Category Archives: Bread

Rye Bread Part 2 and a little Gravad Lax

Why Part 2?  Because we had to wait twenty four hours to cut the rye. This wait, hard to bear, is always recommended for high density ryebreads to allow the crumb to stabilise and settle. Visit Mellow Bakers July Breads here if you want to see how my fellow bakers got on with this one!

I am the first to say, that looks like a bit of a heavy bread,  but it surprised me and was indeed smooth and noticeably sweeter and lighter to eat than it looks.  I liked it better than the 70 % rye I made earlier in the month as far as eating went.

Banneton proved 80% rye bread

It had a nice sponginess to the texture which I put down to the soaker.  I should maybe have given the bread another 10 – 15  minutes in the oven and then the base would maybe have been a little less sticky plus a little less time on the final prove but it survived my lacksadaisical handling nevertheless. Rye is very fragile once risen, as it doesn’t have the resilient gluten network of a wheat based loaf to hold the little gas bubbles. It  collapses quite readily and doesn’t do oven spring, so you want to have it ‘just so’ when it goes in the oven.  This one hung around a bit too long, queing up for the oven and we were eating lunch!   Again these breads often do better baked in a tin or a wooden bread frame as they do in Germany.

The secret to making rye breads like these is definitely pre-fermenting most of the rye flour; I certainly can’t achieve a good flavour and texture in a high percentage rye bread without using sourdough.  It’s up to the individual whether or not to spike the bread with a little yeast, I did in this case, as I was following the formula in the book but I am not sure it was of benefit in the end and I think if I make this one again, I will leave out the yeast altogether, bake the bread in a tin, bake it for longer and maybe even hold off cutting it for a bit longer too.  Edit:  I baked it again with different flours in a Pullman.

Moving on though, here is the Gravad Lax recipe for my friend Gill the Painter who visited and trialled her new bread recipe this week and for anyone else who wants to know the traditional way of making this Swedish fish dish.

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80% Rye Bread with a Rye Flour Soaker Part 1

Last of the ryes for me this month!

This Jeffrey Hamelman rye bread was made with Bacheldre organic stone ground rye, a much coarser sort of rye than the usual Shipton Mill one I use.  This bread is made with a rye flour soaker and a rye sourdough.

A rye flour soaker?  A soaker is when you pre-soak one of the ingredients of your bread; could be linseeds, could be whole grains, could be an old crust of a nice loaf. In this bread the soaker is a quantity of rye flour, covered in boiling water and mixed up and left overnight.  The boiling water gelatinizes the flour and it has a remarkable effect on the final bread.  It’s no more trouble than making the sourdough the night before and it changes the character of the bread noticeably giving a smooth, sweeter quality to the crumb. I think they must do this a lot in German rye breads as that is what this sort of rye reminds me of.

In Part 2: The crumb shot and my mother’s recipe for Gravad Lax

Dan Lepard’s Semolina Barbecue Buns

Hot from the oven

Made these wonderful rectangular semolina buns and a batch of Dan Lepard’s legendary soft white baps today for our back lane BBQ! (Click on the links for the recipes)

Was a bit flummoxed about getting the softish dough onto the tray, but realised that the best thing was to roll the dough out on to the paper to start with, then pick the paper up together with the dough and plop it on the tray.  I also made a bit of a mess of marking and scoring the bread but it mattered not a bit.  Every last one was eaten and enjoyed by all accounts!

Soft white baps and semolina buns on the way to the party..

We had some very fine Italian spicy sausages full of fennel seeds and chile with ours.

If you don’t know it, Dan Lepard writes a great baking column each week in the Guardian newspaper, usually with ingredients that are easily available and fairly straightforward techniques for the home baker to follow.

Edit:

Celia has made these and partnered them with some fabulous burgers in chilly Sydney. Have a look here! And here are Di’s, which look very professional indeed. And Ulrike’s very smart buns. And C has made a loaf of it here, which I think is a smart move which would give you that lovely bread without all the hassle of shaping it into buns!  I think Dan has created another winner here!

They seem really popular with kids, here are Christine’s, look at that scoring!  and here are Heidiannie‘s too being enjoyed by her family and every time I see them I feel hungry all over again and think about making another batch…. oh look I did… Click here!