Polish Sourdough Rye

This is my favourite basic sourdough loaf that I've tried. It's quick to make, requires few ingredients, and has both a lot of flavour and a soft, porous crumb. It's my ideal rye bread, especially for sandwiches. You can use light rye to make a more subtly flavoured loaf, but I definitely prefer dark rye.

I like it the best with sunflower seeds- you can also mix some into the dough, if you wish. In any case, this is a very impressive bread for minimal effort.

Polish Sourdough Rye
From Kochtopf

For the Sourdough:

70 g. Dark rye flour
70 g. Distilled water
10 g. Sourdough starter

Mix all and leave covered overnight, at room temperature (12-16 hours).

For the Final Dough:

All above sourdough
400 g. Bread flour
100 g. Dark rye flour
11 g. Salt
10 g. Fresh yeast, or 1 Tsp. active dry yeast
350 g. Water

Seeds, e.g. sunflower, to sprinkle if desired

Dissolve yeast in water and leave for 5 minutes. Dissolve the sourdough thoroughly. 

Mix flours and add the yeast mixture, kneading until smooth. Add the salt and continue kneading on a medium-high speed with a stand mixer (or by hand) for about 5 minutes. Increase speed and continue kneading another 5 minutes until elastic.

Let rise, covered and in a greased or floured bowl,  for 30 minutes. Stretch out and fold the dough like a letter. Let rise another 30 minutes, then repeat.

Shape an oval loaf and let rise on a parchment-lined baking pan, covered, until doubled (about 1 hour). Preheat oven to 230℃.

Cut 3 to 4 slits on the top of the loaf of bread. Spray with water and sprinkle on seeds or additional flour, if desired.

Bake for 10 minutes. Spray the oven with steam from a spray bottle of water, then reduce the temperature to 210℃. Bake for another 25-30 minutes, or until a thermometer registers 190℉ inside. Cover with aluminium foil if it is browning too quickly.

Let cool for at least 1 hour before cutting.

Gingerbread Trifecta- Croatian Medenjaci, German Lebkuchen and American Gingerbread

Medenjaci(top) and Lebkuchen (bottom) with royal icing.

My family has never made gingerbread cookies for Christmas traditionally, so I took it upon myself to try some recipes out and evade having to buy them for relatively high prices from local bakeries (or in the case of honey-based gingerbread, not being able to buy them at all). These cookies are great because they last ages without losing their flavour or texture, are easy to roll out and cut (provided you use enough flour and some baking parchment) and are great fun to decorate. We used two types of frosting, the regular decorative royal icing and also the more "American" icing made with shortening. Both work well for gluing sprinkles, candies, and other tidbits.

American gingerbread with the thicker, soft frosting.

Each kind has its distinct advantages. The medenjaci had a milder gingerbread flavour while still being well-spiced, and could easily be made any time of year (then again, there's no law against off-season Christmas baking...). Its ingredients are also more accessible than many other honey-gingerbreads for Canada. 

While the lebkuchen requires natron (hard to come by in Canada), lebkuchen spices (which one can make themselves using an online recipe- I used some from my grandmother) and white rye flour (available in Eastern European stores and some health foods stores), it's well worth the effort to gather the ingredients if you can- it's got a unique flavour and makes great ornamental cookies- and it's eggless, and can even be made vegan if shortening is used. 

The American gingerbread is also as good as any I've ever bought, and is different from the other two due to both the higher fat content and use of molasses. I would say that every one of the recipes was a keeper.

Medenjaci- Croatian Gingerbread
Adapted from Tara's Multicultural Table

3 C. All-purpose flour
1/4 Tsp. Salt
1/8 Tsp. Baking soda
2 Tsp. Cinnamon
1 Tsp. Ginger
1/4 Tsp. Cloves
1/4 Tsp. Nutmeg
1/8 Tsp. Mace
Pinch each of coriander, white pepper and cardamom
1/2 C. Butter
1/2 C. Sugar
2/3 C. Honey, preferably wildflower
1 Tsp. Vanilla extract
1 Egg

Sift together the flour, spices, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

Beat butter and sugar until smooth. Add honey, vanilla and egg. Incorporate the dry ingredients in spoonfuls until all is added. Once smooth, wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 180℃. Roll out between sheets of baking parchment or plastic clingfilm until thin and cut into shapes with cookie cutters. Bake for 10 minutes on parchment. Let cool for 15 minutes.

Lebkuchen
From Chefkoch.de

400 g. Honey, preferably wildflower
100 g. Water
100 g. Light brown sugar
60 g. Clarified butter, or shortening
300 g. All purpose or type 550 flour
300 g. White rye flour
6 g. Baking powder
1 Packet Lebkuchen spices
16 g. Natron

In a small saucepan or microwave-safe bowl, heat together the honey, water and brown sugar until homogenous. Add butter/shortening and allow to dissolve. Let cool to room temperature.

Sift together dry ingredients and add the wet ones. Knead until a homogenous mass forms and refrigerate 6 hours, or overnight.

On a well-floured surface, roll out dough and cut into shapes. Bake at 180℃ about 15 minutes, or until just beginning to brown at the edges.

American Molasses Gingerbread
Adapted from Moje Wypieki

750 g. All purpose flour
15 g. Baking powder
5 g. Ginger
3 g. Nutmeg
2 g. Cloves
2 g. Cinnamon
2 g. Allspice
1 g. White pepper
113 g. Butter
113 g. Shortening
235 ml. Molasses
180 g. Brown sugar
120 ml. Water
1 Egg
2 Tsp. Vanilla
1/2 Tsp. Salt

Mix dry ingredients. Heat together the sugar, water, and molasses until dissolved in a small saucepan or microwave-safe bowl. Add the butter and shortening and allow to dissolve. Let cool.

Add to dry ingredients along with egg and vanilla, and mix until homogenous. Refrigerate 6 hours, or overnight.

Roll out on a well-floured surface and cut into shapes. Bake at 180℃ for 10-12 minutes. Allow to cool and harden on sheets before removal.

Royal Icing:
1 Egg white
2/3 C. Powder sugar
Pinch of salt
1 Tsp. Lemon juice

Beat all at high speed until smooth. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Soft Piped Icing:
1 1/3 C. Powdered sugar
3 TBSP Shortening
1 Tsp. Vanilla
About 1 TBSP milk

Beat all at high speed until smooth, adding just enough milk to achieve a pipable consistency.

Buttermilchbrot (With Caraway Seeds)

Since my quark-making adventure, I had about half a litre of good-quality buttermilk left over, as well as a nugget of fresh yeast from making stollen. I decided to make a loaf of buttermilk-based rye-wheat bread, since it could be left to its own devices for the most part and I was quite busy with studying. I added some caraway to complement the hearty flavour of rye and to contrast  the tanginess of the buttermilk. I love caraway in rye! Then again, I love caraway in a lot of things. It really goes down very well in this particular recipe.

As well as having a complex flavour, this loaf also has a great, porous crumb that's still dense and moist. It would make an ideal partner with a stew (especially a cabbage-based dish) or in wedges with soup- or with a firm sharp cheese on top. I think I'll try a variation with coriander seed, or maybe cumin, and also try replacing the rye with spelt or another whole grain. The recipe might even work well with kefir instead of buttermilk. 

Buttermilchbrot
From chefkoch.de

450 g. Buttermilk
21 g. Fresh yeast, or 2 1/2 Tsp. active dry yeast
340 g. Bread flour
200 g. Rye flour, dark or medium
1 TBSP Vinegar, preferably apple cider vinegar
1 TBSP Salt
1-2 TBSP Caraway seeds, optional

Mix the yeast and buttermilk to dissolve it. Add the vinegar and both flours and mix until cohesive. Add the salt and knead for 5-10 minutes to form a dough, along with half of the caraway seeds if using.

Let rise covered for 30 minutes. Form a loaf and sprinkle with the other half of the caraway seeds if desired. Otherwise, dust with flour. Let rise covered until doubled.

Preheat oven to 200℃. Cut the loaf with slits around the sides so that it can expand in the oven. Bake for an hour, adding steam after 10 and 20 minutes with a spray bottle of water for an extra crispy crust. Let cool for at least an hour before cutting.

Simple Sourdough Rye

This is a very simple sourdough rye that can be easily modified based on intuition if you're used to baking bread. You can use rye flour or whole wheat, or even different grades of rye flour. You can modify the amount of water used, which affects the porousness of the crumb. You can also try letting the bread take a long rise in the fridge overnight instead of 75 minutes at room temperature.

This is a very good simple bread. It's fluffy, has lots of rye and sourdough flavour without being overwhelming, and is easy to make. It has a nice crust and looks attractive, especially if you raise in in a Garkorb (hence the little lines on the surface).

I cut this while it was still a bit warm (which you shouldn't do with rye bread!) which is why it looks kind of squished, but you can definitely see that the bread has a nice crumb. Perfect for eating with stew or for making sandwiches.

Sourdough Rye
Adapted from Kochtopf

For the sourdough:
100 g. Sourdough starter, wheat
115 g. Dark rye flour
50 g. Water

Mix all and leave overnight at room temperature.

For the dough:
350 g. Bread flour
100 g. Rye flour, dark or medium to taste
50 g. Whole wheat flour
400 g. Water
5 g. Fresh yeast, or 2 g. active dry yeast
13 g. Salt

Knead with the sourdough until smooth and elastic, salt last.

Let rest 1 1/2 hours, stretching and folding at the 1/2 and 1 hour marks. Form a loaf and let rest another 75 minutes in a bowl or Garkorb sprinkled with flour.

Preheat to 250℃. Bake on a preheated baking sheet 20 minutes at 240℃, then 15 minutes at 220℃.

Cold-Risen Baguette with Poolish

I have a dozen recipes for baguettes, depending on exactly I want to use them for. This one is a bit unusual it that it contains white spelt and dark rye flour, both usually available at good grocery stores or health food stores. It gives these a more hearty flavour ideally suited to hard cheeses, eating with stews or soups, et cetera- a more Northern European flair. The name is a bit funny, but my German isn't quite good enough to give a more accurate translation. Basically, this baguette takes two steps- making the poolish and letting it rise in a cold environment. 

  The poolish and long cold rise also adds flavour, so what you're left with is the polar opposite of the bland quick-made baguettes usually sold at grocery stores. It's a bit sour, a bit malty, and very complex, definitely not what you'd expect from a baguette. The only real challenge is planning ahead and starting the poolish the morning before the day you want to bake the baguettes. 

This recipe makes two very big baguettes, but considering the size of the average oven, you'll probably want to make four smaller ones. You can halve the recipe easily to end up with only two, but since bread freezes so well, you can always keep a couple for another day. The crumb is dense enough to hold up well against different fillings, and the use of poolish helps keep these baguettes from going stale far longer than a plain white one. My recommendation is to serve it in thin slices with sharp gouda and tomato to make lots of mini open-faced sandwiches- my favourite way to eat a baguette. 

Cold-Risen Baguette with Poolish
From Chefkoch

450 g. T65/ French-style flour (or AP flour)
450 g. White spelt flour
100 g. Dark rye flour
700 g. Water, cold
20 g. Salt
15 g. Diastatic Malt powder
20 g. Fresh yeast, or 7 g. Active dry yeast

For the poolish, mix 150 g. of the wheat and spelt flour with 30 g. rye flour. Add 330 g. of the water and 5 g. of the yeast (or 2 g. if it's dry yeast). Let rise at room temperature 12 hours.

Add the remaining ingredients and knead well, for about 20 minutes or until elastic. (If using fresh yeast, dissolve in the water first.)

Let rest 30 minutes. Fold the dough once and let rise in the fridge for 12 hours. 

Allow to come to room temperature for 1 1/2 hours. Form baguettes and let rise 1 hour.

Bake at 240℃ for 25-30 minutes.

Pain Fendu

Here's a really nice sourdough loaf I made a while ago. It's light, porous, and flavourful- everything you'd want in a country-style bread to serve with cheese or as toast.

It also looks like a butt. Hah.

Look at that open crumb! I've made this bread twice in two weeks, and normally I'm all about trying something new. That's just how good this bread is. It's mostly made with plain wheat flour, along with a little bit of whole wheat and rye to build character. A thin wooden rod cleaves the loaf into two halves, giving it the distinctive shape of a bum (sorry, can't get over that) or maybe a coffee bean (if you're more mature than me).

This is the perfect bread for toast with butter and tomatoes (and perhaps salt and black pepper), the inaugural dish for the tomato season (in my humble opinion). Mine are still at least a couple of weeks away, but the first truly delicious tomatoes of the year arrived in the supermarket this week- a nice loaf of French country bread to mop up the juices is all the embellishment they need. Seriously, try this bread- no ifs, ands or butts.

Okay, I'll stop now. 

Pain Fendu
Adapted from Ketex.de

For the Sourdough:
75 g. Whole wheat flour
75 g. Water
7.5 g. Sourdough starter

Mix all and leave at room temperature, covered, for 16 hours.

Final Dough:
500 g. Bread flour
30 g. Dark rye flour
30 g. Whole wheat flour
340 g. Water
Sourdough
12 g. Salt
6 g. Fresh yeast, or 2 g. active dry yeast

In about 2 TBSP of the water, dissolve the yeast.

Mix the remaining water and the flour into a rough dough. Let rest 30 minutes.

Add the yeast, sourdough and salt. Knead until the dough is elastic and smooth, no longer sticking to the sides of the bowl.

Let the dough rise in a covered bowl for 90 minutes, stretching and folding ever 30 minutes.

On a floured surface, shape the dough into an oblong boule. Let rest 15 minutes. 

Use a long, thin, clean wooden or metal stick to press down in the middle of the loaf, dividing it into two halves without actually cleaving the dough. Let rest covered, with the stick still inside, for 2 1/2 hours. Preheat the oven to 250℃.

Remove the stick before baking. Bake for about 10 minutes on the lower shelf of the oven, spraying the inside of the oven with a spray bottle full of water to create steam at the very beginning (this gives a crispier crust). Open the door of the oven briefly to release steam. Then, reduce the temperature to 230℃ and bake for another 20-25 minutes, or until the bread is 190℉ inside when tested with a thermometer. Cover with aluminium foil if it browns too rapidly.

Let cool completely before cutting.

Schwarzwälder Kruste- Black Forest Bread

Who's ready for some more bread?

This is a very approachable bread if you aren't too used to sourdough- it's soft, light, but also incredibly flavourful. It's crusty (but not toothbreakingly so), has a nice crumb that can hold together a sandwich (very important when your family eats as many sandwiches as mine) and has just enough flavour from the rye flour. There's a sponge in addition to the sourdough, but that's very simple to make- just mix together the ingredients at the same time you prepare the sourdough, the night before you want to bake. Leave the sponge out for two hours to begin the yeast's growth, then place it in the fridge while leaving the sourdough out. I added some Brotgewürz (German-style bread spices) to add to its character, and it went perfectly well, but you don't need to use any if you don't have the ingredients on hand.

I finally found a use for my oddly shaped cast iron skillet that hardly
fits in the oven! YEAH!

Since the recipe calls for two sorts of rye flour that I don't have (unless I order it from King Arthur, I only can really get dark rye) I just used a mix of wheat and rye flour. Hopefully I'll be able to try the recipe again with more rye once I manage to find some.

A closer look at the crumb.

If you want to try the spiced version, take 1 Tsp. caraway seeds, 1 Tsp. coriander seeds, 1/2 Tsp. fennel seeds and 1/4 Tsp. anise seeds and grind them up in a pestle and mortar roughly. Add this at the same time you're adding the fat and salt to the final dough.

Schwarzwälder Kruste

Makes two loaves (I halved this recipe to make just one)

Source: Jennifer McGavin, About.com

Sourdough:
58 g. Light rye flour
58 g. Medium rye flour (I used equal proportions dark rye and wheat flour for these two ingredients)
118 g. Water
3 Tsp. Sourdough starter, from the fridge

Mix all and leave at room temperature overnight.

Sponge:
388 g. Wheat bread flour
1/4 Tsp. Active dried yeast (or about 3 g. fresh yeast)
1/8 Tsp. Salt
270 g. Water

Mix all and leave at room temperature for two hours.
Put in the fridge and leave overnight.

Final dough:
388 g. Wheat bread flour
40 g. Light rye flour
40 g. Medium rye flour (as above, the light and medium flour are replaced with wheat and dark rye flour)
10 g. Lard or shortening (I used butter)
20 g. Salt
1 Tsp. Active dried yeast (or about 10 g. fresh yeast)
300 g. Water

Mix the sourdough, sponge and final dough ingredients, adding the fat and salt last. Mix with the dough hook attachment on medium speed for 4 minutes, or until the dough no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl.

Knead a bit and let rise, covered, for 30 minutes. Stretch out the dough and fold, then let rise another 15 minutes and repeat.

Form 2 loaves. Let rise in a bowl (or better yet, a Garkorb/bread rising basket) for 1-2 H. Preheat a baking stone (I used a cast iron skillet) to 240℃. Add a heatproof pan and pour in about 1 C. of hot water to create steam.

Using a peel (or other large scrapey device) transfer the loaf, well-sprinkled with flour, to the oven. Let bake for 10 minutes, then lower the temperature to 200℃ and bake 40 more minutes, opening the oven door after 20 minutes to release steam.

Let cool completely before cutting.