A lot! Thank you Nils and Ye Olde Breade Blogge for this wonderful formula! When in doubt make this one….it always behaves beautifully and boosts your rye bread making confidence. It’s more rye than the light deli rye but not as seriously rye as some. Nils calls it ‘ze 60/40 rye’. A great introduction to rye breads for people who want to try their hand at making it, but aren’t quite sure where to start…
I use half and half light and dark rye usually to approximate the German rye flour that Nils uses. Sometimes I make the starter with the light rye and add the dark rye to the dough or vice versa. It works very well :)
Extra pic for Blue: Here is the dough fully proved and turned out from its form and slashed, it was quite firm enough to hold its shape at this point in time, didn’t spread out or anything….
Zeb Bakes 
This does look very good. I’m still sold on my rye sourdough that doesn’t require any kneading. It would certainly be interesting to try it and see how different it is / isn’t, but maybe it’s better if I don’t know what I’m missing.
Oh, it does look most fine! I love the slashing and deeeeep brown groove on top!
Celia, it’s an easy one to slash this one, always does the right thing, unlike some baguettes I could mention……
Choclette, I don’t knead this much. Mix it and leave it for ten – 20 minutes, a quick Dan Lepard 10 second knead after about half an hour, another one if I remember or a fold and then when it is ready, shape it and into a couche cloth or a banneton for the final proof. Does that sound like what you do?
Gosh that’s a beaut. Joanna. I can almost smell it from here.
Is it only folded, surely not – have you shaped it into a baton there?
Sorry Gill, folded meaning during the first prove, the A4 paper type folding into 3 in both directions, with a little oil, then
shaped into baton before going into form, light dusting of flour, make dough into boule, rest a little, as it is not very gluteny, being a 60/40 combo
flatten into oval, do the two hoodies, fold over, press edges together, give it a little roll, and into brotform. But you could probably skip the folding
– it is a very amiable dough :)
Joanna – that one is what I think bread is all about – beautiful; something I shall aim to bake. Have just been on the Shipton Mill site to see if they’d deliver flour outside the UK – unfortunately not, so I’ll just have to source the dark rye flour here (or get into my car and drive to Germany!).
p.s. your site is really coming on – well done!
p.p.s. have just ordered ‘Bread’
Hi Blue! I would make it with whatever is available. Mine looks different from Nils, anyway! Ooh, if you’ve ordered Bread, does that mean you are going to join in with the Mellow Bakers? That would be great! The idea is that very slo-wly we bake our way through the book, but don’t have to do the ones you don’t feel like, so there are three suggestions a month and off we go. It would be great if you would join in, they seem a very friendly bunch of people!
I’d no idea about the Mellow Bakers – an added bonus, but to be honest I’m not sure I’d be any good as I’ve no idea of the degree of expertise required to follow his recipes. I’ll wait until it arrives ….. and cross my fingers I’ll be able to manage one or two recipes. Re Nils’ 60/40 – would you believe that when I googled ‘mills’ (as in flour) it came up with a mill a few minutes from my house which mills its own flour, both organic and non-organic. They catalogue two rye flours (one for ‘black’ rye bread and one at 75%) so it looks like I’m spoilt for choice. Am dashing there before they close this evening!
Hey that’s brilliant to have local flour! Woo hoo! Be warned that freshly milled flour is rumoured to behave differently from that which has ‘aged’. As for the Mellows, go and check out the site, all sorts of people having a go. There’s nothing compulsory about it, join in, drop out, do some breads not others. If you can make a rye sourdough like the one you made the other day you can tackle anything! The only way you really learn to make bread is by doing it and the advantage of baking along with other people is you can either hold back a bit and see what problems come up and how everyone tackles them or post questions and ask for advice too. It’s a great way to learn!
Bread is laid out in a more complicated way than the Handmade Loaf but with those two books you shouldn’t need any more for a while :)
Will definitely check out the Mellow Bakers (I see the link on your blog) and look forward to some fun baking with them. Visited the mill yesterday evening and was mesmerised by the different types of flour – an ali baba’s cavern of everything bread-related. Bought the dark rye (with bits in by the feel of it) and a white – both organic. Was starting the first recipe in THL last night (white leaven) using the white flour I bought at the mill and it was very strange. Don’t know whether it is the recipe or the flour but it was a sticky nightmare! The mill is ‘artisinal’ to say the least – the markings on the bags are written by hand and give no info other than ‘organic’ and the type of cereal. For my white I have to say I’m a little worried as ‘000’ meant nothing to me and my searches on google today are throwing up info which lead me to believe it’s not what I was looking for. Anyway – tonight I shall discover ‘the proof of the pudding’ when I bake one of the loaves (currently in the fridge) and if it isn’t right, I’ll just put it down to experience.
Re Nils’ 60/40, I’m so glad you added the photo of your beautiful round loaf as well. I shall be making this loaf over the weekend and I was worried that the dough would not hold the ‘boule’ shape (I”ll be baking mine in a LeCreuset pot). Did you experience any problems when you made yours?
Hi Blue, I’ve sent you an email about the white leaven bread. Your mill sounds very exciting!
Re Nils 60/40 I have never baked a bread in a pot yet, it’s on my list of things to do. I almost did it and then the pot I bought was too tall for my oven, so I didn’t.
The only problem you might have is when you transfer the dough from the proving container to the pot, I don’t know how pot bakers do that? Gill could probably tell you as she does a lot of baking bread in a pot….. I’ll ask her if she can advise :)
Thank you! No need to ask Gill – the dough is placed on a large(ish) sheet of baking parchment before it goes into its proofing bowl. To place it in the pot I simply pull up the four corners of the parchment and life it into its pot.
The reason I asked if you had encountered any problems in getting the 60/40 dough to hold the ‘boule’ shape is that, on his blog, Nils wrote that without a form, the dough would collapse to the thickness of a pizza (or words to that effect).
Ah ha! I’m with you now…. Mmm I think I always use a form, but I don’t quite understand, you shape the dough, put it on a parchment sheet and then lift that into a bowl, is that right? And then lift it out to put it in the pot? It should hold its shape that way too as long as your bowl has fairly upright sides…. I’ll add a picture of it after it has come out of the form if I can find one and you can see it is quite firm at that point. It certainly didn’t collapse then, though maybe if you left it to prove free form on a sheet it would…..:)
The 2nd picture looks gorgeous. I must try to make this later!!
A photo’s worth a thousand words – thank you once again.
That dough looks like it can certainly ‘hold its own’.
Thanks, glad you still like it *blushes*
You know I do :) You are the Avatar of rye bread (guess what I watched last night?)
Thanks Jo, re the kneading. No, I do no kneading at all. Just get the sourdough out of the fridge the night before, add flour and water. In the morning add more flour, water and salt mix it up and then put into bread tins to rise. I did try making a wheat bread a while back which needed kneading, but it took more time than I felt I could spare and made too much of a mess in my small kitchen. I’m not at all unhappy with what I’m making though, far from it. But your bread does look very tempting.
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