Browse Tag

Lower Saxony

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. Keep Reading

Spiced Pumpkin Bread/Kürbisgewürzbrot (Germany)

kurbis_loaf

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. Keep Reading