Levy's Real Jewish Rye
I had occasion to try several new things last weekend: Rose Levy Berenbaum's recipe for "Levy's" Real Jewish Rye Bread, one of my recently acquired bannetons from SFBI, and the Pampered Chef equivalent of a La Cloche (which has been sitting around unused for years). This also marked the second time that I have made bread on the new soapstone countertops that were recently installed.
The recipe comes from RLB's "The Bread Bible". The bread contains 3.3 oz of rye flour, vs. 8.5 oz of bread flour, so it is scarcely any more sticky than a wheat dough would be. And with 2 tablespoons of caraway seeds, rye isn't the dominant flavor. The bread begins with a yeasted sponge, which is allowed to ferment 1-4 hours. It eventually bubbles through a flour layer that is placed on top of the sponge:
Once the sponge has fermented, the flour mixture, oil and salt are stirred in. The dough is then kneaded and left to ferment under an overturned bowl for a 20-minute rest:
After the dough has rested, it is kneaded again and then allowed to rise until it is doubled. At that point, it is given a letter fold, then returned to the bowl until it doubles again. After the second rise, the dough is flattened slightly and then shaped into a ball and allowed to rise until it has doubled. Ms. Levy recommends that the final rise after shaping occur in a covered bowl. I opted to use a fabric-lined banneton, dusted with rice flour, covering the exposed surface with plastic wrap to keep it from drying.
Ms. Levy suggests baking either on a baking sheet with steam, or in a cloche. In both cases, she recommends having a baking stone in the oven as it preheats, then setting either the baking sheet or the (also preheated) cloche on the baking stone. It seemed like overkill, but I followed the instructions as given, using the cloche. The risen loaf was tipped out onto parchment paper, slashed, then placed in the cloche and covered. I'll need to practice the technique a bit. I was a bit gun-shy about burning myself on either the cloche base or its lid, so I wasn't as gentle with placing the loaf as I should have been. It deflated slightly but recovered most of the loss with oven spring.
Based on the directions, I pulled the cover from the cloche about 10 minutes before the estimated completion of the baking time, expecting that it would finish browning during those last few minutes. Instead, I saw that the loaf was already well-browned. So, I stuck a thermometer in it, which quickly registered 210F. At that point I declared it done and placed it on the rack to cool. Here's how it looked:
And a shot of the crumb, taken the next morning:
More of the color comes from the malt syrup in the recipe than from the whole rye flour that I used. The crumb is firm and moist, the crust thin and chewy. It makes a mean ham and Swiss sandwich. While I like caraway in a rye bread, the amount in this bread is more than I would use for my tastes. Next time I make it, I will either cut back on the caraway, or substitute fennel or dill, which will be more to my liking.
Thank you, RLB. This is good stuff!
Paul
Comments
Fantastic bloom, Paul.
David
I made that recipe every week for a year and I do have one complaint: her use of quotation marks around the word real. The recipe/bread matches all three of the descriptive words in the title so it is real, not "real".
Other seeds you might want to try include celery, poppy, and cumin. Be careful with the cumin; I got started using it when I mistook it for caraway and put 1-1/2 tbs in the dough. That was a bit much! But 1 tsp gives a nice bite with or without the caraway.
sPh
Wow! Looks fantastic. For an everyday bread you can just skip the seeds altogether!
Jane
Your loaf is beautiful.
Howard - St. Augustine, FL
for your kind comments.
Paul
I have come across this recipe online a couple of times when looking for rye recipes and was curious about the bubbling sponge technique. Then I found here that you had also baked it, Paul, and was wondering what your experience of it was. It seems like a poolish/biga hybrid (pre?)ferment. It has a very nice 'neatness' to it. Here are the questions I was left with after reading your post:
Might give it a try this week if I find some time.
1. Yes, I have used this technique with other bakes. It's a process with a long history, so I see it from time to time, particularly in older recipes.
2. It more closely compares to a poolish or a liquid levain than it does to a biga, in terms of texture. While bigas and poolishes are often employed as flavor enhancers or dough conditioners, the sponge seems to have originated as a money-saving method for reducing yeast purchases. It does have flavor enhancing effects, too, while also providing an easy-to-recognize indicator that it is ready for the next step.
3. Yes, I think it can be used with sourdough, although fermentation will probably be slower.
4. The bread in this post was made with whole-grain rye flour. I liked it.
Paul
I took the plunge last night and went for it. Definitely slower with the SD. Waiting for it to bubble-up over the dry flour. Not expecting it to do so for at least a few more hours going by SD poolsh and biga experience. Very curious to see what transpires. Will report back.
So, I gave this bread and technique a try last week and it was very interesting. I really liked the neatness and low maintenance of the fermentation technique. It was very relaxing to mix the liquid part of the levain and then just cover with the remainder of the dry ingredients and just let it do its thing while I am at work.
I have to admit to a certain amazement when the bubbles start to break through and gradually envelop the 'topping'!
As expected, it took quite a lot longer with the SD starter. I added 20g of 100% hydration liquid SD stater straight from the fridge and used as I would for a poolish in the past.
I kicked-off the whole process just before going to bed at midnight on Thursday and by the morning, while no bubbles had emerged, quite a lot more of the dry ingredients had been absorbed and the top layer had become quite a lot thinner. Once I got back from work around 5pm Friday, the bubbles had broken through and were swallowing up the last of the dry ingredients. So, I added the oil and mixed up and then gave it a few S&Fs and 3 letter folds.
It was pretty active and I managed to proof and bake before going to bed, so from first mix to final loaf, it was about 24h in total. I reduced the caraway slightly from the original recipe according to comments (10g) for 400g of flour, but think I could have allowed for a bit more.
I also went with a 70% final loaf hydration I usually use for my bakes. I found the BF dough was a little more sticky and lose than when I make similar loaves with either poolish or my shaggy biga, but it gradually came together with the S&Fs and letter folds and was pretty easy to form for proofing and getting into the DO.
Overall the finished bread was really good. Maybe slightly more chewy than my poolish or biga loaves, but great crumb, crust, lift, and taste.
Will definitely be coming back to this method and loaf for further refinement. I highly recommend it as a low maintenance and low attention way of fermenting SD bread for those fitting in baking with day jobs. A really great 'mix and forget' approach where the dough does much of the work itself.
On this specific loaf, I would reduce the overall hydration to something like 60-65% to get a more deli type bread/crumb rather than a more typical SD boulle open crumb.
I'm glad that you found the process easy to use. The finished bread certainly looks good.
Paul