Homemade Rye Bread

Name: Homemade Rye Bread Recipe: Easy, Aromatic Loaf with Kvass
Prep time: 3 h
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 4 h
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Flour, premium wheat 2 cups (260 g); Flour, whole-grain rye 2.5 cups (315 g); Bread kvass 350 ml; Instant dry yeast (11 g) 1 packet; Salt 1 tsp (6 g); Sugar 2 tsp (9 g); Wine vinegar 1 tsp; Vegetable oil 2 tbsp; Barley coffee substitute 1 tbsp (optional); Flour for dusting a little

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4 h

The first bread we ever baked ourselves was a rye loaf, modeled on the well-known “arnautka”. Bread is one of the oldest foods people have made. Grain gathered by ancient people, ground between stones (millstones), and water. The result was a porridge-like dough, baked in whatever way was available. That was probably the very first bread.

Bread is the head of everything, says an old proverb that shows how important bread is in the human diet. You can eat bread with almost anything, even with bread. A slice with borscht or meat, spread with butter or turned into a sandwich, or, as many people like it, just rub the heel with garlic. For all its obvious simplicity (flour, water, salt), bread can also be incredibly complex. Different flours, different ways of fermenting or leavening, added spices: caraway, sesame and poppy seeds, nuts, raisins. By the way, sesame buns are a very tasty bake too.

Bread is known to every culture and civilization in the world. You don’t even need an oven to make it. In the Egyptian desert, Bedouins bake flatbreads beautifully on a hot stone. But real Adjarian khachapuri can only be made in an oven.

In many countries they bake kinds of bread that aren’t loaves at all (flatbreads, tortillas, chapati, injera), using all sorts of grains: corn, oats, various cereals. In ancient times, instead of the yeast we know, people relied on wild yeast from the air: the dough was simply left outside, and wild yeast did the job and made the bread rise. Sometimes beer or beer foam was added, which brought yeast into the dough.

I still remember, when I was little, that at my grandmother’s village they baked wheat bread and rye bread quite often, once or twice a week. Yeast was in very short supply, so every time they baked, they kept back a bit of dough for next time.

Today there is no such problem. All kinds of yeast are on sale. It is harder to find the right flour. A family doesn’t need much bread, and at home people don’t eat it very eagerly anyway, forever wearing themselves out with diets. We decided to bake rye bread ourselves, without buying a bread machine that would be nearly useless in our kitchen, and the flour for this bread is available in shops.

More with bread

Homemade White Bread in the Oven

Whole Wheat Bread with Olive Oil and Brewer’s Yeast

Ingredients

1 loaf

Flour, premium wheat 2 cups (260 g)
Flour, whole-grain rye 2.5 cups (315 g)
Bread kvass 350 ml
Instant dry yeast (11 g) 1 packet
Salt 1 tsp (6 g)
Sugar 2 tsp (9 g)
Wine vinegar 1 tsp
Vegetable oil 2 tbsp
Barley coffee substitute 1 tbsp (optional)
Flour for dusting a little

Step-by-step recipe

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How to knead the dough

Sift all the flour. This is important.
Mix the wheat flour, salt, sugar and yeast thoroughly in a bowl. A mixer with spiral dough hooks is very handy for this. Even cheap mixers come with these attachments. We have some fancy mixer that not only stirs everything in the bowl but also rotates the bowl itself for even mixing. For a darker rye bread, you can add 1 tbsp of a barley coffee substitute to the dough, such as “Kolosok” or “Kurzeme”, if you can find it, of course. It used to be everywhere, especially when coffee disappeared from the shops in the early 1990s. Everyone drank barley coffee, without much pleasure, but they drank it.
Pour in the bread kvass, stirring constantly. If the kvass is very sweet, you can add a little wine vinegar. Make sure there are no lumps; if needed, use a spoon to crush them in the dough.
When the liquid dough is as smooth as it will get, pour in the vegetable oil, stir until smooth, then add the whole-grain rye flour.
Knead the dough by hand. From this point the mixer may not cope with the load, so it is better to keep mixing by hand. Gradually add the rye flour and knead the dough on a table dusted with the same flour. The dough should be uniform, smooth, very soft and hardly stick to your hands.

How to proof the dough

Let the dough rise the first time: roll it into a ball, put it in a bowl, cover with a clean cloth and leave in a warm place. The dough should rise and double in volume, or more. This usually takes 45 minutes, an hour at most.
Punch the dough down and let it rise fully: mix it a little to release the carbon dioxide, dust generously with rye flour and put it back in the bowl. It is best if the bowl is round. Cover the bowl with a cloth and let the dough rise again. Then knead it once more and let it rise fully.

How to bake the bread

Shape the loaf: preheat the oven to 220°C. Line a baking tray with baking paper and dust it with flour. Without touching the dough with your hands, turn the bowl over so the dough drops onto the paper. You get a beautiful round loaf. You can score the surface with a knife in a decorative pattern, very lightly, literally just scratching it, or leave it as it is. During baking any unevenness on the surface will open up or crack. It is also worth dusting the loaf lightly with flour.
Many people prefer a shiny, smooth crust; for that they smooth the surface with wet hands or brush it with a glaze. I like bread with a slightly cracked surface and a light dusting of flour, as I remember it from childhood.
Bake the bread: put the tray into the oven right away and immediately lower the temperature to 200°C. Don’t touch, check or fuss over the bread while it bakes. At 200°C bake it for exactly 20 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 180°C and bake for another 30 minutes. The bread is done when the crust is golden brown.
Take the bread out and let it cool completely. Hot bread won’t slice properly, it just squashes, and eating hot bread isn’t really good for you anyway.

Serving

Slice the bread with a serrated knife: that keeps the crust crisp and the loaf in shape. The bread is wonderfully tasty. On this day my family cooks nothing else, only fresh rye bread. And kvass or tea. True, people spread all sorts of things on it: cherry jam, sauces, or they make sandwiches. But still, nothing beats simply fresh bread.

Calories and macros

284 kcal

100 g

Protein7.7 g12% of kcal
Fat4.1 g14% of kcal
Carbs48.7 g74% of kcal

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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