alcophile's blog

I made a batch of rieska (Finnish flatbread) this week using the recipe on KAB's website. I made it once before using the optional barley flour instead of rye flour; it was delicious. Most recipes from Finnish websites seem to use barley instead of rye.

I wanted to make a special bread for Christmas and the Lithuanian Christmas Bread from Stanley Ginsberg’s The Rye Baker fit the bill. The bread is 100% rye and has a whopping 45% fruit added (prunes, apricots, and raisins). The recipe specifies 76% white rye and 24% medium rye. I don’t have any white rye flour so I made it with all medium rye (King Arthur) and increased the hydration from 70% to 75% to compensate.

I finally screwed up enough courage to attempt the Latgalian Rye from Stanley Ginsberg’s website. It’s a more complicated recipe with several steps at elevated temperature. But @Econprof, @Martadella, and @squattercity have all made some beautiful looking breads.

This recipe from The Rye Baker surprised me with how complex the flavor was despite the simplicity of the method (i.e., no sourdough). Most of the rye recipes in the book are built on sour culture to provide the acidic environment and flavor; this one uses hard apple cider to accomplish those goals.

The dough is a 71% medium rye and AP blend (both King Arthur) with Blake’s Flannel Mouth hard cider (6.5% ABV and slightly sweet) as the liquid (71% hydration). There is also a bit of sugar and IDY. The recipe was scaled to one can of cider and it yielded one 782-g loaf.

This Pumpernickel bread is from a German bread book Brot backen für jedermann (Bread baking for everyone). The formula is similar to Lutz Geißler’s Hütten-Pumpernickel. The dough consists of fine, medium, and coarse rye meals (Bay State Milling's Wingold), water, salt, and rye sour culture. One of the main differences from Lutz’s process is that the coarse rye meal (Roggenschrot grob) is scalded in this recipe instead of the medium rye meal. An interesting requirement for Pumpernickel is that it must be baked for at least 16 hours to be considered Pumpernickel.

This recipe for Black Rye Bread with Buttermilk is from Der Foodcoach blog. I did not have Austrian R960 (light) rye flour or fresh yeast and used King Arthur Medium Rye and IDY instead. But I do have a lot of Wingold Dark Rye from Bay State Milling via NYBakers that was used for the Schwarzroggen (black rye).

I made Fleischmann’s Rye Batter Bread a couple of years ago as I was easing back into bread baking. It was an easy recipe that produced a decent loaf of rye bread. I revisited this recipe a couple of months ago because a shoulder injury limited the amount hand mixing and kneading I could do.

I had high hopes for this recipe from theryebaker.com. I really enjoy the flavors of rye and cornmeal and I liked the fact that the recipe wasn’t sweet like a Boston Brown Bread. Unfortunately, the recipe didn’t quite work out for me.

It begins with an overnight sponge of fine rye meal (Bay State Milling) and instant dry yeast.

Kümmel-Bier Brot (Caraway Beer Bread) from The Rye Baker book. This bread is for lovers of caraway seed (sorry Benny!); it has a whopping 2% caraway seed. The bread is 50% rye and 50% first clear or high-gluten flour, barley malt syrup, and beer for half the liquid. The recipe calls for 2:1 white/medium rye to approximate German 997 rye flour. I did not have any white rye flour but used all medium rye (KA brand) and increased the hydration from 60% to 65%. Vital wheat gluten was used to boost KA bread flour to 14% gluten; beer was Destihl Weissenheimer hefeweizen.