Rye Bread

Haven’t posted anything for a good while about breadmaking, as I haven’t been doing anything exciting. I lost my sourdough starter, and although I know I can get some back from others I gave it to (or start a new sourdough), I haven’t been in a hurry to do so. Sourdough is fun to play with, but keeping it going all the time just for me is overkill.

For the last few months, I haven’t had time for hand-baking, so have been making good use of my breadmaker – which despite some naysayers, makes a very decent loaf of bread.

A few days ago, I came across a bag of rye flour that has sat in my cupboard for too long, so I decided to use some of it up. I followed a recipe in the book that came with the breadmaker, and was absolutely delighted with it – I have been nibbling on it ever since. So I have just put on another loaf – after that, I have enough rye flour for one more loaf, so I might have to go out and by some more.

The recipe is very simple – use white or wholewheat flour, as for a standard loaf, but substitute rye flour for about 1/3 of the flour. So for a large loaf, use 500g bread flour and 250g rye flour. Then, instead of sugar, use black treacle (or molasses), increasing the quantity by 50% (so for a large loaf, using 3 tablespoons of black treacle, rather than 2 tablespoons of sugar).

The recipe also called for caraway seeds, which I didn’t have, but I did have a packet of pine nuts, so I used half of that. Will definitely do that again – they go soft and nutty tasting during the baking, and form an attractive fleck in the loaf texture.

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