Sourdough rye bread roll partly made with the bread machine

Fresh cut bread with some butter and cheese

So another week end is here, outside the weather is dark and cloudy and something, which used to be a typhoon but settled with being something less than a typhoon since it hit mainland China, is passing over our heads. My brother in law was going to fly over to Hong-Kong this week but his flight got delayed for 4 hours thanks to this one, but I know also that less fortunate passengers had to sit and wait a little bit longer than him – reminding me of my 16 hour flight delay in the Wuxi airport. With those sweet memories in mind and the nasty clouds outside it is not really the time to go out but time to contemplate, think about life, relax, have a nap, lean back and … bake an awesome artisan bread of course(crazy German’s I hear you say?) …


Since a while I am following and reading with interest the blog of this guy called Ketex. You can find his blog in my blogroll. After my last successful organic sourdough bread baking experience I thought I might step it up and go for one of his recipes that I found. It's the recipe for an awesome rye bread roll recipe that I had to try as my next self made bread.


Sourdough

• 120 gr. Rye flour
• 120 gr. water
• 12 gr. Rye sourdough starter

Mix everything and let it rest for 16 hours at room temperature

Sourdough ingredients

Sourdough starter mixed together

Sponge

• 100 gr. Wheat flour
• 100 gr. water
• 1 gr. Dried yeast (did not have fresh yeast)

Mix everything well and let it rest for 30 minutes to one hour until the volume oft he dough doubled

Main dough

• sourdough
• sponge
• 220 gr. Wheat flour
• 120 gr. Rye flour
• 140 gr. water
• 2 gr. Dried yeast (did not have fresh yeast)
• 10 gr. salt
• 3 gr. Rye bakers malt (I did not have it so I took a spoon of honey which works just fine)

Normally, you would start to knead the dough for along time and let it rest for a while etc.. But the reader of my blog knows I am a lazy guy, and I do have a bread machine for that, which has the function: DOUGH. So I simply put everything in the bread machine and switch it to dough making (1 hours 30). The dough will be kneaded and while resting it will rise to double of its size.
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Dough mixture in the bread baking machine raised about twice in size

When finished, put the dough on a table that you sprinkled some flour on the surface first. Cut pieces of approximately 90 grams each from the dough. Now knead the small bread rolls. My dough was rather very wet and sticky so it was constantly sticking to my fingers. In this case you can add some more flour to the mixture until it is less sticky and easier to work with so it won’t stick to your hands when kneading it and gives a perfect shape. Now it’s time to shape them. I used the technique to shape them, which is described in this Video from the same guy, Ketex, as mentioned above. Like mentioned in an earlier blog post, there are a few techniques that you can use to shape the bread rolls, but it is very important to pre-shape the dough pieces or else they will just flatten out and you will have something more like a pancake then a bread roll in the end.

bread rolls shaped and placed on a baking tray

Anyway, same routine now, after shaping and putting them on the baking tray to rest, spray some water over them and then you can add some cumin, sunflower seeds or anything else on top of the rolls.

Bread rolls with cumin added on top

Cover everything up with a kitchen towel and let it rest for about 75 minutes.

In the meantime preheat the oven the 250°C. Before adding the bread rolls, pour a cup of water over on the floor of the oven so that a lot of steam can develop. Add the baking tray with the bread rolls in the oven. Bake them for 10 minutes before lowering the temperature to 230°C and finish baking them within 10 to 15 more minutes. I then normally switch off the oven and let them rest in the oven for another 5 minutes in order to make sure that the bread is fully baked through.

Fresh baked bread roll

You can knock with your knuckles on the bottom of the bread. If it sounds nice and hollow, it is completely baked through.

Now, I hope you are better equipped then I am. My baking tray is way too small so the breads always bake into each other. But hey, not looking at that, that bread is already and awesome result, right? The consistency is so fluffy and the inside is nice and soft, the outside is not to hard but a bit crispy and cross and the sourdough is getting better and better. Can't already wait till next week, we will have BBQ at a friends place so yet another bread to make :)...

Last but not least, this is a rye based bread. Rye based sourdough breads are best consumed one day after they are baked. I know it is hard to wait with all those fantastic smells around you when the bread is fresh from the oven, but be patient, wait for one day and you will be rewarded with an awesome tasting self made artisanal bread indeed.