Ever since I returned from my trip to Germany, I’ve had a low-grade obsession with bread. Bread is plentiful, simple and good in Germany, and I sought to replicate that at home.
By some stroke of Google luck, I stumbled across Pete Bakes! There, I found the strangest recipe for rye, a recipe that unlike every recipe I’ve ever seen, doesn’t require kneading dough until you have muscles like the Incredible Hulk. This recipe requires no kneading. None. Crazy, right? It couldn’t possibly work, right? Ha! Best bread EVER. I’m going to copy the recipe here and add notes where applicable. And then I’m going to put the Artisan Bread book on my Christmas wish list.
Deli-Style Rye Bread
Makes four 1-lb loaves. From Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.
3 cups lukewarm water (yeast likes the water to be about 110 F/43.3 C)
1 1/2 Tbsp yeast (I used active yeast from a jar, not instant)
1 1/2 Tbsp salt (kosher)
1 1/2 Tbsp caraway seeds, plus more for sprinkling
1 cup rye flour
5 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I used King Arthur flour because they use hard wheat, which is better for bread texture)
cornmeal for sprinkling
cornstarch for cornstarch wash
1. Mix the yeast, salt and caraway seeds with the water in a large bowl. Mix in the remaning dry ingredients without kneading. Cover with a towel and allow to rest at room temperature for about 2 hours. At this point, you can prepare the dough for baking or store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. (Note: mine sat in the fridge for 7 days and was delicious.)
2. Dust the surface of the dough with flour and cut off 1/4 of the dough. Dust the piece with more flour and quickly shape it into a ball. Elongate the ball into an oval-shaped loaf. Allow it to rest and rise on a cornmeal covered surface (pizza peel if you’re going to transfer to a baking stone or a baking sheet if you’re baking right on the baking sheet) for 40 minutes.
3. Preheat the oven to 450 F with an empty broiler tray on the shelf underneath the one you plan to bake on. Heat the baking stone up with the oven if you are using one.
4. Make the cornstarch wash by combining 1/2 tsp cornstarch with a small amount of water to form a paste. Add 1/2 cup water, whisk and microwave for about 60 seconds. Paint the top of the loaf with the cornstarch wash and then sprinkle on caraway seeds. Slash with a deep parallel cuts across the loaf using a serrated bread knife.
5. Bake the loaf on a baking sheet or slide it onto the hot baking stone. Bake for 30 minutes. as you put the bread in the oven to bake, pour 1 cup of hot tap water into the broiler tray and quickly close the oven door. (Note: I noticed that my bread was starting to get dark at the 25-minute mark, so I loosely draped the loaves with foil for the final 5 minutes.
6. Bread is cooked when it sounds hollow when tapped. Allow to cool before slicing or eating.