You didn’t think I was going to give up, did you?
No strange ingredients this time! Only thing I did was put half light and half whole rye flour in the dough, but otherwise I measured to the nearest gram and followed the timings and was rewarded by the Spirit of the Rye!
This is a classic rye bread, full of flavour. Make sure your walnuts are sweet before you put them in the dough. I broke them up a bit but maybe not enough but I quite like the way they break through the top of the dough. This was a very firm dough, I proofed it on a couche cloth having shaped it into a sort of peaked oval with my hands and it didn’t spread sideways at all. I could maybe have left it another half an hour on the cloth, who knows?
Not one for those who don’t eat nuts or don’t like rye, but you can still look at the pictures.
That’s the last of the September breads for Mellow Bakers. To see how the others got on, here are some links to pictures from some of the other Mellows…
Ulrike ‘s beautiful bread with its elegant scoring, Bnom’s lovely twist with hazelnuts and figs, Cathy’s carefully detailed step-by-step post is here, and Lello‘s great midnight bread!
Next month we are baking Roast Potato Bread, Challah and maybe having a play with making Pretzels.
Zeb Bakes 
Beautiful, Jo! I love the crumb shot with all the golden walnuts. Good on you for persisting! :)
Well, it was all my fault I messed it up the first time, so nice to see it works, the formulae in Bread are very reliable indeed! Thanks for the nice words Celia :)
That bread looks good Joanna, and glad you didn’t give up (not that I thought you would.)
I’m about to embark on my first challah this morning, maybe I should have waited until you Mellow Bakers did it…and yes to the apricot deliciousness on the side!
Don’t wait for the Mellow Bakers Brydie, if challah needs to be baked, you go for it! – you could always join in for this month and post your results over there. Even if you use a different recipe, you can still register and join in the chat. It really is very mellow, same goes for anyone else :) I’ll write up the apricot bakewell at the weekend :)
That is beautiful- I love nuts in bread and walnuts are so full of antioxidants and healthy!
I’m glad you persisted- because it looks delicious!
Heidi, I think I prefer nuts in cakes and strudel and in crumble topping but in bread is pretty good! In fact I am a bit of a nut fancier. I am eating my way through another plate of wild cobnuts I picked last week, riper this time than last. I was surprised to find them still on the trees, but no one else, even the squirrels, has noticed them. I only pick a few at a time though. The best walnut bread recipe I know is the Dan Lepard one in the HandMade Loaf. A version of it is here on the Independent’s website, and it has been written up extensively over on the Fresh Loaf.
Looks absolutely Yummy the photography is stunning!! I received Jeffrey Hamelman’s book ‘Bread’ a couple of days ago. Looking forward to trying out the recipes!
Ooh are you going to come and Mellow Bake? Fantastic! Thanks for the compliments Fran :)
Good looking rye loaf Joanna, I want to do a walnut loaf with using some wholemeal flour.
Your walnuts are lovely and even throughout the loaf!
Hi Azelia! You could easily substitute some wholemeal flour for either part or all of the rye in this recipe if you prefer the taste of wholemeal. The loaf is part strong bread flour and part rye flour anyway, not 100% rye. Natashya has written out her formula here if you want to have an idea of how the recipe goes. She makes beautiful bread !