Home › Bread and Cakes › Rye Bread
Rye Bread
Dissolve into a quarter-cup of lukewarm milk a half cake of yeast. Add a pint of luke-warm water after pouring it into a wooden bowl. Also, a teaspoonful each of caraway seeds (this may be omitted if you do not like them), salt, and a pint of rye flour. Stir thoroughly, and set it to rise in a warm place for about two hours. It will be full of bubbles when it has risen enough. Sufficient flour must then be added to make a stiff dough. Beat for ten minutes and set to rise for another two hours. Knead well on a floured board, put it back into the pan, and set to rise until it cracks. Wet the loaf with cold water slightly and place it in the oven. Bake one hour. Keep the oven closed for ten minutes after it is put in. The oven should be very hot at first. When browned, cover with heavy paper.
A long-rise rye worked in three stages, with the flour quantity left to the baker's judgement. The instructions are sound; only the yeast, the oven language and the vague second flour addition need translating.
- The yeastCompressed yeast cakes of the sort sold for home baking ran anywhere from about 0.6 oz to 2 oz, so "half a cake" is imprecise; a working substitute is roughly 1 teaspoon of active dry or instant yeast. With two two-hour rises plus a third, a small amount suits the long schedule and need not be increased.
- "A pint of rye flour"Flour here is measured by volume, not weight: a pint is 2 cups, roughly 7 oz of rye. The pint of water plus quarter-cup of milk makes this first stage a loose sponge, which is why it goes bubbly rather than stiff.
- The undefined second flour"Sufficient flour to make a stiff dough" is unspecified, but wheat flour is the likely intention, and it will probably take several cups. Rye on its own forms a poor gluten network, and the wheat is what makes the dough beatable and kneadable.
- Beating before kneadingThe ten minutes of beating develops gluten in a dough still slack enough to stir, in place of a mixer. A stand mixer with the dough hook on medium-low for 6 to 8 minutes does the same work.
- "Rise until it cracks"This is the signal for the final proof: the surface skin splits as the dough overtakes it. In a covered bowl the skin will not form, so leave the pan uncovered or lightly floured for that last rise.
- Oven temperature"Very hot at first" corresponds to roughly 450F in modern terms. Hold that for the first ten minutes with the door shut, as the recipe directs, then drop to about 375F for the remainder; a full hour at the higher heat would darken the crust well before the centre set.
- The paperCovering with heavy paper once browned is the period equivalent of tenting with foil, and it is worth doing rather than skipping. Rye crusts darken fast because of the sugars in the flour.
- Yield and donenessThe recipe makes a single loaf, on the order of 2 lb, though neither shape nor pan size is specified. An internal temperature of about 200 to 205F indicates doneness, and rye is generally better left to cool thoroughly before cutting, or the crumb will smear.