Simple rye and wheat loaf

For the last two weeks I have had a single minded obsession with finding a simple, yeast leavened rye bread recipe. I’ve been repeatedly making loaves using different recipes, methods, cooking times, shapes and sizes, and none have been really great. I made a couple which worked out quite well, but trying to shape them free form meant that during proving they went really flat so the slices ended up looking more like biscotti than bread (actually the texture was not that far off either). Then I made one that had a nice round shape, but I think that I could actually have used it as effective ammunition for heavy artillery.

I really love rye bread. I love its dense heavy texture and earthy flavour, pair it with some smoked cheddar… heavenly. The flavour and heaviness are not for everyone though. I’m the only one in our house who likes it, though I think our one year old is undecided. The other day our three year old, who is a complete bread fiend like the rest of us, tried a piece and announced in a very definitive tone that it did NOT taste very good. Well, more for me I guess.

Apart from the wonderful flavour and texture, rye is an excellent healthy choice if you’re looking for a change from wheat bread. With its abundance of fiber, and its low glycemic load make it ideal for regulating blood sugar levels, promoting heart health, and giving you a slow release source of energy.

Normally when I make rye bread I go for sourdough. I started dabbling in rye sourdough when my Mum was coming to stay last summer from Canada. She’s allergic to wheat and yeast, so sourdough rye bread is a necessity for her. Growing up I loved to eat bits of her bread. She describes it as a brick, which it kind of is, but I find that dense texture really satisfying and substantial, and it always keeps me going for much longer than wheat bread. So I did some research and made a 100% rye loaf which contained only rye, water and salt. It’s delicious with the earthiness of rye and the sourness of sourdough.

The only draw back is that, as with any sourdough, it takes forethought and planning, so is not something that you can just rustle up spur of the moment unless you’ve already got a starter on the go. The other thing is that 100% rye sourdough starters, as I soon learned, are temperamental but that’s a story for another time.

With my mission to find a yeast leavened version seeing me search through all of my cook books which might mention bread (actually you’d be hard pressed to find one in my house that doesn’t mention bread) and across the broad plains of baking websites, I finally found this one at Virtuous Bread, a website that I hadn’t heard of before, but will certainly be following now. Their goal is to effect positive social change through baking! I love it! Their website is filled with tips and information too, and they even offer courses! Anyway, the recipe was simple, just rye flour, yeast, water and salt, and the process involved a tin baked loaf only risen a single time.

As I’d baked quite a lot of rye “bread” in the last little while, I was running very low on rye flour. This lack of rye flour spurred my first alteration in the recipe. I decided to use 3/4 rye flour and 1/4 whole wheat. I also added more yeast in an attempt to lighten the loaf a bit. I ended up more or less just throwing everything in together and giving it a really good mix before putting it into the tin to rise. The whole single rise situation went completely against my bakerly instincts as I think you get set in a “right way” of doing things, but I decided to try it out and see what would happen. It turns out that this single rise was the key. While rye bread does not have the rise of wheat, the resulting loaf was relatively light in texture, moist and really delicious. It even got the approval of the three year old bread critic who came back for seconds. A success at last, and right as we ran out of rye flour too!

I will definitely keep this lovely loaf as my go to for a quick to make rye loaf.

Simple rye and wheat loaf

2015-08-18 08:14:09

An easy to make simple and quick yeast leavened rye and wheat loaf. Delicious, hearty and healthy.

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Ingredients

1. 200g whole rye flour
2. 100g whole wheat flour
3. 7g packet of instant yeast
4. 1 tsp salt
5. 250mL of water at room temperature

Instructions

1. Measure out both flours into a large bowl and stir them together until they’re well combined.
2. Add the yeast to one side of the bowl and the salt to the other, being sure not to allow them to come in direct contact with one another.
3. Pour in the water and stir very well for a few minutes making sure that everything is well combined and giving the gluten a bit of a chance to build up. The dough will be a lot stickier than a normal bread dough.
4. Tip the dough into a lightly greased loaf tin. Even it out and smooth the surface with damp fingers or the back of a damp spoon. Cover tightly with cling film and leave to rise in the tin for an hour or two. Small holes should form in the surface and the dough should have risen a bit to fill nearly up to the top of the tin.
5. Meanwhile pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
6. When the loaf is risen, remove the cling film, sprinkle the top of the loaf with some flour or seeds and place it in the oven.
7. Allow the loaf to bake for 25-35 minutes until it’s golden brown on the surface, and sounds hollow when you tap the bottom. You may want to remove it from the tin and bake it straight on the oven rack for the last 5-10 minutes to crisp up the bottom.

Roots & Wren https://rootsandwren.com/