With my family visiting for a few weeks I really had a craving to make a true Danish Rye bread. I didn’t want them to have to bring any, and I had yet to find something I liked locally after Blakey’s bakery closed a few years back. I have scoured the Internet and my books for recipes, but none have really hit the spot or had quite the right ingredients – some had caraway seeds, some no whole rye kernels. I finally just tried putting rye flour and rye kernels together and got some decent results. That meant more research and I was able to find a few key points that led me to my final recipe. The Pullman pan with cover and to cook the bread low and slow. This post got me quite a bit of the way there.
After purchasing the pan I tried two times to make the right bread. The flavor was right and cooking time probably a little on the short time (3 hours at 300F), but the loaves looked like they had collapsed. I mixed up the following recipe and raised the temp to 325F for 3 hours and 20 minutes and it came out beautiful! I really tried to model this recipe after the coarse types of rye bread in Denmark like “Skovmandsbrød”.
- 2 cups sour dough starter (100 gram rye flour, 100 gram boiled rye kernels, 150 grams water, 1/4 tsp yeast – sit out for 48 hours covered)
- 2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp yeast
- 3 tbsp sesame seeds
- 2 tbsp flax seeds
- 1/2 cup non-roasted sunflower seeds
- 3 cups boiled rye kernels
- 6 cups rye flour
- 2 tbsp molases
The flour and rye kernels are all from Mississippi Market. I boil the rye kernels because the end product comes out too hard with the rye kernels left unsoaked and the boiling process makes them nice and soft quickly. I basically cover them in water and bring them to a boil and quickly turn off the heat. Then let them cool and use both the water and the rye kernels in the bread. I let the dough sit for almost two days, until it’s both completely inflated and deflated – it seemed to help with the rise. If I didn’t the bread rose unevenly in the oven in a V-shape. Reserve 2 cups of the dough for the sourdough starter and the rest will fit beautiful in the Pullman pan.
It has taken me quite a while to get this right as I started on the post in June, but finally I can eat a real Danish style rye bread for lunch!
