Lazy Sunday Baking

Last weekend was full of amazing food and it was probably a good thing. This past week was one of those weeks at work from hell, which really just drove home the importance of preparing ahead of time and sticking to my guns (which I did not do so successfully). By the end of the week, my fridge was empty, and I was forced to go the restaurant route at work several times. Even food piping hot from the restaurant never is quite as good as the food I bring.

Anyway, I’ve realized that my love for bread means I’m usually making more of it than I can consume. I’ve also realized that really, all bread recipes come down to 3 parts flour to 1 part liquid, with adjustments for additions like nuts and things. And so, I’ve shrunk the starter recipes to become even tinier loaves. Ideally, I want to be able to make two kinds of bread a week with no leftovers and not feel like I’m eating nothing but bread or throwing away bread.

I had been on a sweet bread kick lately, but want to make sure I’ve got some variety going on. And so, I decided to make a traditional Bohemian Rye Bread. The kind New York delis pile high with corned beef and the like (although I would never pile mine high with corned beef… slices of this bread are going to be piled with roasted chicken, spicy red pepper spread, goat brie, and greens).

The caraway seeds are what give this bread its flavor. The crumb was nice, although I think I may have gotten this to rise just to the edge of collapsing as the very inside of the dough was very airy. I liked this bread, but I think I like the rye flavor without the caraway better. But, this is a great sandwich bread and for that, I will relish this loaf at work. This comes in graded A (what? Bread graded A for nutrition?). If we assume this mini-loaf makes 8 slices, each one is 93 calories, with 1.1g fat, 1 mg cholesterol, 149mg sodium, 3.2g dietary fiber, .7 sugars, 3.4g protein, 1% calcium and 8% iron.


I took ½ cup of warm water, 1 tsp turbinado cane sugar, ½ tsp caraway seeds, and proofed 1 tsp dry active yeast. Then I stirred in ½ tsp salt, 1 tsp vegan butter (okay, now I am lactose intolerant generally, I can eat cow milk yogurt because of the live cultures and goat milk products generally, and other cow milk products in small quantities – I have decided that vegan butter is decidedly not a whole food – and am trying to simply use small amounts of real butter since it scares me how many words in the vegan butter ingredient list I cannot pronounce), and ¾ cup light rye flour. Let it rest for about 15 minutes, then slowly stir in 1 tsp gluten and as much of ¾ cup unbleached bread flour as you need. I turned out the dough onto a board with spelt flour and kneaded it for about 5 minutes until springy to the touch.

I sprayed my dough ball with oil from my pressurized oil sprayer (which, incidentally, I fill with half olive oil or canola oil and half water. The way it pressurizes it mixes the two and provides not only a finer and more even spray, but helps reduce the amount of oil I’m using even more. Then let it rise for about an hour until doubled. Then I took the whole thing out, punched it down a little, reshaped the ball and let it rise again in the fridge for 4 hours while I went to the gym. When I came back, I took it out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature for about an hour.

Although this bread is traditionally placed in a coarsely woven basket for the final rising according to my bread book, that didn’t seem feasible. Anyway, this bread I did on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and dusted with cornmeal. I baked for 10 minutes at 450 degrees, then about 25 minutes at 350. I thought the crust was going to burn but it was just fine and the bread could have had another 5 minutes and been just fine.