Seeded Rye Bread
I’m not a rye bread person, but I made this recipe after a request from a friend. I’m not one to go through an entire history of my childhood before getting to the recipe details, but I do need to tell you the following:
Rye absorbs a TON of water. The dough WILL be sticky. You will think you’ve screwed up, you’ll start to panic about a dense, gummy doorstop loaf, and you’ll start to wonder about adding more flour. I encourage you to just stick with the recipe & trust the process. I had ZERO faith in this turning out until I took the lid off for the 2nd half of the bake. Rye does create a dense bread by the nature of the grain, but it rose, looked beautiful, and tasted wonderful and wholesome.
Seeded Rye Bread Using Fresh-Milled Flour
This recipe makes 4 small loaves of deliciously fresh, seeded rye bread.
Ingredients
- 1000 grams rye & wheat berries (I used 700g rye & 300g einkorn, but you can mix it 50/50 also)
- 750 grams warm, filtered water
- 230 grams active sourdough starter
- 30 grams honey
- 20 grams salt
- 3/4 cup of seeds of your choice (I used 1/4c each of sunflower, pumpkin & hemp seeds. Other popular options are sesame & flax seeds)
Instructions
- Mill whet berries on the finest setting (0 for Mockmill)
- Mix water and fresh-milled flour until all the flour is mixed in. Cover the bowl and let rest for 1 hour.
- Add remaining ingredients except seeds and mix until well combined. I use a flexible bowl scraper to fold everything together. Cover bowl and let rest 10 minutes.
- Do 10 full minutes of stretch & folds or coil folds then cover and rest for 30 minutes. **Rye makes a notoriously sticky dough because it is a “thirsty” grain. It also forms its structure very differently than stretchy gluten this dough won’t be stretchy. You’ll be tempted to add flour or subtract water. Resist this urge & trust the messy process!)
- Do 1-2 full minute of stretch & folds or coil folds then cover & rest 30 minutes.
- Repeat step 5 three more times, BUT before the last set of stretch & folds, add the seeds & allow them to mix in during the last set.
- Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Cut the dough into 4 equal sizes. This will make 4 small loaves.
- Shape each piece of dough into a loaf or boule & place upside down into well-floured bannetons and cover. The loaves are still super sticky, so I coat my bannetons with flour mixed with flax meal to prevent sticking.
- Allow the dough to proof/rise in the bannetons until it doubles in size (this takes me 2-3 hours depending on kitchen temperature). Then place the covered bannetons with the dough into the refrigerator for 8-12 hours.
- Preheat oven to 475° with either a covered loaf pan or Dutch oven inside. You want your baking dish to be preheated.
- Turn one loaf out onto either parchment paper or bread sling. Score the top of the loaf how you want then place into the hot loaf pan or Dutch oven.
- Bake at 475° with the lid on for 18 minutes then reduce the temperature to 450° and bake with the lid off for 13 minutes.
- Remove the loaves from the baking pan immediately and cool on a wire rack. Repeat the baking process for the remaining loaves.