600 grams of rye flour, and 400 grams seeds). That ended up being a lot of numbers, sorry.. I have made a calculator in the end of the post, where you can type the size of your bread pan (in liters) and get a basic list of ingredients for rye bread out.
Baking time and temperature
In general rye breads are baked at low temperature for long time, when compared with wheat breads. But again, the recipes above indicate some rather different temperatures and baking times. The german “pumpernickel” (a type of rye bread) is baked as a temperature as low as 100 oC in at least 16 hours. The aim is the reach a core temperature of 98 oC in the bread, so a thermometer can be a very helpful tool. The size of your bread pan of course influences how fast you reach that core temperature. With my 1.5 liter bread pans I often bake my breads at 160 oC for 2 hours, whereafter I turn off the oven and leave the breads out of the pans in the oven for another 10-15 min.
The figure above shows the relation between baking time and temperature according to the 5 recipes, as well as how far I needed to bake the breads in my oven with my bread pans. So as you can see I otften need to give the breads some more time than indicted in the recipes. Slow baking at low temperatures can give a more caramelized taste. Note down time and temperature so you can adjust the next time you bake if needed.
If you read my post on sourdough, you should be well prepared to bake your own rye breads and even make your own recipes. You can add your favourite seeds, nuts, fruits or even spices as your wishes, as long as you have your basic dough in place. If you don’t succeed in first try, adjust it and try again. Good luck!
This is a recipe for a sunflower seed rye bread. It is an experiment in several ways. First of all, the recipe has never been baked before. I have not used this amount of sunflower seeds before. And lastly, I’m trying out a new exciting product, that I have never used before. It’s called Agrain® and is an organic residue from beer brewing. In this recipe I’m using 100 grams of the malt residues from Stout brewing. It is supposed to give the bread a dark chocolate-like aroma.
Ingredients
This recipe gives enough for 2 x 1.5 L bread pans.
Ingredients for the sunflower seed rye bread
400 grams of rye flour
100 grams of Agrain ® Stout
8 dl of water
330 grams of sunflower seeds
60 grams sesame seeds
100 grams of rye seeds
3 dl of active sourdough
1 table spoon of salt
1 table spoon of sugar
As an alternative to the Agrain ® Stout you can use 500 grams of rye flour and 2 table spoons of dark malt flour.
How to
Day 1:
Preparation: 20 min | Raising: 12 hours & 3 hours | Baking: 1 hours and 30 min at 180°C
Take the sourdough from the fridge and mix in a little water and rye flour. After an hour it should be active and ready. This can be tested by dropping a spoon full into a glass of water. If it floats, it is ready and if it sinks mix in a little more flour and water and wait half an hour. Half of the rye flour, salt, sugar, rye seeds, and 7 dl of water is mixed in a big bowl. Sunflower seeds and sesame seeds are lightly roasted in a dry frying pan before they are added to the dough. Lastly, the sourdough is added. The dough is left to raise for the night on the table.
The floating test. This is how a perfectly active sourdough looks.
Day 2:
Mix in the latter half of the rye flour and the remaining 1 dl of water. The dough should now be somewhat in between fluid and solid, so if you take out some the rest stay put (see the picture below). Fill the dough into two 1.5 L greased bread pans to about 2/3 from the top. The last third of of empty space will fill-up as the two breads are left for raising in the pans for another 3 hours at the kitchen table. Heat up the oven to 180°C. Pinch wholes in through the dough from top to bottom with a knitting needle or anything similar. This is to secure that steam from the center of the bread can escape. Bake them for approximately 2 hours. The aim is to reach a core temperature of 98°C. If you want to be sure, you can check with a cooking thermometer. After baking, take the breads out of the pans and place on an ovengrate to cool down. They are best the day after. Enjoy your homebaked rye bread!
The dough before before the 12 hour raisingThe dough should be wet, but not fluidOnly fill 2/3 of the the pans Poke wholes through the dough before baking
Conclusions on the experiment
The sunflower rye bread is really delicious! The combination of the dark colour from the Agrain ® and the white sunflower seeds gives some beautiful cuts, when you slice it.
