Rich Rye Bread

I had some Rye flour that needed using up, so my hands were forced to make a type of Rye Bread this week.

I also have seeds left from a bulk purchase, so it was therefore a seeded Rye that was the order of the day.

First up was soaking the seeds, and then after a while these could be added to the heady flour mix

soaked seeds added to flour mix

I say 'heady' as this was a decadent creation: 100g of black treacle combined with the rye (80%) and strong white flour (20%) mix. Knowing my rye flour was a little old I added slightly more yeast than the recipe suggested, but kept the salt amount the same.

is it cake? or bread? indulgent bread! 

300ml of water added on top of the 'seeded water' and then kneaded for 10mins. I must say this was the stickiest dough I have ever had the pleasure to work with: bordering on cake dough I think. Very tricky to combine: at the recipe's suggestion I just left it proving on the work surface for an initial 30 minutes rather than try and put it in a bowl.

not the prettiest of dough

Always keen to experiment with shaping I went off-recipe with much of the dough: rolling it in on itself after a dusting of flour to create some form inside the loaf.

my hand shaping is getting better slowly but surely

The other third of the dough went into a loaf tin as the recipe suggested.

mid-prove

Dusted and slashed prior to baking: this is after 2 hrs proving post-shaping.

oven-ready!

The loaf tin had 40 minutes in the oven, and I let the free-form loaf have a extra 10 as it felt like it needed it when tapped.

post-oven

of all breads I think Rye has the best crust.

Post oven: rich heady yumminess! 

indulgent richly seeded Rye bread.