I have been spending many days in the last few months trying to make a good easy rye bread.
Many of my attempts were just awful – not even good enough for the birds – more straight to the bin!
At last, I have found a recipe that is easy & it just uses rye flour and baker’s yeast & there is no kneading whatsoever!
In fact, I got some fresh yeast from my local Polish shop and this was just so lovely to use.
I made this twice, once with rye flour from the Polish shop and once with dark rye from Aldi. They both turned out well.
You just mix the ingredients together with a wooden spoon to give a wet mixture a bit like porridge.
The less you handle the mixture the better.
Ingredients
300g rye flour
10g fresh yeast (or the equivalent in dried yeast)
250ml hand hot water
1 teaspoon of granulated sugar
1.5 teaspoons of salt
1 tablespoon of caraway seeds
Method
Add the sugar and yeast to the water, mix well and leave it to start to froth.
Put the flour, salt and caraway in a large bowl and mix together.
Grease a 2lb loaf tin.
Add the water and yeast mix to the flour mix and with a wooden spoon mix well to form a unified mass. You are aiming for a wet mixture rather like porridge.
Using a large spoon or spatula put the mixture into the prepared loaf tin.
Loosely cover the tin with cling film or similar – a recent tip I have got is to use a clear shower cap – this allows the dough to rise without touching the plastic.
Leave the dough to rise in a warm place until dough has doubled in size (I found this took around 2 hours).
Pre-heat the oven to GM 6 – 200°C
Bake for around 30 -40 minutes – check after 15 minutes and cover with a piece of greaseproof paper if it is starting to catch on the top.
To slice the loaf, I have found that a cleaver type knife is actually easier than using a bread knife.
You can place the slices in a plastic box and they freeze very well.
