Recipe Challenge: Day 1 – Rye Bread

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You ever hear your mother somewhere in the back of your head saying “Read the directions carefully?”. Go ahead and shrug it off  then continue with whatever you were doing only to end up asking yourself, why oh why didn’t I read the directions carefully?

Well I had that moment today. I make bread a lot, didn’t seem like  rocket science to make some Rye Bread. Guess again! Nothing blew up, not today anyways, bread came our great, it’s just tiny. I assumed (which you should never do) that hey, loaves of bread get put into a 9x5x3 pan. Right? Wouldn’t you think that? Not so much with this recipe, it was meant to be shaped into 4 inch round loaves, or into two 8x4x2 in loaf pans which I do not have. It does make a difference to get the right size of pan.When it came out of the oven, I was baffled to the smaller loaf size.  I knew it wasn’t the yeast, I proofed it, the dough doubled for the 2 rising times even. Plus it tasted great, so it wasn’t too heavy, and it was cooked correctly, which had me finally come to the conclusion that I should start —–> Following directions more carefully. <—– Well hey now there’s a novel idea!! 🙂

Moving on with the first Day Challenge , meet the Rye Bread !

Ingredients
3 1/4 5- 3 3/4 cups flour
2 packages active dry yeast
1 tablespoon caraway seed
2 cups warm water (115-120F, test the water!)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon cooking oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups rye flour

Directions

In a medium bowl combine 2 1/2 cups of flour, the yeast and caraway seeds. In another bowl combine the water, brown sugar, oil and the salt. Mix that up before adding it into the flour mixture. Beat on low for about a half a minute or until the ingredients are mixed well. Beat another 3 minutes on high. Stir in the Rye flour with a spoon and add as much remaining all purpose flour as you can with the spoon. Turn mixture out onto floured surface. Knead in the remaining flour to make a moderately stuff dough that is stiff and elastic. About 8 minutes. Place in grease bowl, cover and let double. About 1 1/2 hours.
 Punch down and divide the dough in half. Let rest 10 minutes. Shape into two 4 1/2 inch round loaves on a greased baking sheet or two greased 8×4 loaf pans. Cover and let rise till nearly doubled. About 40 minutes. Bake at 350F for about 40-50 minutes or until slightly golden.

Smaller loaf or not, it was very good, the taste suburb. Made some great sandwiches today for lunch!

Enjoy!  Come back tomorrow for the Second Day Challenge 🙂