SFBI's Finnish Rye
I assume that many of you subscribe to the SFBI digital newsletter and recently received the posting for their Finnish Rye Recipe. If you haven't, the recipe is here. I made it this weekend and it is awsome. Incredible flavor and great chewy texture. It is a little bit of a pain to work this dough but well within the skills of most of you out there.
The recipe is in professional notation. The Kilogram column is structured to produce 10 kilos of dough. Since i am, whenever it makes sense to be, a 2 kilo dutch oven baker the conversion was simple ... divide everything in the kilo column by 5 so that 10 kilos of dough becomes the standard 2 kilos. 25 minutes covered, 20 uncovered at 450F
The only change I made was one of necessity. There are two soaker grains called for in the recipe ... flax seed and cracked wheat. I was out of cracked wheat and my local store did not have any in stock. So, I substituted cracked rye. I don't know if the cracked wheat could have made the taste better since it was terrific with the cracked rye. Next time I may try wheat ... or stick with rye.
I made two one kilo loaves. What you see in the picture is one half of one loaf. I apologize for the lack of a complete loaf picture but the bread went very fast once we tasted the first loaf to see if it was edible. Terrific thick chewy crust. It was so good that (on a Sunday morning) I rushed out to the market to get some smoked salmon and cream cheese. I had some capers. It all went down very easily.
Last point is that this is a quite sticky dough so make sure that it is well floured before putting into the banneton. I used white rye flour and that worked well enough.
Paul
got my starters fed...
I saw the recipe too and am glad to see yours as a model!
Looks like an great bread. But why are the cracked wheat (or rye) and the flax seeds in two different soakers, if they soak for the same time and are added together? Doesn't make much sense to me.
Karin
So the cracked grain would not be properly soaked. So separate soakers. I just made that up, but it seems plausible
I am due for a rye bake. (In line after a batch of SJSD baguettes and a couple boules of Forkish Pain de Campagne) This looks like a winner. Thanks for posting your bake and review.
David
I'm not clear on one thing, though -- in the formula is says flour: 34.78%. What sort of flour are we talking about here? I'm assuming a strong white wheat flour, but that's not exactly a safe assumption.
I usually have KA-AP or BRM-AP in my bin. You could use a stronger bread flour here with some benefit.
Helen ... if you are doing the standard 1 kg loaf then you want a 3-3.5 quart dutch oven. Here is an example. I have purchased them for about $40 (US). If you get two then you can do both loaves of a 2kg recipe at once. BTW ... make sure that your oven's racks can take the weight. If you have an inexpensive and lightweight oven then put the DO's on the sides to as not to bow the middle of the oven rack too much.
Paul
Hi,
what is the difference between "flour" and "rye flour"?
In my imagination in a rye bread recipe "flour" will be rye.
Also you just write "flour" in the levain part and you definitely want the rye to be "sour" fermented which wouldn't work in bulk fermentation if you have 1% of fresh yeast (or .3 % of dried yeast).
Also "flour" has to be rye to have at least 50% of rye to qualify for a rye bread (in Germany it has to be 90%).
Sorry for my confusion, I'm not a native speaker.
Your bread looks good! I like flax seed.
Adrian
In most recipes in the US the simple term "flour" refers to a medium strength, all purpose wheat flour.
rye flour is listed separately to flour. (Don't worry, Adrian, maybe I can help you out.)
"flour" in the levain looks like it could be either wheat (the assumed flour) or whatever flour the levain is fed.
The recipe looks like a 25% rye, 50% WW (Whole wheat) and 25% bread flour. I would expect more clarity from the SFBI (San Francisco Baking Institute) but...
It is typical with North American recipes that Wheat forms the base and anything added to it gets into the title of the recipe. So Beware! There are no rules about titles hooked to the amount of ingredients as in Germany and Austria. Makes for lots of confusion but unlike Austria, the bakers would not be dangerously dunked into the Danube or any nearby body of water for misleading the populace.
I recon it has to do with a shortage of rye and an abundance of wheat in the USA. Perhaps at one time, only wheat was readily available so small amounts of rye were added just to improve the flavour and stretch the supply. To sell the bread and to let customers know some rye was in the bread, "rye" was added into the name/title. You will find everything is compared to all purpose "wheat standard" thus "flour" with the describing word "wheat" left out to the point that when used, may mean whole wheat flour. Whatever is put into the bread to make it different, more than just wheat, gets prominence no matter how little is involved.
Being attracted to rye, I still get confused when someone talks about a rye bread and the rye% is more an added ingredient than the base flour having little influence on the texture of the bread. So I've gotten into the habit of checking the amount and talking more about "high ryes" when the rye flour starts having more influence over the characteristics of a wheat dough.
Does that help?
Thanks a lot. As it not just had "rye" in the title but also "Finnish", I assumed it was a Finnish recipe. You cleared it up
Even though my knowledge about sourdough might be higher as this is my gateway to baking, I'm still very new to a lot of other things in baking.
The domain specific language of baking is one of those ;)
Also the bakers % seem to vary. Here the 100% is the weight of the flour added to the final dough. In German 100% is the total flour in the dough.
I already know that North America must have great wheat. Here it is just typed according to the mineral ash content. How "strong" it is I have no clue about when buying it. Labels that you have like "AP", "Bread" or similar would be great (well Italy has it too).
Also Manitoba (Canada I think, therefore also North America) is famous here for its strong wheat. People buy it here to mix with the standard wheat to bake rustic breads.
Thanks again and I hope I can ask you again when I have more problems with the terms.
Adrian
means the recipe is from Finland. Maybe someone will enlighten us. That aside... The bread does look lovely. I need to wander out of my lowly apartment and buy some flour.
I need at least two cups of coffee before I can answer the levain Q. Once the amount of levain is known (total recipe) the levain build is written as 100% to easily view the hydration. I think. (waiting on the coffee to work...)
Paul?
Sorry ... off doing my day job.
First ... I think that bread names are often like car model names ... what sounds kinda cool. However, because of its use of a sweetener, this is a scandinavian type rye bread. So I'm guessing that they just thought "Finnish" sounded cool. Or maybe someone was trying to duplicate a bread that they had from Finnish sources. I don't see this as a Domain issue.
As for the levain ... I agree. They do it separately to see the hydration level in the levain itself. I personally like that.
In another thread there was discussion of what type of "flour" was called for? This discussion is, I do apologize, a tad too meaningless for me. The percentage of "flour" is small as it is so one white flour versus another is not going to make much difference. Using a higher protein flour ~may~ develop more gluten and make the dough marginally easier to work but the result might be a ~tad~ less cake like which is one of the breads taste strengths. But, more importantly, why not question the type of whole wheat and rye which is much more prevalent in the loaf, and we don't.
Another thread talked about "souring the rye". If I were not busily following the recipe for the first time (and i promise my wife i will not tinker until I try a recipe once), I might exchange the white in the levain for rye and substitute the lost white back into the bulk dough.
My take away on the whole thing is that the recipe as offered by SFBI makes a great bread and the recipe seems flexible enough to survive minor variances in the reading of ingredients.
When it looks that good on the inside the outside has to be good! Well done.
In December 2013 I took Artisan One at SFBI. They had many flours but the one we used when the worksheets called out flour was a ConAgra Mills product called "Mello Judith." Don't have the product details, but with a little searching someone should be able to find that information.
Thanks bob. I'm trying to reproduce that.
I cannot find "Mellow Judith" on the ConAgra Mills website. (google still links to it on this term).
From what I've found on other sites it is similar in ash and protein content to the flour our local discounter has on their premium organic brand.
Judith is "enriched" and "malted".
Do you know how much it is malted? I imagine the malt is diastatic (my spell checker doesn't know this word, I mean with active enzymes). I could reproduce this with malt.
Enriched only means that some vitamins are (re-)added? Am I right to assume this doesn't affect the baking outcome regarding taste, looks, ...
Sorry to the OP for kidnapping your thread. If you want I can open a new one.
lg|Adrian
http://www.cooknaturally.com/support/specs/mellojudith.pdf
Inspirational loaf, and all of the commentary above too! My question relates to the amount of molasses. If my math is correct the bakers percentage is 15% which equates to approx. 5% of the total ingredients. Or said another way for a 1000 gram (2.2lb) loaf there is 50 grams (1.76 ounces) of molasses. That seems high to me and was wondering if anyone had more color on molasses levels on these hearty style breads?
Name aside (Finnish), Wikipedia says Swedish breads are generally sweeter and Finnish typically sour (and agree it sounds like SFBI just called it Finnish given rye).
Any thoughts on how this bread would be without molasses or perhaps cut back? Paul did you find the bread to be on the sweeter side? Did you feel the amount of molasses was correct? I know a lot of this is individual preference and the range can vary from none to lots depending and all surely wonderful.
In any event, I put this on a spread sheet and will be making it next, and like you did Paul, may use all rye on the cracked grains. I generally favor sour over sweet, so i may leave out the molasses or cut if back perhaps in half. Appreciate any commentary.. Awesome looking bread no matter!! Thanks all.
Regards,
Nick
I made this bread yesterday. I'll post to my blog on the bake, but, in response to Nick, the molasses adds a dark color, sweet note and molasses flavor. Both my wife and I feel it is a bit too prominent. The bread is delicious, and I'll make it again. Next time, I'll reduce the molasses by 50%. It might be good with a different sweetener substituted, say, a mild-flavored honey.
David
Both natural starters and rye like the effects of malt and it is milder than molasses or try a light molasses.
Paul
Thank you David, appreciate the feedback and from all you master bakers! on this page and this site!
Cheers
This bread really looks delicious, but I question the volume measurements. I do believe 0.753 kg water is pretty close to 1.661 lbs, but does not equal 1/2 cup. I just measured it and 1/2 cup water weighs approximately 4 oz. I want to make this bread, but will ignore the volumes and stay with the weights.
I do have one question. I have not worked with starters, so what is a "liquid starter"?
Dan
have to equal each other. They are just preferred measurements. Weigh being used for larger dough recipes.
Anyone using volume would be baking one or two loaves at home. Compare the measurements of volume inside the column and note the relationships. One cup of flour is equal in weight to 1/2 cup water, obviously close to 100% hydration, the same in the other columns, weight of flour = weight of water for the starter.
A liquid starter is one that pours out of the container as opposed to one that needs to be scraped out with a spatula. Often 100% hydration or more.
This recipe is similar to Dutch regale's finish rye in maggie glezer's book.
For the sake of less experienced folks who might attempt this bread, let me recommend you do the two folds with wet hands, rather than flour-on-the-hands, to prevent sticking. This is a sticky dough and you don't want to make it too dry. I found it kept absorbing the water from my hands without problem (the rye?).
Looks like the same bread I do from time to time. Did you hang it for a day or two to mature?
I always let breads with a high amount if whole wheat or rye sit a day or so to let the moisture normalize.
We hang in a bag so we dont get a soggy bottom, only a soggy heal. That didnt sound right, but you know what I mean.
My bread bags are made out of kitchen towl made of flax, works like a charm as long as you dont hit your head on the bread.
I hang my bread too, I bought some bread bags in Germany. I love them.
hi Paul, I cMe across your post today as I waa searching for a Finnish rye recipe. I would love to try the recipe you had shared, however the link is not working. Could you share the recipe again please?
this is probably it:
https://www.sfbi.com/images/Finnish_Rye.pdf
see above comments for what "flour", with no further descriptor, likely means.
Thanks very much for the document! ??
Also recommend the very similar Finnish Rye in Glezer’s artisan baking across America book. I’ve often wondered which formula came first.
The recipe link no longer exists. Could someone please supply it?
Patsy, this is the PDF you were looking for:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170617141039/http://sfbi.com/images/Finnish_Rye.pdf
Here's the same recipe already adapted (converted) to small home quantities for two 550g loaves
https://www.wildyeastblog.com/finnish-rye/
Hello, it may be to late, given the date of the post for this bread recipe, but I remain hopeful that it can be accessed vua different means, as the link is no longer active.
Any help in this regard?
Joe R
eom
Me too. Not the original links, but the Wayback Machine one. The wildyeast one also works.