Never really understood why people are so wary about baking rye or why there’s such a mystique attached to the process. A basic 100% wholemeal rye is so simple to make.
The mystique increases when it comes to rye starters which should be ancient and shrouded in secrecy.
For over 20 years I nourished a starter I got from Andrew Whitley when I did a course with him in 2000. It was supposed to have come from a Russian monastery (or bakery) and to have been over 100 years old.
The bit about nourishing it is a little exaggerated – it was frequenty neglected and going mouldy. But at least I kept it going …
One day I thought, this is stupid. I’ve been feeding it kilos of flour for months and not made any rye bread. So down the sink it went.
But then Christmas was approaching and rye was needed to go with the smoked salmon. So I took a bit of wheat starter and refreshed it with rye – went off like a rocket. Couple more refreshments made the Christmas rye bread.
By the middle of January I was back in the old routine, wasting rye flour for no purpose. So I ditched it.
Couple or three weeks later Sue said we needed rye once more for my birthday canapés.
Here we go again. Only had time for a couple of refreshments.
To make these two small loaves, about 484g apiece, I refreshed my starter at Rye 153g, Water 256g, Starter 51g and left it for 24 hours.
Final dough was Rye 383g, Water 192g, Starter 383g, Salt 10g.
Mixed the dough by hand in a large bowl – no point in kneading it because there’s little gluten to develop. Rested it for an hour. No real shaping. Divided the dough in two with wet hands. Shaped by squeezing the dough into a shape that would fit the oiled tins. Smoothed the surface.
Proved for about 3 hours. No huge rise but you can see in the photo top right it is domed and reaches the side of the tin. The surface becomes covered with tiny holes when it is proved and they become exagerated if over-proving is taking place.
The usual rule for baking rye is a very hot oven to start followed by a long cooler bake followed by a period out of the tins, in the oven, heat off, door slightly open.
I’m not used to baking rye in a deck oven so I busked it: 300C top, 250C bottom, reducing immediately the dough went in to 250/220C, 15 minutes steam, about 50 minutes total. Then 20 minutes with the oven turned off, door wide open.
Cooled and wrapped when cold to settle and mature. Won’t be cut til tomorrow (i.e. 48 hours).
The PArtisan Baker 