Monday, 21 November 2011

Roman Army Bread made with Rye Flour

We're going off wheat bigtime. Spelt is a useful alternative, being an ancient and unmodified form of the same grain, with much lower gluten. You can get white or wholemeal versions. I've been using the so-called Roman Army bread recipe with spelt for years, but I started mixing half-and-half spelt and rye flours, which produced a tasty, slightly solid loaf.
This time I did it using all rye flour. This has no gluten, so you are relying on the yeast to do all the work, but it still just about doubles in size, and is very quick and easy.
1 lb rye or spelt flour
1 packet dried yeast
1 large teaspoon honey
14 fluid oz warm water
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons nice oil
1 tablespoon dried caraway seeds, optional.
Melt the honey in the warm water and add the yeast.
When it's frothing (after a few moments), add to the flour and stir in all the other ingredients. Mix thoroughly for a few moments. It's a very sticky mix.
Butter the inside of a large bread tin, make sure you have greased all the surfaces very well.
Put the mix into the tin, then put it into a warm place to rise. I usually put it inside a plastic bag, puffed up well away from the surface of the dough, pegged to keep it nice and draught-free.
When it's up to about the top of the tin, put it in a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees for 10 mins, then turn down to 180 for a further 25-30 mins.
It should come out of the baking tin very easily. Dry on a rack, and cut when cold.
This bread is nutty to taste, dense in texture and can be cut in very thin slices. It keeps well, can be toasted (often needs a bit longer than usual in the toaster). You can taste the honey, almost all the ingredients are local or produced with integrity and passion.
I will get a sourdough starter going, and try this again without the pump-up effects of that industrial yeast. Incidentally, I am amazed that no-one produces a dried yeast based on sour-dough. If you know of one, please let me know the details.
PS My h brought home a sourdough rye loaf from the deli in Rye, baked by the fantastic Judges Bakery in Hastings. Here's a comparison.... I love their bread. You can see in this picture how their loaf (on the left)
has taken longer to rise and the texture is more evenly aerated and lighter. This is definitely inspiring me to work with sourdough rather than yeast.

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