Black Russian Rye // LA Times (adapted from The Bread Bible)

The LA Times published an article yesterday on "old world" breads, "Old World breads boast layers of taste." One of the recipes that they reprinted came from Beth Hensperger's Bread Bible and called for chocolate and minced shallot as well as caraway seeds, fennel seeds, rye, wheat, and cornmeal. Here's my Black Russian Rye:

 

The method for this bread is to melt the chocolate and butter with the cider vinegar, mix the flours, and then add the liquids (melted chocolate mixture plus the dissolved yeast) to a couple of cups of the flours. The recipe states that you may not need all of the flour mix to get the right consistency. I had already started mixing before I realized that I couldn't find my caraway seeds (my spice cabinet is like a sock drawer: odds go missing), so I was able to use all of the flours and even a little extra AP. A fully seeded version would be drier.

The dough rose very vigorously (as it should, with two packets' worth of yeast) and, though it deflated some in shaping, popped up again quickly. The cuts were easy to make.

The loaf on the right in the picture acquired a whitish cast. I believe this is because I moistened my hands to transfer the loaves to the pan, but that's just a guess.

Very tasty, very quick. I would expect that a true "old world rye" would be the traditional sourdough, but this is a good one for special occasions. And I like shallots. Yum.