New Guy questions about whole wheat and rye
Greetings, wise people coated with flour!
I've been baking bread for about a month, just using bread flour, to make regular bread, cheese bread, and banana yeast bread. This weekend, I picked up a bag of whole wheat flour and a bag of rye flour; never worked with either before.
Neither recipe uses table sugar; the whole wheat calls for HONEY and the rye calls for MOLASSES. I'm sure there is a reason for asking for those sweeteners instead of sugar, but I don't know what that reason is. Can anyone answer that? And, would light brown sugar work as a substitute?
Second, the rye bread recipe calls for 1/2 & 1/2 rye flour and bread flour. I was going to make this for a friend who can't tolerate wheat. It also calls for adding gluten. Can you explain this to me, or direct me to a place I can read about it?
I am guessing you are following recipes either off the bag or from a book. You could use plain sugar as a sweetener but then you need to adjust the water amount to equal what the honey or molasses would have brought to the recipe. Usually it’s best to stick to what they call for until you get more experienced and know what a dough should feel like. Then you can start playing around with what goes into your bread and you can adjust the water amount to suit.
Light brown sugar can replace white sugar. I wouldn’t use it as a substitute unless you find a calculator online that tells you how much brown sugar and water is needed to replace either honey or molasses. There will be some flavour differences and may also have textural differences. It really is best to do the recipe as called for the first time.
Rye has low gluten and gluten is what forms the framework to trap the bubbles of gas that make the bread light and fluffy. That’s why the recipe you are looking at has gluten and bread flour. That recipe is a definite no go for your friend. You may want to look at other rye recipes where the bread isn’t airy but is more of a compact brick form. The name escapes me..,rugbrot maybe? Someone will correct me on that.
As to your friend, is s/he celiac because if they are, rye is not an option. If it is just wheat, has s/he tried other forms such as Spelt, Kamut, Einkorn or older versions like Red Fife or Selkirk wheat. Sometimes people can tolerate those but not modern wheat.
Hope this helps a bit.
IN pretty much any bread recipes that call for sugar, you can oretty much use any sweetener you want (I can’t speak to articulate sweeteners though. I hate them, never use them, and have no idea how they’ll react with the bread chemistry). Head Danni3113’s advice when using liquid sweeteners like honey, molasses, and agave; you’ll have to adjust the hydration a bit to account for them. If you’re substituting one sweetener for another, do it by weight, not volume! A tbsp of brown sugar weighs considerably more than a tbsp of granulated sugar, but 10 grams of either is 10 grams.
i suspect your recipes that call for molasses or honey suggest those sweeteners for their flavor, given he types of bread you’re making.
I don’t make rye very often, but every recipe I’ve seen for it includes a blend of flours. I think if you use only rye flour, your loaf will be very thick and dense. I do think I’ve seen pumpernickel recipes that call for all rye flour.
Yes, using all rye flour results in a doorstop but if you put enough moisture in it, it can be a delightful brick of bread. A bit of acid also helps if you are doing a yeasted 100% rye . I like to add molasses and some cider vinegar to rye flour, water, salt & yeast. Another alternative is to use buttermilk as the liquid or add buttermilk powder to the dried ingredients.
Kneading rye will never develop a glossy, stretchy dough. It won't double or grow into a fluffy ball. Use time and high hydration (ca. 80%) to let the gelatinous rye pentosans build any structure the dough is likely to have. I just do a modest couple of stretch and fold cycles in the course of a couple hours.
Cook 100% rye in a loaf pan or small pullman and, after it cools, let it rest a day or so (wrapped) to allow the internal moisture to soften the crust. Cut thin and spread on butter, cream cheese, smoked fish paste, etc.
Note: my couple-hour simple rye will not have the beautiful flavor of a sour-dough, three day European loaf but for the time and effort involved, it's a tasty sub.
To get the fluffier sandwich rye, you must cut with 50%-80% wheat bread flour.