Dark mildly sweet Rye bread, old recipe!
Hello! All! My name is Jennifer! My grandmother's recipe brought me here today. I have made this several times and it always turns out "ok." No one else has taken over the baking of this beloved bread so my so-so version has been going on for many years now. It has wonderful flavor, but always turns out a little dry. So we slice it, toast it, and with butter it's delicious!!! It's wonderfully chewy and moist and sweet. The aroma is incredible. But I remember when grandma made it we could eat plain slices and make sandwiches and not be forced into toasting it. The thing is, the recipe doesn't say how much flour! Just "add flour until you have a stiff dough" and then "add flour if it's too sticky.
I've been using the KitchenAid mixer with dough hook and I think I'm going to need to knead - by hand, to get this right. It's sooooo sticky and then I add maybe too much flour? And also I let it cool completely without any towel- and often I make this at night and leave it until morning so maybe it dries out too much... it's very dry here in California desert winter with the heater on!
I'd love to hear any and all tips on working with this kind of recipe. And it's amazing satisfying slightly dense bread that is so versatile. Delicious toasted with coffee, and also the slight sweetness is amazing with savory sandwiches. It's as follows:
Rye Bread AKA Grandma Bread (3 loaves)
2 cups rye flour
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup molasses
3 tsp salt
1 heaping teaspoon Anise seed
2 envelopes dry yeast
4 cups boiling water
1) Measure rye flour, shortening into a large bowl. Mix well with a large spoon.
2) Add 4 cups boiling water, stirring while adding water.
3) Add salt, sugar, molasses, anise seed, and stir. Let cool to warm (room temp).
4) Add yeast, which has been dissolved in warm water. Mix well.
5) Stir in white flour - mix well to make a stiff dough.
6) Turn out on floured surface. Knead 5-10 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic, adding enough flour to keep dough from sticking.
7) Place in greased large bowl. Let rise in warm place until double in size. Form into three loaves and let rise until double in size. Bake at 350 for 1 hour.
All rye bread doughs are sticky and make you think you need to add more flour. I'm going to copy your recipe and try to reduce the rye and add some white flour. Also, what does shortening mean????
I think she means this: https://www.thespruce.com/what-is-shortening-1328458
that site is down. Shortening always meant to me, lard, which probably was the shortening used in farm houses or homes generations ago. Today, I would use butter. Have you ever heard of 100% rye flour in a recipe?
Odd.. the site works on my computer.. regardless, yes, it's solid fat used in baking.. I'm not a frequent rye baker other than adding some rye flour to loaves - so no, I don't know how a 100% rye bake would go.. below our comments dabrownman posted a good thought on this bake.. post your pictures if you give this a go!
so much sugar and molasses. Not a bad thing at all if you aren't a diabetic like ne:-( You have to keep old traditions going! You can try not baking it so long , or at a lower temperature, but with that much sugar ,which soaks up water, you probably need to add less white flour and all will be well. Well done and happy baking
I didn't see any white flour in the recipe
.. at point 5..
Now I get it....there is no set amount....it's to texture of the dough.
If you are making 3 nice-sized loaves and using 4 cups of water, you must be using a lot of white flour (6-8 cups??). This is a big recipe!
Rye and boiling water can make the dough very sticky and no amount of flour will counteract that-it is just the nature of rye. I would add a lot less flour than you have been adding but it is difficult to advise how much less if I don't know how much you added in the first place. So let's convert this recipe to weights and try to reverse engineer. I will be making some assumptions about many things!.
Nana’s Sweet Rye
INGREDIENT
VOLUME MEASURE
METRIC
Grams per unit
Baker’s Percentage
Rye flour
2cups
210g
105g/cup
15.5%
AP flour
9 ½ cups
1144g
120g/cup
84.5%
Water
4 cups
948g
237g/cup
70%
Salt
3 tsp
15g
5g/tsp
1.1%
Molasses
1 cup
340g
340g/cup
25%
Shortening
½ cup
92g
92g/.5 cup
6.7%
70% hydration loaf:
948g water is 70% of total flour
Rye flour 210g(2 cups) + White flour 1144g(9 ½ cups)= 1354g total flour weight
*****************************************************************
So it looks like you need to add 9 1/2 cups (1144g) white flour for a 70% hydration loaf. How does this sound in comparison to what you do when you make this loaf? Do you have any idea how much flour you have been adding in the past?
I am not a great expert at Baker's Percentage so anyone reading, please feel free to correct or comment. I did not include the brown sugar or molasses in the water/liquid portion of the equation-should I have? I'm not sure I agree with the conversion of 1 cup AP flour weighing 120g. It is heavier in my kitchen but I needed to start somewhere. I used the King Arthur Flour conversion list on their website.
Time for some experimentation!
My question was "how much flour" but I see that it has been answered
I hope my answer was helpful and not overwhelming. I included a lot of info because I wanted to show my logic stream so others could follow and critique. I'm not sure my conclusion was accurate- it seems an awful lot of flour. But then it is for 3 loaves.
Ask more questions! Before this forum, I had never heard of baker's percentage!
The brown sugar will act like a liquid. Was it intentional to leave it out of the conversions? It is a lot of sugar but it might be the ingredient that makes it more cake like. ...and it is three loaves.
The scald should make the rye behave itself and be less sticky. This recipe sounds familiar, perhaps using milk instead of water (add 10% more) will give a softer, moister crumb. Worth a try.
Mini