Finnish Rye

As I needed to bake some bread urgently...all right, we would have run out completely in a day, I thought I would try Finnish Rye from Perfecting Sourdough.  I was pretty busy, lots of washing and ironing from the last holiday to Haworth...more another day on that, and I felt the recipe would really be suitable for our 'daily bread'.

Its so straight forward in that after the kneading, you put the dough straight into the tin, let it rise, then bake it!  I felt so sure that it would work that I doubled up on the ingredients and made two: one for us and one for Roy.  I deviated slightly from the recipe reducing the malt syrup by half, as I did not want to have too sweet a bread, as this was to be used for sandwiches in the main.

Please do refer to Jane Mason's book for full details of method etc, but just so that I can record what I did, for 2 500g tins, Here is just a quick outline of the quantities and my timings.

Refresh the rye starter with 50g wholemeal rye, 70g wholewheat, and 60g water just after lunch.

Before retiring for the night:  add 150g wholemeal rye, 150g white spelt flour, 150g strong white flour, 200g milk, which has been heated up then cooled, 50g malt syrup, 12g salt, about 100g water.

Knead well for about 10 minutes.  Divide up and shape and place in very well greased loaf tins.

Leave overnight covered in the conservatory.  I  panicked when I saw the rise..it probably was warmer in the conservatory than I had calculated:

But in the end, I think this was right...I had no flying crust or collapse, but a pretty even rise.  I learnt from the book about tell tale signs to look out for and what to do to avoid them in future.

First thing in the morning, heat up the oven to Gas Mark 8, bake the loves for 10, minutes and then for a further 30 minutes at Gas Mark 6.  When cooked remove from tin and allow to cool completely on a rack.

The loaves are posing, just about perfect!

Make sure that you put on your extractor fan so that the whole neighbourhood can enjoy the delicious smell!  This loaf is so good, and so easy, I think this become my fall back recipe for a 'quick'...slowly made sourdough loaf.

In her guidance Jane Mason does encourage bakers to understand their ingredients and gives ideas on substitutions etc, so I am 'empowered' to vary this one....not as if the recipe is not spot on!

Already today, as we have used up the last of the Finnish Rye baked on Sunday, I am developing a recipe based on this technique and timing using Rye Sourdough, with spelt and Khorasan flours, and with Carob Syrup in place of the malt syrup.  Its looking good...but why?  Well I have these flours in the cupboard, and I just had to buy a couple of bottles of Carob Syrup when on holiday in the Mediterranean.  For souvenirs on holiday, I often troll through local supermarkets looking for ingredients which are used locally in baking, or which I have not come across very often locally.