This light colored rye bread is soft, delicious, and perfect for that deli sandwich you’ve been waiting for! After all, what can possibly be better than a corned beef sandwich on your own homemade rye bread?

Prep: 10 mins Bake: 35-40 mins Total: 3 hrs 25 mins Yield: 1 large loaf or 2 smaller loaves

Ingredients

• 1 cup lukewarm water
• 1 cup rye flour
• 4 teaspoons white sugar
• 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
• 1/2 cup sour cream (low-fat is fine, but do not use use nonfat)
• 1 to 2 tablespoons caraway seeds
• 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons vital wheat gluten (optional for best rise)

Instructions

1. Combine water, sugar, rye flour, and yeast together in a medium sized mixing bowl until it forms a soft batter. Leave to rest for 20 minutes.
2. Add the remaining ingredients; sour cream, caraway seeds, salt, all-purpose flour, and vital wheat gluten to the batter. Knead the dough together but be sure to leave the dough a bit sticky. It should be mostly smooth at this point.
3. Place the dough into a large oiled bowl, cover, and let it rise until puffy. This should take anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes.
4. Next, carefully deflate the dough, briefly knead it, and shape it into two round loaves or one long oval loaf. Place the loaves onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.
5. Cover the loaves and let them rise again until puffy (approx 90 minutes). Be sure to preheat your oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit near the end of this second rise.
6. Spray the loaves lightly with water and slash the dough about 1/2 inch deep (see notes).
7. Allow loaves to bake for 35-40 minutes (45-50 minutes for single large loaf), or until the center temperature reads between 205 and 210 degrees.
8. Take the bread from the oven and transfer it to a cooling rack.

Notes

• Slashing loaves: Oval loaves are typically slashed with one good long vertical cut; whereas, the rounds seem to look best with 2 or 3 shorter slashes across the top. As you get more comfortable with the process feel free to express your creativity when slasting the tops of your loaves.
• For a recipe substitute, try using dill pickle juice in place of water! Just be sure to cut back on the salt in the recipe to between 3/4 teaspoon or 1 teaspoon depending on how salty the pickle juice is.
• If your bread browns too quickly; feel free to tent it with tin-foil. This slows down the browning process.
• To keep your crust moist, brush your loaves lightly with butter. This will help keep the crust soft.

References:

• Hamel, PJ. (N.D.) “Caraway Rye Bread.” King Arthur Baking Company. https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/caraway-rye-bread-recipe

Image attribution: www.pixabay.com