Observations about the universe, life, Lausanne and me

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Rye bread

They don't know how to make bread in western Switzerland. It's all fluffy baguette and croissants - nice on a Saturday morning with du café and a pretty lady in your bed, but nothing you can really subsist on - not the wonderful, heavy and dark bread we have in Austria. So, after my success with the lazy-man's loaf, I decided to make my own.

First thing you'll need is a proper sourdough, since a 100% rye-bread won't rise properly on yeast (I know, for I have tried!). For the past two weeks I have been feeding my sourdough starter - I started from scratch with viscous paste of rye flour and water. My first attempt turned bad, but the second:




A sourdough starter. Each day I would feed it a few spoonfuls of rye flour and water, which it greedily devoured.



After two weeks its rising power convinced me, so I fed it up to about half a kg, made a very wet rye dough ( the starter, about 500g more rye flour, some salt, ground coriander and water). I let it rise for three hours, shoved it into the oven, and voilà:



Rye bread! I was a bit too light on the salt, and the next one will get some cumin as well, I think, but still, it was delicious. Next batch will be up tomorrow.

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