Sourdough onion rye

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wally on 15 Jun 2012 at 19:31

Ok, I'm officially a lurker these days, reading and soaking in others' bread adventures but mostly too busy to contribute or respond.

But here I grant myself an exception because I've come across a sandwich bread which is worth sharing IMHO.

I spent last Mother's Day with Mom (extra points here!) outside of Clearwater, Florida.  We had a wonderful week together which included revelling in good food.  The high point of that was a visit to William Dean Chocolates, a home to artisan chocolates that makes calories melt away in insufficiency to the joy of truly great chocolate.

One day we had simple ham and turkey sandwiches on an onion rye bread Mom had found at the local supermarket.  The bread was wonderful!  Not too much onion and a smattering of poppy seed.  It made our sandwich and I decided to recreate it once I returned from vacation.

I've experimented with this recipe and tweaked it a couple times and I'm now happy with it and ready to offer it up to all comers.

It is, I think, a fabulous sandwich bread (unless you and onions aren't copasetic).

Here is the recipe:

I've made this with a small addition of yeast, as found above, and also as a wholly levain bread (without the IDY) retarded for about 21 hours.  The latter achieves a slightly more sour flavor than that which has the IDY and is baked the same day.  But both are delicious!

This produces two 1.5# loaves or one large 3# bâtard which is pictured.

The levain and sour are mixed and allowed to stand for 12-14 hours until ripe.  At the same time mix dried, chopped onions with beer - my favorite is a dark beer, Negro Modelo - and allow to stand overnight.  (I suspect that fresh onions, or caramelized onions would impart wonderful flavors as well, but I have a large jar of dried onions so I elected to use them and console myself with the need to rehydrate them in beer.  In any case, if using fresh onions, adjustsments - downward - of hydration will be necessary).

For the final dough, mix levains, rehydrated onions and water to disperse the levains, and then add the flours, salt and yeast (if not retarding).  I mix about 3 minutes on speed one and then crank up my Hamilton Beach to speed 3 for about 5 minutes.  You should aim for a moderate gluten development - not windowpane but partially there. 

Primary fermentation is about 2.5 hours, with folds at 50 minute intervals.  After that, divide, pre-shape and allow the dough to rest for 20 minutes, then shape into bâtards. Final proof is about 1 - 1.5 hours.  (If retarding, I proof for 1.5 hours and then refrigerate.  NOTE:  My downstairs refrigerator is old and holds a temp (whatever I attempt) of 40-42 degrees.  So, with respect to sourdough, that effectively shuts down fermentation.  If retarding in a hotter environment then you want to probably aim for a final proof of 80%-90% before retarding and then bake right out the retarder).

The bake for 1.5 # loaves with instant dry yeast is at 440° F for 35-40 minutes with steam for the first 15 minutes.  For fully levain bread I preheat the oven for 1 hour to 475°, during which I allow the refrigerated loaves to finish proofing.  In this case, I bake at 475° for 15 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 420° and bake for another 20-25 minutes (you may want to tent the bread during the last 15 minutes if the color becomes too dark).

The pics are of a 3# loaf I baked for a local restaurant, so baking times and temps were varied.  But the result is the same - an enjoyable sandwich bread. 

Add a little mustard, a little mayo and your favorite sandwich meats and you have sandwich satisfaction.

Larry aka Baker Bob

NOTE: Whoops!  Just noticed I fat fingered by bread flour percentage in the formula: It should read 79.46%, bringing the overall percentage to 178.62.  The rest of the figures are correct.  Apologies.

 

Hey, Larry! Glad to see you peeking out again. That is very decent of you, to spend mother's day with your mom.

Bread looks beautiful! The slash opening, grigne, crust color and crumb all look beautiful, which reflects your  cumulative expertise  and skills in cloning breads.

Welcome back!

 

Give it a whirl.  I'm really pleased with this one - and so thankful that Mom inspired it with the loaf she picked up at the store.

Larry

Wally, that looks great. I've done similar things in the past, but I lke your two cultures and the beer soaker. Will surely try this. 

Good to see you here!

I really enjoy being able to use both my levains, and since this bread uses both grains I couldn't resist.

Larry

How about this Larry?

"Alles ist besser mit Bier"

Lovely bread and a joy to see you post on TFL

All good wishes

Andy

That sounds about right to me!

I've been admiring your own works, especially your beautiful dense Gilchester's Miche!

Larry

Hi Karin,

I came up with this; Google Translate suggested no editing was necessary.

Ich habe kein Deutsch seit sechsundzwanzig Jahren gesprochen

Best wishes

Andy

Usually Google Translate provides me with abundant entertainment, but this was really fluent. Dein Deutsch ist aber offenbar auch noch ganz gut.

Liebe Grüsse,

Karin

I have to try this, it is beautiful bread that looks delicious.

One question, maybe I missed it when I read the recipe but how much beer did you use to soak the onions? Did you drain them after soaking? Thanks.

Great job Larry.

weavershouse

Look back up at the formula and you'll see that I used 150 gr of beer for the 50 gr of desiccated onion.  You don't want to drain the liquid.  I incorporate the soaker into the levains and water before adding the flours.

Larry

That sure sounds tasty, Larry.   Great looking bread and I love the idea of the long retard.  Definitely going on my "do" list.

BTW, when I opened your post on my iPad last night, I swear you had a different avatar.  Or maybe my eyes were just too tired to see straight.

beer, rye and rye sour bread is great looking inside and out - it has to taste fine and make a really great sandwich.  Very professional baking all around Wally.  Just love your thick crust too.

Appreciate your comment.  Nice looking multigrain boule you posted up!

Larry

What a pleasure to see a post from you Larry, you have been missed!

Your onion rye sour just cries out for a mound of steamy pastrami piled on top, don't you think? I'm looking at that nice open crumb and thinking what a good job it would do of holding all the jus and mustard, just the way a good deli sandwich bread should. Awesome bread Larry!

Cheers,

Franko

I'm in envy of the 40% rye you posted up recently.  Just a gorgeous looking loaf and oh, the crumb is spectacular!

And yes, this rye does cry out for a good pastrami.

Cheers,

Larry

You won't be disappointed.  And I think our friend Franko has suggested the perfect accoutrement to it.

I thought your 80% rye a la Hamelman was beautiful.   Nice oven spring for such a rye intensive loaf!

Best,

Larry

with more of your awsome formula's, Larry!  The crumb and crust look delicious..Franko really got me drooling with thought of having this bread with some pastrami..oh my!  I love the new avatar.  I love these type of rye breads.  So very nicely written up.

Sylvia 

Glad you liked this one.  I'm very happy with it.  Now if I only could turn out the delightful breads I see coming off your wfo.....Oh well, sometimes envy is a nice thing.  It gives us something to hope for.

Larry

...I'd love to try baking this onion rye of yours, Larry!
This bread looks fabulous and thanks for coming back and sharing your formula :^)
The beer-onion-poppy seed-rye flavor combination in this one must be *amazingly* good.
Still remembering your wonderful Cheese bread - and can't wait to try this one!
:^) breadsong

Larry, that bread looks wonderful.  But I am stymied by your formula.  It's the first group of ingredients that confuses me.  Since the last group of ingredients, listed after the white levain and the rye sour, is labeled "final dough," wouldn't the total weight of, for example, bread flour be the total of the bread flour in the levain and the first group?    The totals of the bread flour, whole rye and water in the final dough ought to be greater than those in the first group, at least to my way of thinking.  But they aren't.  Please help straighten this out for me.  Thanks!

Joy

Hi Joy.  The initial ingredients listed and totalled (what you  call the "first group") represent the overall formula.  Below them are the amounts of the above ingredients required for the levain and sour, and below those are the ingredients and amounts constituting the final dough.  If you compare the weight listed for the final dough with the weight of ingredients in the overall formula you'll see that they are the same (well, nearly, there's a difference of .01 gram).

Hope that clears up the confusion.

Larry

Your recipe was easy and I'm very pleased with the results...even though we had storm warnings that caused me to turn the oven off and take shelter about 10 minutes into the bake. A half hour later I turned the oven back on and hoped for the best. Worked out well except the second loaf that was rising overproofed and flattened as you can see in my first photo. Still tasty just not high. The house was filled with the wonderful smell of these loaves baking.

I did add 1/2 TBLS. caraway just because I couldn't stop myself, we love caraway with rye. Thanks Larry for a great recipe.

I think it was the absence of the heading "overall formula" that got me confused (such a simple matter, isn't it).  Well, I've never used beer to rehydrate the dried onions, and these days I've been sauteeing fresh onion instead of rehydrating the dried, but either way this bread sounds like a great new venture.  Thank you!

Joy

Hi Larry --

Your loaves are making my mouth water and I'd love to give the recipe a try. Unfortunately, whether I try under the original post to get the "printer friendly" version, or cut & paste, the box with the ingredient list doesn't appear. Is there a special way to do this? I have a Mac and am using Firefox.

Thanks,

Bonni (a little further south in FL than your Mom, and my terrific son will be visiting me in two weeks)

it worked like a charm. I've always been a Mac person and the idea of right or left click is so foreign to me. Thanks for demystifying things.

Bonni

I didn't even think about Mac's long love affair with the single button mouse. Glad I didn't cause confusion; thank god for Apple's moving to a Unix type OS. I've mostly been on Linux for the last dozen years, so fewer than three buttons frustrates me. :)

cheers,

gary

I JUST FOUND THIS RECIPE AND HAVE ONE QUESTION --- AFTER MAKING THE WHITE LEVAIN AND THE RYE SOUR HOW LONG DO YOU LET EACH OF THEM SIT AND FERMENT BEFORE MAKING THE REST OF THE DOUGH? --- LOOKS DELICIOUS AND HOPE TO MAKE IT SOON --- THANKS FOR THE HELP ---

SLKIRK

 

NEVER MINE MY QUESTION ABOUT THE TIMING ON THE LEVAIN AND SOUR AS I REREAD THE RECIPE AND THAT INFO IS PLAINLY THERE ---- MY BADV---

 

SLKIRK