Delicious Homemade Rye Bread doesn’t get much simpler than this bakery style artisan bread. Caraway and rye flour gives the bread its distinct flavor. And guess what? No machines required! You can make this bread by hand!
Rye is one of our family favorites, but we can never find it in our local bakeries. It is a bread that is full of flavor and brings an interesting twist to sandwiches. Classic sandwiches using rye bread are pastrami on rye, tuna on rye, and corned beef on rye, but you could use rye in a variety of different sandwiches to bring out a new flavor. Or you can go the route of my children who just devour it plain. Seriously, who would have thought little kids would love rye bread so much?
This recipe is super simple to put together, gives some great bread making techniques, and makes a lovely light rye. I’ve also included instructions for a dark rye that has cocoa powder and molasses in it if you’d like to try your hand at that.
How to make Bakery Style Rye Bread:
The key to making great bakery-style bread at home is all in the method. Bakeries use steam ovens to get that wonderful chewy crust. You can create your own steam oven by placing a shallow pan of water in the oven with your bread. The water will evaporate in the heat, filling your oven with steam.
Using a baking stone or pizza stone is vital to creating both the perfect crust and the perfect crumb. Bakeries use fancy ovens of the masonry variety. See, the oven in your house cooks using radiated (the flame or the electrical elements) and convected heat (the air moving around the oven. A convection oven has fans to assist in the circulation of the air). A masonry oven is able to use conduction on top of convection and radiated heat. Masonry ovens utilize stone, just as their name suggests. Stone retain heat really well. When you put a loaf of bread directly on a hot stone, the stone transfers its heat to the bread through conduction. So when you use a pizza/baking stone, you are literally adding a third heating method into your oven. Isn’t that awesome? There’s your science lesson for the day!
Don’t have a mixer? No problem! Watch the video below where I show you how to make this bread by hand! No machines required. It’s THAT simple!
This recipe first appeared on The Stay At Home Chef on January 30, 2013
Only had dark rye flour so went with dark rye.
Used 1 1/2 cups water in cookie sheet, and was bone dry when I removed the bread at 20 min.
Was a little worried, when I went to brush the loaf, and cut it, and it fell pretty flat from the last rise.
But it rose again baking.
Bread was very good. Didn’t butter a slice till the 3rd piece.
Why does it not call for any butter or oil in the bread? And could you add it?
Artisan style breads are not enriched with butter or oil. You could add it, but you would no longer end up with an artisan-style loaf with a crispy crust.
Hi! I’ve made regular bread but never Rye bread. This was super easy! The taste was amazing! I’ll never buy store bought Rye again!
Thank you so much for sharing!
I made this bread for friends today. Everyone loved the bread. I doubled the recipe and followed it “to a T” including the cornstarch wash.
Thanks so much for sharing this wonderful and easy recipe.
Tastes great, I used a little less flour and kneaded for about 5 minutes. It needed to bake for 40 minutes for the center to reach 200 degrees.
This recipe tastes good. I just only added 2 tbs honey and flax seed in mine since I didn’t have any caraway seeds.
I don’t normally leave comments on food blogs, but here I am making my second 6-loaf batch of the day. I just found this recipe today and bravely decided to try it in a large batch based on the reviews. Between five kids, my husband and me, we cleaned up almost two whole loaves while “testing it”, which is why I am currently making a second batch. I baked them in regular stainless steel loaf pans and splashed water on the bottom of my oven for steam, and they are beautiful! A double recipe will make 3 standard loaves, and 4x fills six loaf pans. I cut the water back by 1/4c. per loaf, and that seemed to be just right. I love how fast this dough rises. It is a very quick, easy make. This will be the perfect accompaniment to Borsch soup that I’m making for a church meal!
Excellent recipe. I made the dark rye bread. I didn’t have molasses on hand so a mixture of cocoa and corn syrup was substituted. Topped bread with Everything Bagel Mix and baked in a Dutch oven. Crispy Crust! Great flavor!
Love this recipe but I found I had to add more flour both times I made it. Wondered if you lived on a different altitude than I do. Anyway, just slowly added more until it came together properly and seemed to turn out well.