Rye Bread
A dense, sour-edged loaf made with rye and white flour, caraway seeds and a spoonful of treacle.
Photograph credit: ЖИТО (image of rye bread on Wikidata Q3893120) by Schekinov Alexey Victorovich · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
The Method for Rye Bread
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Mix the rye flour, white flour, yeast, salt and caraway in a large bowl. Stir the treacle into the warm water and add to the flour.
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Mix to a sticky dough and knead with a wet hand for 5 minutes. Cover and leave for 1 hour.
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Shape into a round on a floured tray, cover and leave for 45 minutes.
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Heat the oven to 220°C / 430°F. Bake for 40 minutes until dark and hollow-sounding. Cool completely before slicing.
What Can Go Wrong
- Keep the dough wet and sticky.
- Use a wet hand, not more flour.
- If your oven runs hot, check at 32 minutes.
- Let it cool fully before cutting.
About This Recipe
Short and sharp: rye is not wheat. It has little gluten and a lot of fibre, so the dough is sticky and the rise is modest. Cooks who treat it like white dough end up frustrated.
Mix rye with strong white flour, one part to two, and the loaf has structure and flavour. The dough should be wetter and stickier than a normal dough. Do not add more flour to make it easier to handle. Use a wet hand or a plastic scraper instead, and the crumb stays moist.
Knead for 5 minutes, then leave it covered for 1 hour until it has grown by half. Shape it into a round or an oval, set it on a floured tray and leave for 45 minutes more. It will not double, and that is normal.
Bake at 220°C / 430°F for 40 minutes, until the crust is dark and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped. If your oven runs hot, check at 32 minutes. Cool fully before slicing, since rye needs time to set, and eat it thin with butter and cheese.
To Go With It
Butter · Smoked salmon · Mature cheddar · Soup
Storing Leftovers
Keeps wrapped for 4 days.
Common Questions
How long does Rye Bread take to make?
30 minutes of preparation and 40 minutes of cooking, plus 1 hour 45 minutes of Rising, so allow 2 hours 55 minutes from start to finish. The method also needs time for cooling completely, which it does not time, so treat that as a minimum. The recipe serves 12.
What's in a Serving
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
Cooked this? Keep a note for next time
Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked.
First published ; last changed .
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