Polish Sourdough Rye Bread
Chleb na zakwasie
February 24th, 2020
Polish Rye with sourdough starter.
Months of testing and...failing, finally paid off.
This one did not turn up to be 1 inch high but full size loaf. Secret? My own sourdough starter. No more yest from the shop.
Required:
1. Patience
2. Dutch oven, full size.
3. Baking paper
4. Plastic scraper or spatula
5. Patience
Recipe:
1 table spoon of sourdough starter. Or double instant yeast. So 2 teaspoons.
1 cup of good dark rye flour
2 cups of white unbleached flour
1.5 cups of water, take off 1/2 cup and set aside. To mix salt and olive oil into before mixing. Read later.
1 tea spoon of salt, real salt! Kosher or sea salt
1 tea spoon of olive oil
1 tea spoon of sugar
1.5 tea spoons of caraway seeds
1 tea spoon of dried dill
0.5 tea spoon of dried basil
Step 1:
First: Make levain, the magic starter from the sourdough starter. Yeah...a little confusing.
2 full tablespoons of my own sourdough starter mixed with 1/3 cup of white flour and 1/3 cup of luke warm water, if you want to speed things up.
Mix well together and cover with plastic wrap. I put it in my microwave to keep warm and without a breeze. Cover with a cloth also.
Let stand for...no less than 4 hours. But overnight also works. Up to 12 hours is ok.
If you use instant yeast, use luke warm water 100F, and dissolve it into 1/3 of the water before you start to activate it. Watch out for mixing salt too early. Salt eats yest.
Step 2:
Day two or 4 hours later...
Uncover levain and mix with 1 cup or water. Or use 1 cup of your milk water, left over from your farmers cheese you made day before, lol.
Break up and mix together well. Don't worry if you cant get all the chunks out. It's ok.
Step 3:
Put the 1 cup rye and 2 cups white flour into a bowl. Add the, sugar, caraway seeds, dill and basil and mix well.
Mix the 1/2 of water with the 1 tea spoon of salt and 1 tea spoon of olive oil, mix well too dissolve the salt. Set aside for now.
Step 4:
Mix the levain and all the flour together until becomes almost solid. Will look a bit flaky. Shaggy they call it. Cover and let stand for 30 to 60 min. The little bugs need to do their work now. The good bacteria that is.
Step 5:
Pour the rest of the water, with the salt and oil, into the mix and mix together. By hand or plastic spatula, your choice. You want an even texture now. No flakes. So depending on your elevation or where you live you might need to add a little more water or flour. Just a spoon fool at a time. Till it all looks nice and wet, but not too wet.
Step 6:
Let rest it again for 30 to 60 min while covered.
Step 7:
Folding. This takes about 2 hours. You need to fold the dough. All can be done in the same bowl you have it in. Every 30 min or so fold each side by pulling and stretching it a bit out. So pull out the dough away from you, fold and repeat on all 4 sides. Gives the dough its inner strength. So you don't have a loose goober.
When you finish the 4th fold let the dough rest covered again for 30 to 60 min.
Step 8:
Shaping. Here you can cheat a bit depending on your texture. If it feels solid you can shape it now and let rest. Or you can do the shaping twice to get better solid texture. Now I worked at a bakery as a kid so I know how to kneed a round loaf. If you have never done it, here it is. This is also the so called punch down time. Where you deflate the bread and rebuild it. Don't worry. It will come back up. Rye is not as easy as white bread. Grows slower and less. So shape is important.
Sprinkle flour on a wooden board. Move your dough out of the bowl onto the board, sprinkle flour on top. Roll the dough on one end only with your wrist. Make sure your pushing only one way. The top of the bread should remain in one spot. Or...other way...is to pickup the dough and with both hands fold the bottom into the center while spinning it. Keep in mind that it is the top you want to shape into a nice ball with some solid texture. Or it will turn into a pancake later. You should be able to put the dough down and it should stay same shape without melting down. If not, work it a bit more. Till it gets that springy feeling. Once you are done shaping the loaf, once or twice, it's time to do final rest. I prep the baking paper now inside the same bowl, sprinkle flower on top of the baking paper where the bottom of the loaf will rest, place the dough inside, sprinkle flour on top and smudge a bit. This way the plastic top will not stick to the top. Moisture will build up during the proofing period. And getting your plastic wrap stuck to the top of the dough sucks. Cover in plastic and towel again and off to next step....
Some people prefer plastic bags. So if you have a big plastic bag put the whole bowl inside it, twist and put away. Use clear plastic so you can see if it grows.
Step 9:
Rising. I use baking paper to bake in my dutch over, as I mentioned. Works like a charm. Easy to move the bread from bowl to dutch oven and out. And a dutch oven is a must. I have a secret for that magic crust for you here. Keep reading.
Once you place the dough onto the baking paper and the bowl and cover it, take a break. This is a process of no less than 3 to 6 hours.
Less for white flour bread, but rye takes time. Open a Zywiec, eat a Paczki and chill. Can't rush perfection!
I have a few secrets for this section also. Proofing, the final rise of the bread, can be improved a bit even at home. Remember when I told you I do it inside my microwave? Yeah...secret # 1. I boil some water and pour into a heat resistant cup and place the cup inside the microwave and open the bread plastic a bit to suck up the steam. Now this baby is really growing. I do this twice or so. Keep the inside of that microwave steamy and your dough and your crust will be happier later.
Step 10:
3 to 6 hrs later, once you see the dough has grown, again...rye grows less than white flower, you are ready for the oven part. So don't expect a Titanic loaf. I had many trials and errors. Every time I used store bough instant yeast my loaf tasted great but were about 1 inch high. Frustrating.
Not until now that I use my own starter did they come out right. I think if you still use instant yeast double up on the yeast. This flour needs power to rise! And 1 cup of rye flour is enough. When I did 2 cups of rye the loaf could be used as a weapon. Way too solid.
By now I have cranked my oven to 500F about 30 to 45 min prior to this moment. And make sure your dutch oven is in there as well. Must be for secret number # 2 to work.
Pull out your bowl out of the microwave. Gently pull out the baking paper with the dough in it out of your bowl. Put on flat surface so the paper can move to the side. Trust me, makes scoring sooooo much easier.
Scoring, cutting the dough's top surface, is a very important part of baking.
I use a real shaving blade soaked in cold water. Anything else is butchery of the dough. Go to Rite Aid and get some real shaving blades. Make no less than 3 long cuts on top. Or get creative. Make shapes or a checker board. Cut at an angle, make sure you see separation on top. Just a mark is not enough. This will relieve the pressure that builds up during first 5 min of baking. Or your loaf will crack on top and even if that works for some, you will have some sharp crust edges to digest. Or cut your lips on.
Once your done with the cutting, and this should be done fast, no more than 5 min in total, pull out your Dutch oven out of the hot oven and get ready.
Here is secret number # 2. Crust magic!
Everybody tells you to put a metal pan or stone at the bottom of your oven and pour water into it or ice cubes. Really? And what help does that provide to a CLOSED dutch oven??? Here is the secret to a magical crust....put 3 to 4 ice cubes at the bottom or sides of that steaming hot dutch oven, use long gloves as the steam gets mega strong and hot super fast. I learned the hard way...ouch. Now pickup the dough by the paper edges and gently put inside the dutch oven. Watch that steam! Don't worry if it sags a bit. It will grow back once in the oven with that lovely steam around it.
Throw in 2 more ice cubes by the sides. Between the paper and the dutch oven. See that steam rising? Don't be slow and close that lid asap. Don't loose that steam! Now you have just made a home made, commercial grade, steam equipped baking oven. I will send you the bill later... Commercial ovens get set for 10 to 45 seconds of steam at the very beginning of the baking. I know, I used them. That's all you need to create a crackling, wonderfully and thick crust just like from your old school bakery. There is a video at the bottom that i recorded of one of my loafs whispering sweet nothings to me. That sound will make you HUNGRY!
Step 11:
Bake covered at 500 or 450, depending on your oven, for 30 min.
After 30, uncover and bake for 5 more min.
Then pull out the dutch oven, use gloves please, pull out the crumbling, brown baking paper and the loaf and put it back into the oven directly onto a rack. Yes, eye control is required. This is a 5 to 8 min process of seeing the loaf turn nice and brown all around. Some top portions where you cut it might even start looking black and burner, that's ok. That's just the outside. I spin the loaf a few times to make sure it gets brown even. Ovens can have hot spots that are uneven on the inside. Once you see the loaf has picked up nice and dark color all around pull it out. Place on a nice metal cooling rack. Or inside your oven if it cools down fast enough. And keep the doors fully open. And let it cool.
I know, it smells amazing. But wait no less than 30 min to cut into it. The bread and the crust needs to set and finalize. Once you cut it, it will bring cooler air into the inside and change the texture of the whole loaf. Its worth it. Plus hot bread can give you an upset tummy.
End word...
It is a lot of work. But the rewards are amazing. It is all about patience. No instant bread recipe will make this bread. I tried. I can say that next time I might double the goods and make 2 loafs.
The caraway seeds give it that 100% Polish flavor. The dill and basil gives it a little bit more aroma, not much in flavor. I grow my own dill and basil so that's why I used it. But you can stick to just caraway seeds.
The texture and the flavor of this bread came out like a perfect copy of the bread I used to pickup every Sunday as a kid in Krakow, Poland. I have missed it since 1983. It stretches instead of breaking. Amazing.
If you try it, let me know. If you need to know how to make your own sourdough starter batch, let me know. Simple task. Just takes about 7 days before the first bubble of love is ready. Then it's ready every day after that. Just feed it and it will do the job.
The baking paper makes it easy to move the bread. And it's the best solution at home. Use a bowl for the dough that's not too big. Let it grow and fill the sides. Just make sure once you shape it for final rise that you use lots of flower on bottom and top and side so it does not stick to the paper. Also the flower looks good once you cut it and bake it.
Good luck and bake on!
Update:
Since I posted this I have made multiple other loafs with different flours. See photos below.
I made a killer multigrain bread. Just changed the 1 cup of rye to 1 cup of multigrain. Very dense bread. I added a tablespoon of honey and a little bit of boiled and drained oats to it as well.
Also, my wife prefers white over rye. So I made her all white flour bread with options. I made one with 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese in it. Then I did a garlic one. And a dill one.....this just does not end....
Polish Rye with sourdough starter.
Months of testing and...failing, finally paid off.
This one did not turn up to be 1 inch high but full size loaf. Secret? My own sourdough starter. No more yest from the shop.
Required:
1. Patience
2. Dutch oven, full size.
3. Baking paper
4. Plastic scraper or spatula
5. Patience
Recipe:
1 table spoon of sourdough starter. Or double instant yeast. So 2 teaspoons.
1 cup of good dark rye flour
2 cups of white unbleached flour
1.5 cups of water, take off 1/2 cup and set aside. To mix salt and olive oil into before mixing. Read later.
1 tea spoon of salt, real salt! Kosher or sea salt
1 tea spoon of olive oil
1 tea spoon of sugar
1.5 tea spoons of caraway seeds
1 tea spoon of dried dill
0.5 tea spoon of dried basil
Step 1:
First: Make levain, the magic starter from the sourdough starter. Yeah...a little confusing.
2 full tablespoons of my own sourdough starter mixed with 1/3 cup of white flour and 1/3 cup of luke warm water, if you want to speed things up.
Mix well together and cover with plastic wrap. I put it in my microwave to keep warm and without a breeze. Cover with a cloth also.
Let stand for...no less than 4 hours. But overnight also works. Up to 12 hours is ok.
If you use instant yeast, use luke warm water 100F, and dissolve it into 1/3 of the water before you start to activate it. Watch out for mixing salt too early. Salt eats yest.
Step 2:
Day two or 4 hours later...
Uncover levain and mix with 1 cup or water. Or use 1 cup of your milk water, left over from your farmers cheese you made day before, lol.
Break up and mix together well. Don't worry if you cant get all the chunks out. It's ok.
Step 3:
Put the 1 cup rye and 2 cups white flour into a bowl. Add the, sugar, caraway seeds, dill and basil and mix well.
Mix the 1/2 of water with the 1 tea spoon of salt and 1 tea spoon of olive oil, mix well too dissolve the salt. Set aside for now.
Step 4:
Mix the levain and all the flour together until becomes almost solid. Will look a bit flaky. Shaggy they call it. Cover and let stand for 30 to 60 min. The little bugs need to do their work now. The good bacteria that is.
Step 5:
Pour the rest of the water, with the salt and oil, into the mix and mix together. By hand or plastic spatula, your choice. You want an even texture now. No flakes. So depending on your elevation or where you live you might need to add a little more water or flour. Just a spoon fool at a time. Till it all looks nice and wet, but not too wet.
Step 6:
Let rest it again for 30 to 60 min while covered.
Step 7:
Folding. This takes about 2 hours. You need to fold the dough. All can be done in the same bowl you have it in. Every 30 min or so fold each side by pulling and stretching it a bit out. So pull out the dough away from you, fold and repeat on all 4 sides. Gives the dough its inner strength. So you don't have a loose goober.
When you finish the 4th fold let the dough rest covered again for 30 to 60 min.
Step 8:
Shaping. Here you can cheat a bit depending on your texture. If it feels solid you can shape it now and let rest. Or you can do the shaping twice to get better solid texture. Now I worked at a bakery as a kid so I know how to kneed a round loaf. If you have never done it, here it is. This is also the so called punch down time. Where you deflate the bread and rebuild it. Don't worry. It will come back up. Rye is not as easy as white bread. Grows slower and less. So shape is important.
Sprinkle flour on a wooden board. Move your dough out of the bowl onto the board, sprinkle flour on top. Roll the dough on one end only with your wrist. Make sure your pushing only one way. The top of the bread should remain in one spot. Or...other way...is to pickup the dough and with both hands fold the bottom into the center while spinning it. Keep in mind that it is the top you want to shape into a nice ball with some solid texture. Or it will turn into a pancake later. You should be able to put the dough down and it should stay same shape without melting down. If not, work it a bit more. Till it gets that springy feeling. Once you are done shaping the loaf, once or twice, it's time to do final rest. I prep the baking paper now inside the same bowl, sprinkle flower on top of the baking paper where the bottom of the loaf will rest, place the dough inside, sprinkle flour on top and smudge a bit. This way the plastic top will not stick to the top. Moisture will build up during the proofing period. And getting your plastic wrap stuck to the top of the dough sucks. Cover in plastic and towel again and off to next step....
Some people prefer plastic bags. So if you have a big plastic bag put the whole bowl inside it, twist and put away. Use clear plastic so you can see if it grows.
Step 9:
Rising. I use baking paper to bake in my dutch over, as I mentioned. Works like a charm. Easy to move the bread from bowl to dutch oven and out. And a dutch oven is a must. I have a secret for that magic crust for you here. Keep reading.
Once you place the dough onto the baking paper and the bowl and cover it, take a break. This is a process of no less than 3 to 6 hours.
Less for white flour bread, but rye takes time. Open a Zywiec, eat a Paczki and chill. Can't rush perfection!
I have a few secrets for this section also. Proofing, the final rise of the bread, can be improved a bit even at home. Remember when I told you I do it inside my microwave? Yeah...secret # 1. I boil some water and pour into a heat resistant cup and place the cup inside the microwave and open the bread plastic a bit to suck up the steam. Now this baby is really growing. I do this twice or so. Keep the inside of that microwave steamy and your dough and your crust will be happier later.
Step 10:
3 to 6 hrs later, once you see the dough has grown, again...rye grows less than white flower, you are ready for the oven part. So don't expect a Titanic loaf. I had many trials and errors. Every time I used store bough instant yeast my loaf tasted great but were about 1 inch high. Frustrating.
Not until now that I use my own starter did they come out right. I think if you still use instant yeast double up on the yeast. This flour needs power to rise! And 1 cup of rye flour is enough. When I did 2 cups of rye the loaf could be used as a weapon. Way too solid.
By now I have cranked my oven to 500F about 30 to 45 min prior to this moment. And make sure your dutch oven is in there as well. Must be for secret number # 2 to work.
Pull out your bowl out of the microwave. Gently pull out the baking paper with the dough in it out of your bowl. Put on flat surface so the paper can move to the side. Trust me, makes scoring sooooo much easier.
Scoring, cutting the dough's top surface, is a very important part of baking.
I use a real shaving blade soaked in cold water. Anything else is butchery of the dough. Go to Rite Aid and get some real shaving blades. Make no less than 3 long cuts on top. Or get creative. Make shapes or a checker board. Cut at an angle, make sure you see separation on top. Just a mark is not enough. This will relieve the pressure that builds up during first 5 min of baking. Or your loaf will crack on top and even if that works for some, you will have some sharp crust edges to digest. Or cut your lips on.
Once your done with the cutting, and this should be done fast, no more than 5 min in total, pull out your Dutch oven out of the hot oven and get ready.
Here is secret number # 2. Crust magic!
Everybody tells you to put a metal pan or stone at the bottom of your oven and pour water into it or ice cubes. Really? And what help does that provide to a CLOSED dutch oven??? Here is the secret to a magical crust....put 3 to 4 ice cubes at the bottom or sides of that steaming hot dutch oven, use long gloves as the steam gets mega strong and hot super fast. I learned the hard way...ouch. Now pickup the dough by the paper edges and gently put inside the dutch oven. Watch that steam! Don't worry if it sags a bit. It will grow back once in the oven with that lovely steam around it.
Throw in 2 more ice cubes by the sides. Between the paper and the dutch oven. See that steam rising? Don't be slow and close that lid asap. Don't loose that steam! Now you have just made a home made, commercial grade, steam equipped baking oven. I will send you the bill later... Commercial ovens get set for 10 to 45 seconds of steam at the very beginning of the baking. I know, I used them. That's all you need to create a crackling, wonderfully and thick crust just like from your old school bakery. There is a video at the bottom that i recorded of one of my loafs whispering sweet nothings to me. That sound will make you HUNGRY!
Step 11:
Bake covered at 500 or 450, depending on your oven, for 30 min.
After 30, uncover and bake for 5 more min.
Then pull out the dutch oven, use gloves please, pull out the crumbling, brown baking paper and the loaf and put it back into the oven directly onto a rack. Yes, eye control is required. This is a 5 to 8 min process of seeing the loaf turn nice and brown all around. Some top portions where you cut it might even start looking black and burner, that's ok. That's just the outside. I spin the loaf a few times to make sure it gets brown even. Ovens can have hot spots that are uneven on the inside. Once you see the loaf has picked up nice and dark color all around pull it out. Place on a nice metal cooling rack. Or inside your oven if it cools down fast enough. And keep the doors fully open. And let it cool.
I know, it smells amazing. But wait no less than 30 min to cut into it. The bread and the crust needs to set and finalize. Once you cut it, it will bring cooler air into the inside and change the texture of the whole loaf. Its worth it. Plus hot bread can give you an upset tummy.
End word...
It is a lot of work. But the rewards are amazing. It is all about patience. No instant bread recipe will make this bread. I tried. I can say that next time I might double the goods and make 2 loafs.
The caraway seeds give it that 100% Polish flavor. The dill and basil gives it a little bit more aroma, not much in flavor. I grow my own dill and basil so that's why I used it. But you can stick to just caraway seeds.
The texture and the flavor of this bread came out like a perfect copy of the bread I used to pickup every Sunday as a kid in Krakow, Poland. I have missed it since 1983. It stretches instead of breaking. Amazing.
If you try it, let me know. If you need to know how to make your own sourdough starter batch, let me know. Simple task. Just takes about 7 days before the first bubble of love is ready. Then it's ready every day after that. Just feed it and it will do the job.
The baking paper makes it easy to move the bread. And it's the best solution at home. Use a bowl for the dough that's not too big. Let it grow and fill the sides. Just make sure once you shape it for final rise that you use lots of flower on bottom and top and side so it does not stick to the paper. Also the flower looks good once you cut it and bake it.
Good luck and bake on!
Update:
Since I posted this I have made multiple other loafs with different flours. See photos below.
I made a killer multigrain bread. Just changed the 1 cup of rye to 1 cup of multigrain. Very dense bread. I added a tablespoon of honey and a little bit of boiled and drained oats to it as well.
Also, my wife prefers white over rye. So I made her all white flour bread with options. I made one with 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese in it. Then I did a garlic one. And a dill one.....this just does not end....
