March 14, 2016 - 7:51am
This Week's Bake: Lithuanian Black Rye Bread
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This Week's Bake: Lithuanian Black Rye Bread
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The Fresh Loaf
A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.
too. A couple of things, maybe 3 I don't understand. Why the long soak for the malt scald? Everything in the malt is either dead or denatured due to the high heat in drying . All you have to do is get it wet I would think. If you were scalding caraway seeds in it too them I could see a longer soak - and those seeds would be a nce add.
I've also never seen a low temp preheat then cranking it up to a higher heat right before you load the dough before. What is the reason for this?
Thirdly, I can't figure out why the 50 g of bread flour would be needed. Why do you think it is there - for some flavor of some kind? Love this bread For more sheen, i think you could glaze the loaf before and after baking too. Well done Stan and
Happy baking
why the long scald of an essentially inert ingredient, except perhaps to leach as much of the maltose into solution as possible in order to make the bread as startlingly sweet as it is.
As for the bread flour, I've seen that small amount in many rye breads. Again, this is only speculation, but it seems to me that a 90% rye bread gets a bit more lift than a 100% loaf.Too, it may be that the wheat flour is less a flour than a flavor ingredient that moderates the rye edge.
As for the preheat, the original recipe called for panning the bread and putting it into a cold oven. I prefer this loaf freeform, baked on a stone. If I were to have put it on a cold stone, I've no doubt that two things would have happened: (1) a grossly underbaked bottom and overbaked top; and (2) a loaf that's permanently stuck to the stone, necessitating either replacement of the stone or removal of the rye with hammer and chisel. To avoid both those problems, I preheated to 350F, although I suspect that anything above 220F or so would work just as well to set the bottom crust and heat the loaf evenly.
Stan
Really gorgeous Stan! Look forward to trying this one.
Thanks for the recipe. I've tried a Lithuanian bread once before, brought it to a friend from Latvia at work who said it was nice, but not really Lithuanian. This is a second recipe I'm trying. Hope he likes it :) if he does, next time I'll add some soaked caraway seeds perhaps.
How finely is your rye flour ground? I find that mine needed less water (or more flour) to get the dough of pictured consistency.
Finally, i do not have a stone yet, i bake on a quite thick flat baking tray (thick for a tray that is). The outcome seems nice, but I noticed mine reached an internal temperature of over 100C at the glazing stage.