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Rye Bread
Prepare sponge, but using two-thirds wheat and one-third rye flour, adding a teaspoon kummel seeds. After dough has risen during night remove either to floured table or dishpan, and briskly work it for twelve or fifteen minutes. Should it be slightly soft sprinkle over a little flour until of such firm consistency that it will not stick to pan. Divide dough into four equal parts, roll in round shapes, cover and let rest for ten minutes. Then roll out to loaf or ring shape, cover with a dry cloth, set to rise for one hour in temperature of 80 degrees, transfer to baking tin and sprinkle a very little cornmeal flour, over top of each. Make a few rapid incisions on top at equal distance from one another, then with a hair pastry brush lightly wet surface of each with water, set in oven to bake for an hour or until well baked all around, being careful not to open the oven door before the lapse of twenty minutes. Remove from oven, lightly glaze surface again with water and reset in oven to dry for five minutes, take out and serve.
A straightforward overnight-sponge rye that assumes you already have the book's basic bread sponge underway. Two things carry the recipe: the flour ratio, which keeps the dough workable, and the water washes, which stand in for a steam-injected oven.
- Start from the spongeThe recipe is a variation, not a standalone formula: quantities come from the book's basic bread sponge with one-third of the wheat flour replaced by rye, and with water, yeast and salt as in the base recipe. No weights are given here.
- Kummel seeds are carawayKummel (German Kümmel) is caraway seed, not cumin, despite the resemblance in the names. One teaspoon for four loaves is restrained; 1 to 2 tablespoons is closer to modern deli rye.
- Why only one-third ryeRye has little gluten-forming protein and plenty of pentosans, so a higher proportion gives a slack, sticky dough that will not hold a slash. At one-third it kneads and shapes almost like wheat dough, which is why the instruction to work it briskly for twelve to fifteen minutes is realistic here.
- Give the oven a numberNo temperature is stated. Bake at 425F for the first fifteen to twenty minutes, then drop to 375-400F for the remainder. A full hour suits loaves of this size; smaller rings will be done in 35-45 minutes.
- The closed door is doing real workNot opening the oven for twenty minutes preserves the moisture that keeps the crust soft while the loaf springs. A pan of boiling water on the oven floor for those first minutes does the same job more reliably.
- 80 degrees means FahrenheitA proofing temperature of 80F is warm room temperature, not an oven setting. An oven with only the light on, or a turned-off oven with a bowl of hot water, gets you there.
- "Cornmeal flour" and the hair brushThis means finely ground cornmeal, sprinkled to keep the loaf from sticking and to give a dry, matte top. A hair pastry brush is a soft natural-bristle brush; any soft pastry brush works, applied lightly so the water does not pool in the slashes.
- Judging donenessRye holds moisture and can look finished while the crumb is still gummy. An internal temperature of 200-205F is the reliable test, and the final five-minute drying in the oven after the second water wash sets the shine.
- Yield and servingFour loaves or rings. Ignore the instruction to serve straight from the oven: rye crumb needs several hours, ideally overnight, for the starches to set, or it will slice into paste.
Rye bread reached American cookbooks by two routes, and this one carries the marks of both: the caraway and the ring shape point to Central and Eastern Europe, where rye was the everyday grain because it tolerated poor soil and cold better than wheat, while the two-thirds wheat flour is a New World concession to bakers and eaters used to a lighter loaf. The International Cook Book, which appeared in 1906, was compiled by Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York as steward and manager as much as chef. The caraway is spelled kummel, the German form, and the same seed gives its name to the kümmel liqueur; the pairing of caraway with rye is old enough in German and Jewish baking that the two are often treated as inseparable, though it is a matter of custom rather than of any technical necessity in the dough.