Rye bread

[castanea]

I have never made a rye bread, but over the last few years I have eaten some amazing rye breads that are giving me the encouragement to make my own. What started my interest a few years back was this dry but flavorful beer rye from Berkeley:

cheeseboardcollective.coop/cheese_bakery/bread/63

Then I ran across this moist and chewy Danish inspired rye bread:

www.annasrye.com/introductions.php

Lately I have been buying different types of rye breads from a local Eastern European Grocer. Some of them are made in-house, and one of them is similar to the Anna's daughter's rye bread. But they also import rye breads from eastern Europe. Some of these breads are so good and also so different from anything I have tried in the US. The one I tried today is this one from Lithuania:

www.valgiai.com/organic-lithuanian-bread-baked-borodinsky-russian-tradition-p-573.html

It's made with half rye flour and half wheat flour and has an amazing sweet/sour taste. It's not a dessert bread at all, but still has a surprising sweetness. It also uses rye malt and coriander seeds and incorporates a scalding technique. I have to try to find a recipe for it.

[atash]

It would be fun to sample the wares of those bakeries.

I've made a lot of wheat-rye combo breads, but never anything that was 100% rye. The latter are quite distinctive, but some types like Pumpernickel are not easy to make (around 11 hours of slow steam-baking under pressure). Rusks are easy to make if a bit Spartan.

[steev]

Mmmm, the Cheese Board! I have a couple clients a block from there; it's always tempting to leave my crew on autopilot while I walk over to score some dried-fruit scones so I can pig out on carbs after work. A chewy, oniony bialy would be very toothsome right now. That's it, we do North Berkeley tomorrow!

[castanea]

The bialys are good but I really like the zampanos

cheeseboardcollective.coop/cheese_bakery/bread/7

and the x bread. My wife is addicted to x-bread.

cheeseboardcollective.coop/cheese_bakery/bread/49

[toad]

Guess I must write something here, as 100% rye bread is what we all eat every day in my country Denmark.

It's not difficult to prepare, doesn't take too much of your time, but you will need to wait, because both the fermenting process and the baking takes a long time. It is really slow food. But then it keep fresh for a week or two, if well prepared. We always use whole rye flour, and most people prefer a rye bread baked on something like 1/3 whole rye flour and 2/3 broken rye kernels. It is always fermented on sour-dough and well salted. Then we add a variety of beer, spices and/or malt/honey. Maybe even some kind of seeds, like linseeds, or grated carrots. It takes some knowledge, to do a good bread. One of the special things is to shape the bread, poke deep holes to let out the vapour, and packing the bread with a lid.
After baking keep it in a damp tea towel over night, to soften the crumb.

I guess it's an acquired taste, but quite addictive and very healthy with all the fibres and minerals.

If you want a danish recipe for rye bread, google for "rugbrød" "opskrift"
Her is a fairly simple and good traditional recipe:
translate.google.dk/translate?sl=da&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=da&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dr.dk%2FDR2%2Fcamillaplum%2Fboller%2Baf%2Bstaal%2Fopskrifter%2F20080124092823.htm

[steev]

Perhaps my earliest school memory is of my kindergarten teacher having us pass around a jar of cream for us to take turns shaking until it was butter, which she spread on rye crackers for our snack with our little cartons of milk. An acquired taste? If so, that's how young I acquired it.

[castanea]

Oct 12, 2011 14:06:43 GMT -5 toad said:

Guess I must write something here, as 100% rye bread is what we all eat every day in my country Denmark.

It's not difficult to prepare, doesn't take too much of your time, but you will need to wait, because both the fermenting process and the baking takes a long time. It is really slow food. But then it keep fresh for a week or two, if well prepared. We always use whole rye flour, and most people prefer a rye bread baked on something like 1/3 whole rye flour and 2/3 broken rye kernels. It is always fermented on sour-dough and well salted. Then we add a variety of beer, spices and/or malt/honey. Maybe even some kind of seeds, like linseeds, or grated carrots. It takes some knowledge, to do a good bread. One of the special things is to shape the bread, poke deep holes to let out the vapour, and packing the bread with a lid.
After baking keep it in a damp tea towel over night, to soften the crumb.

I guess it's an acquired taste, but quite addictive and very healthy with all the fibres and minerals.

If you want a danish recipe for rye bread, google for "rugbr�d" "opskrift"
Her is a fairly simple and good traditional recipe:
translate.google.dk/translate?sl=da&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=da&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dr.dk%2FDR2%2Fcamillaplum%2Fboller%2Baf%2Bstaal%2Fopskrifter%2F20080124092823.htm

Thanks for the recipe link. It has been 26 years this month since I visited Denmark, but I still remember how good the bread was. I also remember how good the hotdogs sold on the street were.