A while back I had made this Hamelman "Farmer's Bread" with yogurt, per his directions, and found it boring. But after a friend dropped off some home-made Quark cheese this week, I decided to give it another go since he mentioned he was recreating a quark bread from his days in germany. And it's really good! A nice pain-au-levain type taste in only 4 hours start to finish.
A simple bread that turned out well.
Rye Salt-Sour
19g stiff rye starter from fridge, unrefreshed.
108g whole rye
111g water, warm enough to leave a DT of 95F.
2g salt.
Heat for 17 hours going down gradually from 90-95F at start, down to about 70F the next morning. The starter should smell fruity.
Dough
229g of starter above (after taking out about 19g for next time)
180g white flour
72g whole rye flour
134g water
90g walnuts, chopped
2g IDY
4.5g salt
I‘ve been looking for a way to try out the Monheim Salt-sour process for a while, as I've been researching ways to get complex rye flavors without the pain of a 3-fold Detmolder. It's described as having a good aroma and being "almost as good" as a full detmold.
The new recipe for Salzburg Wheat Germ Rye by Markus Farbinger in Hamelman's Bread 3rd ed intrigued me, It's so different from the German detmolder ryes so close to Hamelman's heart. The bread involves a rye starter focusing on lactic prominence, a hefty dose of wheat germ, a cold pre-soak of just the wheat portion, and a mixture of aromatic spices (toasted coriander, fennel, caraway), along with toasted rye malt,.
This experiment turned out so well I thought I'd share the formula. The levain uses only yeasts from fermented fig water. There is just a hint of fennel and caraway, with a gentle sweetness from honey. Typical of fruit yeast, there is a noticeable lack of acidity. Nice moist crumb. Keeps well. Delicious!
I used fruit yeast rather than sourdough or commercial yeast because with a bread this "pure", I didn't want any sourness or extraneous flavors to take away from the subtle flavors.
And there's something about using figs to leaven a fig bread.
A great bread from Hamelman lost in the shuffle, because it's not sourdough and doesn't have huge holes.
But a bread worth highlighting!
I won't post the formula since it's in the book, but it's a straight-forward 80% hydration, 20% pre-fermented flour, 20% rye chops, 20% toasted sunflower seeds, 1.5% malt syrup.
After so much praise from breadsong and with my love of nordic ryes, I had to try this! I stuck to Martin's original formula, which included barley and more seeds than breadsong's. And more syrup! The web said you could substitute dark corn syrup for Swedish "bread syrup"; but to hedge my bets I split it 50% light corn syrup and the other 50% molasses and honey.
Here is the formula I used (which might be useful for anyone attempting to make Martin's original, which is in Swedish.)
With cracked rye soaker (ground in coffee grinder) instead of cracked wheat. This recipe is very similar to Glezer's, but with addition of some IDY and a shorter fermentation time. I think I prefer her's since the all-levain dough has a deeper flavor, which helps such a subtle loaf. A hint to anyone trying this recipe: do the folds with wet hands rather than dipping in flour. This is sticky dough and you don't want to make it dry.
