I love rye bread. I love the deep flavors and the taste of caraway. Rye bread makes for some killer sandwiches. Rye bread isn’t always easy to find in the US, unless you are in the east coast or in a town with a high Jewish population. I solve that problem by making my own. I’ve been making light rye bread for years, but have been wanting to develop a darker rye. The flavors are a bit more intense in a dark rye which I absolutely love. This makes a killer sandwich and an amazing piece of toast. I call it a medium dark rye bread because it isn’t super dark in color. If you want a darker rye replace the warm water with brewed coffee. That’ll give it a darker tone.
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!
Are you SURE about the amount of yeast you put in. A tablespoon is 3 teaspoons and I’ve never seen more than 2 teaspoons in a recipe for bread.
Yes, I’m positive 🙂
Charles: I just made this recipe now and it came out perfect, even with so much yeast. -Barbara
Charles, this is late for you but would help others reading the reviews/tips.
Rye flour is heavier than all-purpose so it requires more lift (ie yeast). I’ve discovered what commercial bakers use to lift their baking—DME (Diastatic Malt Extract) purchased at U-Brew shops. It’s a powdered barley, wheat or rice product which gives great rise, texture and golden brown colour to baked items.
Will be in the oven shortly…
Wish you website had a print function instead of ALL the advertisements 🙁
For future reference, if you just click the “print” icon in the recipe you’ll be able to print a clean version with just the recipe.
Going in the oven as we speak!! What a pretty little loaf. Can’t wait to try a sourdough version of this, once my starter begins to wake up a bit! I did leave out the cocoa because in other dark rye recipes I have tried that had cocoa, it gave a very bitter flavour. So I added a tablespoon extra of the molasses, and three tablespoons of gluten for slightly more stretch. Also, I toast my caraway seeds and give it a few pumps in the food processor to break them up a little and release some more of the aroma. My GOODNESS my house smells good right now!!!!
I absolutely LOVE rye bread. Your loaf is beautiful and that crumb is amazing. I have to buy some rye flour and add this to my weekend to do list.
That is a beautiful loaf with a great looking crumb. I used to make rye bread often in my pre-gluten-free days.
You really don't see rye bread around a lot, so true. And usually it won't have the caraway seeds. I never thought to use coffee for a darker loaf. I imagine it adds to the flavor quite a bit, too.
I absolutely love rye bread, and actually just bought rye flour the other day. This looks like the perfect loaf to try it with
I just recently became obsessed with rye bread after years of hating it. Now, I can't get enough. I cannot WAIT to try your version at home!
We all grew up with rye bread mostly at home and for a long time I thought that black bread (as we call it) was common all over the world. Turns out that I can't find rye in Asia right now, miss making this and your rye bread looks absolutely perfect.
What a perfect little loaf of bread! If only I had a slice here for breakfast. 🙂