Browse Tag
German bread
Oldenburg Rye/Oldenburger Landbrot (Germany)
| Rye %: | 100% |
| Stages: | Sponge, Soaker, Final dough |
| Leaven: | Rye sour culture, Instant yeast |
| Start to Finish: | 22-28 hours |
| Hands-on Time: | 30-40 minutes |
| Yield: | One 3 lb./1.36 kg loaf |
For a bread that many Germans consider to be a best of breed Lower Saxony rye, recipes for Oldenburg Rye are surprisingly scarce; in fact, it took me several months, plus the help of a German baking friend, to locate this recipe on the website of a large north German baking ingredients company.
The search was worth the hassle: this is a bread that combines the robust flavors and mouth-feel of coarse rye meal with the moist crumb of a stale-bread soaker and the intense sour of an 18-24 hour sponge.
Ketex’s Crusty Boule/Bauernkruste (Germany)
| Rye %: | 89% |
| Stages: | Sponge, Soaker, Final dough |
| Leaven: | Rye sour culture, Instant yeast |
| Start to Finish: | 18-20 hours |
| Hands-on Time: | 30-40 minutes |
| Yield: | One 2½ lb/1.2 kg loaf |
I found this flavorful, crusty rye bread in one of the first German baking books I acquired, Rustikale Brote aus deutschen Landen (Rustic Breads from the German Countryside) by Gerhard Kellner, a well-known German bread blogger who goes by the nickname “Ketex.” It intrigued me for a couple of reasons.
The “Juicy One”/Das Saftige (Germany)
| Rye %: | 100% |
| Stages: | Sour sponge, Final dough |
| Leaven: | Rye sour culture, Instant yeast |
| Start to Finish: | 13-15 hours |
| Hands-on Time: | 20-30 minutes |
| Yield: | One 3-lb/1.35 kb loaf |
Odd name for a bread, The “Juicy One,” especially since this close-crumbed, rustic north German bread is anything but “saftig,” German, for “juicy. But if you consider its broader meaning (which survives in the Yiddish word zoftig) of “ripe,” “luscious” and “mouth watering,” then the description is spot-on, for this bread has a rich, mouth-filling texture and subdued sweet spiciness that showcases rye in all its glory.
Tegernsee Christmas Loaf/Tegernseer Ketzapiren
| Rye %: | 100% |
| Stages: | Straight dough |
| Leaven: | Baking powder |
| Start to Finish: | 1½-2 hours |
| Hands-on Time: | 20-30 minutes |
| Yield: | One 2 lb./900 g loaf |
Marking religious holidays and life events by enhancing everyday bread with rare delicacies goes back a long way in Europe. The tradition survives most clearly in the stollen of Germany, the panettones of Italy, Lithuania’s Kaledu Pyragas (Christmas Bread), the zelten of South Tyrol and in this richly fruited Ketzapiren, which comes from Tegernsee in the Bavarian Alps, not far from the Austrian border.
Spiced Pumpkin Bread/Kürbisgewürzbrot (Germany)
| Rye %: | 30% |
| Stages: | Straight dough |
| Leaven: | Instant yeast |
| Start to Finish: | 4 – 4½hours |
| Hands-on Time: | 20-30 minutes |
| Yield: | One 2¼ lb./1.1 kg |
Spiced Pumpkin Bread is a great example of how European bakers included a wide range of ingredients, such as oil seeds, nuts, cabbage, carrots, potatoes – even moss and the ground inner bark of pine trees – to augment and extend their flour in times of scarcity. Although the custom first developed during pre-Industrial times, when famine was a real and recurring challenge, it has persisted into these times of plenty, much to our good fortune.
Wholegrain Franconia Rye/Vollkorn Frankenlaib
| Rye %: | 80% |
| Stages: | 3-Stage sponge, Final dough |
| Leaven: | Rye sour culture |
| Start to Finish: | 20-22 hours |
| Hands-on Time: | 40-50 minutes |
| Yield: | Two 1½ lb./650 g loaves |
Not too long ago I acquired a trove of freshly milled rye and heirloom/heritage wheat flours from Grist & Toll, a groundbreaking urban mill in Pasadena, just north of Los Angeles. After experimenting with the wheat flours, I started casting about for a rye bread that would let me showcase the subtle complexities of the G&T flours. After going through my recipe database, I settled on Franconia Rye/Frankenlaib, a subtle and complex Bavarian bread.
Holstein Fine Rye/Holsteinisches Feinbrot (Germany)
| Rye %: | 75% |
| Stages: | Buckwheat gruel, Final dough |
| Leaven: | Yeast |
| Start to Finish: | 3 hours |
| Hands-on Time: | 25-30 minutes |
| Yield: | One 2½ lb./1.15 kg loaf |
“Fine,” is one of those words that has a multitude of meanings. It can mean “good,” as in “How are you?” “I’m fine.” It can mean sophisticated or refined, as in “fine dining” or “fine jewelry;” or it can describe a smooth, silky texture that’s the opposite of “coarse.” In the case of Holstein Fine Rye, it’s all of the above.
Weinheim Heath Rye/Weinheimer Heidebrot (Germany)
| Rye %: | 80% |
| Stages: | Sponge, Soaker, Final dough |
| Leaven: | Rye sour culture, instant yeast |
| Start to Finish: | 22-23 hours |
| Hands-on Time: | 30-40 minutes |
| Yield: | Two 15-oz./425 g loaves |
I found this bread on Lutz Geißler‘s blog (Ploetzblog.de), who in turn got it from the German Baking Academy (Akademie Deutsches Bäckerhandwerk) in Weinheim, in the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemburg. I was intrigued because this loaf, at 80% rye, comes in at a higher percentage than most rye breads from southern Germany. It also uses an old-bread soaker, which moistens and tenderizes the crumb.