squattercity's blog

Here's how to cure my depression: 45% whole rye, 10% whole spelt, 45% bread flour, 1% caraway, 1% salt.

I have to say, it was particularly tasty: nicely crisp and caramelized crust, wonderfully moist and light interior, just enough caraway to add zest without obscuring the flavor of the grains. My niece said it reminded her of bread her grandmother ate in rural Switzerland.

10% rye / 45% whole wheat / 45% bread flour, with toasted caraway and coriander seed -- from Tartine 3.

'life is good when the rye bread is good'

Rob/Bor

another one from 'the "who kidnapped Rob?" cookbook.'

Adapted from Sarah Owens. I changed the recipe to whole wheat (basically because I wanted to use up some of what I have in my cabinet.) I subbed in violife faux-butter, soy milk, and a flax seed faux-egg for the animal equivalents.

Results:

a fun experiment, but -- 

The extraordinary heat and humidity of the past few weeks in NYC has meant that I haven't been baking.

I read about Tony's Brotgewürz rye/wheat loaves & Ian's Onion Caraway Rye -- so, in a bout of cross-polinated insanity 🤣, I baked something you might categorize as halfway between the two.

It's got a chopped rye scald & a diastatic rye malt scald. I added a little lactose-free kefir (because it's what I had on hand) and 1% caraway.

final proportions (including the 2 scalds):

So, as some here may remember, I have had a variety of inconsistencies with my rye starter and my rye breads over the past year or so ... and, among the thoughts that the kind people on this site suggested was that I change up my routine and try some different rye flours. Though I'm not generally good at taking advice, I decided to have some fun with this. So I lined up 3 ryes:

As promised, a delayed side-by-side assessment.

So on Monday I baked a Chleb Sandomierski

crust like it emerged from a caveman's campfire, taste/aroma that makes you feel like you're picking fresh produce, and look at that glowing solar-flare-crumb:

Staring at this boule for too long can give you a sunburn! Better to eat it.

from Sarah Owens' book Sourdough.