Sourdough Rye Bread
Sourdough Rye Bread is a wonderful recipe that our youngest daughter took to the county fair and won Best Bread with. It’s a hearty bread full of flavor from molasses, caraway seeds, anise seed, and cardamom. I love serving this bread with corned beef or on a Reuben Sandwich.
As a 4-H cooking mom, I always insisted that our daughters made some type of bread to take to the county fair each year.
I believed that every girl (and boy, if I would have had any) needs to know how to make homemade bread, going through the kneading process, and having the true satisfaction of serving their family a delicious bread from oven to table.
I still believe this is one of the best lessons learned at home and hope to teach my grandchildren the process of baking bread one day.
A few of those 4-H breads slipped by barely noticed. Others did really well. Grand champions, even. And some of those recipes included sourdough, which always gave me a small tickle when the judge asked our daughters about the natural yeast and fermentation process.
One of those winning recipes was this one. You’ll see why it did so well when you slice into a piece and taste it. It’s really quite wonderful.
Ingredients Needed to Make Sourdough Rye Bread
- “fed” or active sourdough starter
- whole milk
- molasses
- instant yeast (optional)
- caraway seed
- salt
- anise seed
- ground cardamom
- rye flour
- wheat flour
- all-purpose flour
Instructions for Making This Recipe
Gather all your ingredients so that you have everything close at hand on the counter or table.
In a large mixing bowl, combine active sourdough starter, whole milk, instant yeast (optional), molasses, caraway seed, salt, anise seed, and ground cardamom. Stir in rye and whole-wheat flours plus 1 cup of the all-purpose flour.
If your sourdough starter is good and active, you may opt to refrain from adding the instant yeast. Sometimes whole wheat breads have a harder time rising, and because of this, the added yeast may help you with a faster rising time.
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and begin kneading the dough, adding in the remaining flour as needed. Knead for 5-6 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic.
Place dough in a large greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Allow to rise until it has doubled, about 1.5-2 hours.
If you opt out of using the instant yeast, you’ll want to go through a stretch and fold process of the dough during this rising time, about every 30-40 minutes. See my recipe for Tangy Sourdough for further explanation about this process.
Gently deflate the dough and shape into one large round loaf or two smaller loaves. Place on a sheet of parchment paper and cover with plastic wrap that has been sprayed with baking spray. Let rise for 60-90 minutes.
Place baking stone on a middle oven rack and preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Just before baking, spritz the loaves with water and with a very sharp knife or bread lame, make four slits crisscrossed on the top. Using a pizza peel, slide loaves on parchment paper onto the hot baking stone.
Bake in a preheated oven for about 25-30 minutes, until nicely browned. Remove loaves from oven and cool on a wire rack. Makes 1-2 loaves.
See more Sourdough Recipes Here. Browse Bread Recipes Here. View more Winning 4-H Recipes Here.
Sourdough Rye Bread
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup sourdough starter "fed" or active
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 1/2 tablespoons molasses
- 1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
- 1 1/2 teaspoons caraway seed
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon anise seed
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
- 1/2 cup rye flour
- 1/2 cup wheat flour
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Instructions
- Gather all your ingredients so that you have everything close at hand on the counter or table.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine active sourdough starter, whole milk, molasses, instant yeast, caraway seed, salt, anise seed, and ground cardamom. Stir in rye and wheat flours plus 1 cup of the all-purpose flour.
- Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and begin kneading the dough, adding in the remaining flour as needed. Knead for 5-6 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic.
- Place dough in a large greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Allow to rise until it has doubled, about 1.5-2 hours.
- Gently deflate the dough and shape into one large round loaf or two smaller loaves. Place on a sheet of parchment paper and cover with plastic wrap that has been sprayed with baking spray. Let rise for 60-90 minutes. Place baking stone on a middle oven rack and preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Just before baking, spritz the loaves with water and with a very sharp knife or bread lame, make four slits crisscrossed on the top. Using a pizza peel, slide loaves on parchment paper onto the hot baking stone.
- Bake in a preheated oven for about 25-30 minutes, until nicely browned. Remove loaves from oven and cool on a wire rack. Makes 1-2 loaves.
