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
I am new at making bread completely from scratch. Two questions: 1) please specify the exact kind of yeast for this recipe. 2) do I dissolve the yeast in warm water first as instructed on the yeast package or do you dump the dry package of yeast directly in the bowl?
I use instant dry yeast which does not need to be proofed in warm water first.
Have you ever made this with bread flour instead of the all purpose flour?
Yes I have. The bread flour has a different protein level and it bakes up quite nicely in pretty much any bread recipe.
I used my cast iron skillet in place of a pizza stone, turned out great! I’ll be making it again soon, love it!
Looks good. How long does this stay fresh?
It’s best eaten within 24 hours.
I’m on a quest to make simple, delicious rye bread. After reading your recipe I think I’ve been using too much rye flour. More seemed better but wasn’t. Cutting back helped but not enough. Printing this out, grabbing the caraway from the pantry, and heading to the kitchen. Looks like we’ll have a nice rye with our moose, veggie and barley soup tonight. Thank you!
Hi Rachel, I just finished making a couple of marble rye breads, and I did put them in bread pans, that were placed on top of a pizza stone when baked in a 200C oven with a water pan and they did keep a nice crust albeit not as crusty as yours would be on the bottom.
I did this because I usually get misshapen loaves, so I will give your method a try next time!
Thanks for the share.
Cheers!
What if I do not have a pizza stone?
You can cook it on a sheet pan, but you won’t get the same thick chewy crust.
In the video, it says 1 1/2 Tablespoons of salt. The written recipe says 1 1/2 teaspoons. Which is correct?
Several people complained about the salt level. As someone who has a sodium deficiency I decided to defer to their opinions.
Two questions: Why don’t you need sugar & can it be baked in a bread pan?
You don’t need sugar because this bread doesn’t need to be sweet. I don’t recommend baking it in a bread pan as the crust will not form correctly.
I think this could probably be a wonderful recipe with a third of the tablespoon and a half of salt that is called for. After dutifully adding the entire TABLESPOON and a half which is listed in the ingredients and which yielded a VERY, VERY salty bread, I have noted that most other rye bread recipes call for just one and a half TEASPOONS of salt.
The recipe says a teaspoon and a half ?