Eddie's Mixed Rye Bread Recipe

Recipe for Eddie's Mixed Rye Bread made from sourdough.

It's very simple:

• you'll only need flour, water and salt,
• it doesn't require yeast or kneading,
• you'll get a bread that's tasty and healthy and stays fresh for up to a week,
• the whole process takes only about 2x 10min of actual work.

Prerequisites

Ingredients

You'll need:

• 300g whole grain rye flour
• 175g whole grain wheat flour
• 1 tsp salt (5-7g)
• 100g sourdough starter (see below on how to make one)

Add grains at will, I add:

• 25g pumpkin seeds
• 50g sunflower seeds
• 25g flaxseed, crushed

Tools

• oven
• bowl
• cake mould

1. Preparing the dough

The dough needs to be prepared 6-12h before baking (I usually do this right before I go to bed):

1. Put all ingredients in a bowl, mix roughly.
2. Add 475ml of water, stir with a spoon, by hand or with a mixer (e.g. with a spiral cable)
3. Add 100g sourdough, mix and stir well until a uniform sticky dough is formed. Make sure that there are no flour residues at the bottom of the bowl.
4. Smooth the surface with a spoon.
5. Cover with a kitchen towel and let it go sour in a warm place (> 20°C) for 6-12h - the longer you wait, the more sour the bread becomes. You can wait up to 24 hours or even longer!

2. Saving some sourdough for the next time

After the dough has become sour and has increased significantly in volume:

1. Remove 75g of dough, preferably from the surface.
2. Add 25ml of cold water, stir well.
3. Chill in the fridge for the next time.

That.s your reborn Hermann! Sourdough can be kept in the fridge for 1 week without problems if not fed. If you need to keep it longer, add 1-2 tablespoons of flour and 1-2 tablespoons every few days to keep it alive for longer.

3. Baking the bread

1. Preheat the oven to 220°C.
2. Prepare a cake mould. If it's not made from silicone, and doesn't have non-stick coating, put baking paper inside, such that it covers the floor of the cake mould and all sides.
3. Pour half the dough (~1kg) carefully into the mould, smooth the surface with a bread knife and sprinkle with flour such that the dough is barely visible beneath.
4. Place the mould in the oven onto an oven grate or tray together with an ovenproof dish filled with water (100ml) and bake for 35-40 minutes with the fan on. Generally you bake bread with steam, so if you don't have an ovenproof dish, you can place an additional oven tray with some water beneath the cake mould (which I prefer to to).
5. Take the bread out of the oven and take it out of the cake mould.
6. Let it can cool down for about an hour, preferably by placing the bread onto an oven grate so the air can freely flow around the loaf and it doesn't get soggy on the bottom,
7. Freshly baked from the oven, the bread is still too soft and moist to be cut (at most a slice at the very edge), so let it cool for at least 1 hour before cutting slices.

Ovens differ a lot. Your oven might not have a fan. It might take longer in your oven to get a decent crust. You might need to place the tray lower in the oven or bake at a lower temperature (e.g. 210°C) for a longer time (50min). You should watch your bread from min. 35 if you're baking for the first time, so the crust doesn't get too dark. But in the end it's a matter of personal taste and preference, so feel free to experiment, with different temperatures and times.

4. Variants

There a several variations step no. 3.3 that will greatly determine how the crust looks and tastes like.

1. Cover the floor of the cake mould with sunflower or pumpkin seeds, before pouring the dough to get a nice seedy bread floor.
2. Carefully smooth the surface of the dough with wet hands to get a super smooth surface and don't sprinkle with flour.
3. Use a sharp knife to cut a line or a zigzag pattern into the surface of the bread (make sure to cut at least 1cm) right before placing the pan into the oven, thereby creating a predetermined breaking point for the crust.

5. Tips

• The bread is said to be best if it is left to rest for at least one day after baking. But who wants to wait that long? 😂
• The sourdough can be relearned for other flour mixtures by gradually increasing (e.g. first 15%, then 30%, 60%, 80%, 100%) the proportion of the other type of flour for each new bread dough, e.g. Dinkel / Wheat / Rye, until you have the desired mixture, or a "pure" Dinkel / Wheat / Rye sourdough.
• The bowl where the dough was can be a pain to clean. Let it dry out completely (this takes around 24 hours) and then the dry sourdough flakes will come off by themselves. This dried sourdough can serve as a backup in case you lose your sourdough, or need to transport it. You can then store them dry place without cooling and revive your Hermann by mixing the flakes with flour and water again.
• If you forgot to save some sourdough when baking your bread, usually the residues in the bowl are enough to revive your sourdough! Put some water into the bowl to collect the residues from the dough and then mix the "rinsing water" with some fresh flour. That's it!

How to make the sourdough starter yourself

You don't need much to make your own Hermann!

Ingredients:

• 80g flour (e.g. whole wheat flour or rye flour, a mix of different flours, whatever you like 🙂)
• 120ml water

Day 1

1. Mix flour and water in a small bowl or a glass.
2. Place the bowl with thr liquid dough in a warm place (20-25°C), leave uncovered.
3. Stir every few hours (e.g. every 6-8 hours), you might need to add a few drops of water if dough becomes too dry.

Day 2

After about 24 hours the dough should already taste a bit sour, and you might even notice some bubbles.

1. Add another 50g flour and 50ml water to the dough and stir well again.
2. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and let it rest again.
3. Stir every 6 to 8 hours.

Day 3

After another 24 hours the dough should have a strong sour taste. Now you can bake this sourdough into bread, e.g. Eddie's Mixed Rye Bread 😉 And don't forget to leave some sourdough for the next time.

Things to keep in mind

• Without dried sourdough the described process may not work on the first try, and the dough may become moldy or get a strange color. If this happens, don't give up! Throw the dough away and simply try again.
• Make sure the place where the dough develops isn't too cold. Around 20°C is optimal.
• The fresh sourdough starter is usually quite weak and the first bread dough might take longer to get sour (e.g. 24 hours), however this time might be reduced to a quarter if you get a stable sourdough from somebody else.
• Sourdough can have a fruity, yeasty, sometimes slightly spirituous/vinegar odour, which generally greatly depends on the quality of the flour you use. The taste is sour and the color can vary a lot as well. If it's not feeded regularly with fresh flour, it will go bad eventually, develop a bad smell and become mouldy. That's why it always comes in handy to share your sourdough with friends and keep some dried sourdough flakes as a backup.

Oh and don’t forget to share your Hermann with others!

Double your Hermann by adding 80g of flour and 100ml of water, stir well, and after leaving it in the fridge for one day you;ll have one Hermann to share!