Over the last year I have been trying to make a Rye bread called Tzitzel, which I remember from a bakery in my home town - University City, Missouri. The bakery is still there and still makes Tzitzel, but as I don't have much (any) reason to go back to U. City, I figured I'd better learn how to make it myself. After many attempts, I finally felt that I managed to make a respectable Jewish Rye with a nice crust and flavor http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20506/jewish-corn-rye but it still didn't taste anything like the Tzitzel I remembered. Recently I took advantage of the brief free shipping period at King Arthur, and ordered White Rye and Sir Lancelot flour, neither of which I'd baked with before. I tried making Jewish Rye with these two flours instead of Hodgson's Mill Stone Ground Rye and King Arthur Bread Flour. I started to feel I was onto something despite the fact that the white rye flavor was much too mild, and the loaves puffed up like a white flour wheat loaf, which is very un-Tzitzel-like. Today I tried again with a rye sour made with 2/3 white rye and 1/3 Arrowhead Mills organic rye, which is a whole rye flour, but much less gritty than Hodgson's Mills. This time, the shape (broad and squat) flavor and texture were much more on target. So now I have one more thing to add to my long list of baking lessons that I've learned this year - the flour matters. If I want to get any closer to the original Pratzel's tzitzel, I am going to have to find out what kind of flour they use, and that's that.
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I've not heard of Tzitzel rye before, Varda, but yours sure looks tasty!
Beautiful looking loaf, Varda.
I haven't had the corn rye from your MO bakery, but yours sure looks delicious.
You may get closer to your target using First Clear Flour for the wheat flour. Just a guess. First Clear is traditionally used in NY Corn Rye.
BTW, as I understand it "tzitzel" means "seeds," referring to the caraway seeds in this type of bread.
David
Thank you all. David, I will try the First Clear. I did order it when I started this little quest, and I couldn't tell the difference. But that was many breads ago, and it's certainly worth another shot. -Varda