Bread Baking Babes gather round a kitchen table in Vienna this month but travel north for a Swedish Rye Bread.  Our kitchen of the month is Astrid from Paulchen’s Food Blog.  I do thank you for this one Astrid, we are loving it … again.  Yes, it’s so good, I’ve already baked it twice.

Swedish Rye Bread

Mix water(I juiced the oranges and replace that with an equal amount of the water) and honey. Whisk yeast, flour, dry milk, orange zest and seeds together.  I started with about 2 cups of the dry mix and added the liquid; then continued adding the flour mix a cup at a time. Stirring well after each addition. The recipe uses bread flour in step one so there’s going to be a lot of gluten development going on during this step.  The “dough” in this stage is of mud like consistency.  Angle the spoon and your bowl aiming for a circular top to bottom motion.  There is no kneading the dough right now but beating the dough with the spoon is going to develop gluten.  Be sure  to scrape the sides of the bowl from time to time.Beat well with a spoon (100 strokes).
Continue to beat until you have a smooth dough. Again pull your spoon under the dough and bring it up to the surface again in a circular mode. The batter will be getting more elastic while you are doing this as more and more air gets incorporated.Cover the bowl with a damp towel or shower cap and let rise in a warm place about 45 minutes.

Sprinkle on the salt and pour on the oil. Stir around the side of the bowl working carefully your way towards the center. Rotate your bowl a little with every stroke you do. Repeat until all of the salt and oil is incorporated.

Sprinkle the flax seed and the flour 1/2 a cup at a time onto the dough. Again fold it in while rotating your bowl.

When you can no longer continue to mix in the flour, the dough is ready to give it a good knead!
Plop your dough on your kneading board and scrap all remaining from the bowl onto the dough.  Keep in mind that your surface should be floured enough to prevent the dough from sticking to much on the board.

Flour your hands and the top of the dough. From the middle of your down stretch it away from you and then fold it back onto the remaining part of the dough. Continue to push down and forward.

Turn the dough a quarter turn. Again continue with the pushing and folding.

Turn, fold, push. Rock forward. Twist and fold as you rock back. Be careful not to stretch the dough too much and tear it. Add flour to the boards as needed.

Be mindful that you may not need that entire last cup of whole wheat or white whole wheat flour for kneading.  Don’t add more flour than needed.

While you continue with the kneading the dough will become more and more elastic, smooth and shiny.
When you are finished, place the dough in your lightly oiled bowl smooth side down, then turn it over so the dough ball is covered lightly with oil. This will prevent the dough from forming a crust on the top while rising.
Cover the bowl with a damp towel again and set aside to rise in a warm place. (50-60 minutes until doubled in size)

Punch down your dough with your fists steadily and firmly about 15-20 times.
Let rise again 40-50 minutes until doubled in size again.

Preheat your oven to 350°F.

Turn your dough onto the board again.
Form the dough into a ball. Cut the dough into two even pieces and form smaller balls again. Let rest for 5 minutes.

Knead the dough and fold it about 5 times, this gives the dough added spring. After the final push turn the dough a quarter turn.

Roll up the dough into a log shape. Seam at the bottom, flatten the top of the dough. Square the sides and ends. Turn the dough over and pinch the seams all the way.
Put the dough seam side down into your pan.

Press it down into the pan with your fingers; try to square it into the corners.
Cover and let rise again. This will take 20-25 minutes.

Cut the top with 1/2 inch deep slits to allow the steam to escape.
You can brush with egg wash and sprinkle with poppy seeds or sesame.
Bake for about 50-60 minutes.  (My long skinny triple loaf pan took 50 minutes to reach 206° internal temp; the regular loaf pan took 65 minutes to reach 204°).

I am a firm believer that bread baking is not rocket science but I do find an instant read thermometer an invaluable tool in determining when a loaf is done.

That phrase:  cool completely.  That’s really super significant when baking rye bread.  Cool completely means let it cool to room temperature.  I just leave my thermometer in a loaf and check it IF I don’t just leave it over night to cool.  It takes way longer to cool when you’re smelling gorgeous hot bread baking and itching to cut into it.  Slice into a warm loaf of rye and you’ll be disappointed with a gummy interior.

Since I baked this twice, we’ve enjoyed almost three loaves.  The fourth will be next.  Uuu, no I didn’t give any of these away.  Well, you know not everybody loves rye like we do, I wouldn’t want to give a loaf to someone who might not like rye … yes I guess I could have asked them if they liked rye but they might have said yes when they really didn’t mean it … OK so I just wanted this for myself, I admit it.

What did I do with it:

This is far from what I would consider a difficult bread.  But it’s not the easiest bread either.  Still this is such a gorgeous flavored bread that I would really encourage you to bake it … especially if you enjoy rye because you see I’m probably not going to share mine with you 😉

You probably know the routine now:  Be a Buddy by baking, posting by the 28th of this month, send a photo, a short comment and a link to your blog (link not necessary if you don’t have a blog) and Kitchen Of the Month Astrid from Paulchen’s Food Blog will include you in the Buddy Round Up and send you a sharp looking Buddy Badge.Not only is she the BBB Kitchen of the Month, she’s also hosting Bread Baking Day so if you want to participate in that read her post here.