The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book_ A Guide to Whole-Grain Breadmaking - Laurel Robertson [52]
Press the dough flat and divide in two. Round it and let it rest until relaxed, then deflate and shape into loaves. Let them rise in a warm, draft-free place until the dough slowly returns a gently made fingerprint. Bake about an hour at 350°F. Cornstarch glaze makes this bread as pretty as it is tasty.
Ukrainian Black Bread
1 teaspoon active dry yeast (⅛ oz or 3.5 g)
¼ cup warm water (60 ml)
1 cup strong coffee (235 ml)
1 teaspoon blackstrap molasses (5 ml) (optional)
3 cups whole rye flour (385 g)
⅓ cup whole buckwheat flour (42 g)
1 ¼ teaspoon salt (7 g)
This is not like store-bought Russian rye but dense and intense. The bread is indescribably tasty. This amount makes one long skinny loaf, or 2 shorter ones. Slice cracker-thin.
Dissolve the yeast in warm water. If you are making fresh coffee for the purpose, make it double strength using boiling water; allow to cool until warm. Stir in the molasses.
Combine the dry ingredients. Add the yeast solution and ¾ cup of the sweetened coffee. If required, add the rest of the coffee to bring the dough together. Knead until soft and smooth, using a little water on your hands and the board, but not so much as to let the dough get very sticky. Knead 5 to 10 minutes.
Cover and let rest for 2 hours at room temperature. Using a generous amount of water on your hands, knead briefly and shape into a round ball. Let it rest for 30 minutes more, covered with a damp cloth. Rolling the dough back and forth under your palms, shape it into a long, skinny loaf or two, about 2 inches in diameter. Again, use plenty of water so the surface of the dough doesn’t crack.
Grease either a cookie sheet or a French baton pan and place the shaped dough on it. Proof in a warm and humid place, around 85°F, until the dough is soft—approximately 45 minutes. Don’t expect it to rise very much: it won’t. Bake in a hot and steamy oven (see this page) for 20 minutes, then without steam at 375°F for another half-hour or so. Check while baking to make sure the loaf is browning evenly on the top and bottom, repositioning the bread in the oven if necessary.
Vollkornbrot
We were determined to find out how to make classic dark Pumpernickel for this book, but after three years of fruitlessly scouring American and German books on bread, writing to German friends of friends, and so on, we had really given up on it—until our own neighbor magically turned up with an authentic loaf and this recipe, which he now happily makes every week. For a description, I don’t think I can improve on the note he included with that first gift loaf:
Laurel,
I am willing to bet my soul and its overcoat that you never before held a loaf of bread of this size that weighed more than three pounds. If you were to drop it on your floor, it would break a tile. I am very pleased with this result. It is nice and chewy and it has a crust worthy of being called a crust.…
You will note that it takes six days from the initial preparation of the Starter to the climactic consumption of the first thin slice. A fellow could starve in the meanwhile if it weren’t for an occasional loaf of Holsum from Diekmann’s.…
This recipe makes three regular-size loaves. The bread bakes nicely in covered casserole dishes or clay pots that mimic the old-fashioned brick oven, but it does even better in three normal-sized loaf pans, each one wrapped in aluminum foil for the first three hours of baking. The loaf is about 3 inches high, and should be sliced, according to tradition, about ⅛ inch thick.
STARTER
STEP ONE
1 ½ teaspoons active dry yeast (5 g)
3 tablespoons warm water (45 ml)
¼ cup fine whole