This danish bread contains only whole rye, salt and water (and sour dough). Mostly, danish bread have broken rye grains in it too. But I like to keep things soft (for the sake of my fillings), so this recipe doesn't do that. Another feature is that my recipe cuts down on the amount of work and baking time.
Making the bread is done in two phases: I start in the evening mixing the ingredients, and the next morning the loafs go into the oven.
The bread should be completely cooled down before it is ready for consumption.
To keep rye bread fresh, you put it in a frost plastic bag in your fridge. I make 2 loafs and minimally every second week. The bread keeps at least that long.
Over time I have varied the amounts and raw materials and they all needed adjustments to the amount of water and/or time in the oven. The table below gives an overview:
| What | Rye (kg) | Water (ml) | Salt (tablespoons) | Baking time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Self milled rye/1 loaf | 1.2 | 900 | 3 | 90min / 175°C |
| Self milled rye/2 loaf | 2.5 | 1900 | 6 | 100min / 175°C |
| Self milled rye/2 loaf | 2 | 1600 | 5 | 100min / 175°C |
| Bought rye/2 loaf | 2 | 1700 | 6 | 100min / 175°C |
Making rye bread is deceptively easy; there is even no kneading involved. But reproducing good results isn't obvious. A well made rye bread should have a firm but spongy inside, but often when something is not just quite right the result is a clay-like mass. I believe the main reason why making rye bread is rather tricky, is the heaviness of the dough, as there is a lot of water involved, but when mixing up the ingredients and in the end result. When the result is (partially) clay then it might be to much water; an over that is not warm enough or the bread did not rise well overnight (did it sit at a warm place?).
Depending how strong your oven is, the bread might need to go longer or shorter. I have begun to put a thermometer in, I will soon try come up with a graph of the breads core temperature:
TODO
Sour dough
I keep 500gr sour dough in a Tupperware in the cellar. There is no need to put it in fridge. It can keep many weeks before it needs to be fed. Feeding is done by giving it a little flour, salt and water (I have never needed to feed it yet so I am not sure about amounts).
I have heard that sour dough should be best/fully recovered after a week, but I have been using it quicker and slower without noticing any ill effects.
To make sour dough you'll have to look elsewhere. I did it so long ago that I cannot describe it well. What I do remember was that it wasn't hard as it sounded...
Day 1: Mixing up the ingredients
The resulting dough is quite wet, that is why you do not knead it like wheat bread. It makes no sense to use anything else than a sturdy wooden spoon to mix up the ingredients. If you want to make two loafs, you'll probably want to do it in two batches as stirring the dough will be hard work.
I use a plastic bucket, I add the salt and the lukewarm water, and dissolve the sour dough in it. Then I gradually add the rye flower. After things are well mixed up I put the dough in the baking form.
The most difficult part of making rye bread is knowing how wet the resulting dough should be, and you might need some experimenting to get it right. The dough should be solid but wet to touch.If you resulting bread is clay inside, then you better cut down on the water I guess.
Important! Take the same amount of sour dough 0.5kg again away for the next time!
My baking forms have straight edges and silicon coating on it. The coating is quite fragile and at places has chipped off, but without problems at the moment. I like the vertical side formed breads, they look good.
Cover the forms with a wet cloth; In fact I clean the plastic bucket up, fill lukewarm water in, put the backing forms in and cover the bucket with a wet kitchen towel, and the put it all at a warm spot the night over.
Day 2: Baking the loafs
Day 2 has two phases; phase one is the simple baking and the second phase is drying the bread in the still warm oven.
The baking phase: heat the oven to 175degrees Celsius and put the bread in for the time given in the table above. After that, take the breads out of the oven, turn of the heat but keep the oven lid closed so the oven keeps warm.
The drying process: take the bread out of the form and wet the outside of the bread using a brush, painting a mixture of water/potato flour all over the bread. After you have done that, put the bread again in still warm oven for about 45minutes. The bread should not be in any baking form, just put it on the grills.
Take them out of the oven and let the bread cool completely down. After that put them in a plastic bag in the fridge. That is the best way to keep the bread fresh.
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