Homemade Bread Made From Rye And Spelled

Bread made from rye is a tradition in Central and Eastern Europe. In combination with spelled, it gets a less severe taste.

Rye bread has been a staple food in Europe for centuries. Spelled is also a traditional grain that has only been used more intensively in the last few years. The combination of both types of grain creates a hearty, nutty mixed bread.

Rye bread: traditional pastries

Unfortunately, rye bread is increasingly becoming a niche product because it is not so easy to bake with chemical raising agents. Bread with rye as the main grain is increasingly being replaced by mixed wheat breads. But why?

A rye bread can only be called that if at least 90% of the flour used is rye. However, rye has different baking properties than wheat, for example, because this grain can only be baked into bread with the help of sourdough (or other acidification).

Rye flour contains ingredients that break down starch and which can be slowed down in this process by acidification.

However, making a dough with sourdough requires time, which is no longer available in modern large bakeries. Take your time and learn how to bake bread with rye and spelled yourself!

What is spelled

Spelled has recently been marketed as particularly healthy and people are grabbing it because they don’t know that spelled is really just a type of wheat and that there are hardly any differences in metabolism during digestion.

However, the taste is more nutty than the familiar wheat bread and the color of the flour is darker, which makes it look healthier.

So spelled is not fundamentally healthier than other types of wheat, such as “primeval wheat” or emmer. Baked goods with a high proportion of spelled flour dry faster than baked goods made from other types of flour, which is why spelled is rarely used on its own.

In addition, spelled is a bit sensitive during the production of the dough, so you should not only use it for doughs that are kneaded for long and a lot (e.g. yeast dough), but mix it with rye for bread, for example.

What is rye

Outside of Central and Eastern Europe, bread made from rye and the grain rye in general are hardly or not at all common. Due to the baking properties of rye flour, this bread is always firmer, juicier and finer-pored than bread made from other types of grain. It also has a typical, spicy taste.

Because baked goods made from rye flour always have to be acidified, they are not suitable for today’s fast-paced industrial production of bread, which is why pure rye bread is becoming increasingly rare.

Pumpernickel, a bread made from 100% rye, is an exception. Dare to bake roe bread!

sourdough

Sourdough is a leavening agent that ensures that the bread rises up loosely during baking, similar to yeast or baking powder. Sourdough also improves the digestibility of flour and is rarely used today because it takes time.

You can make sourdough yourself by mixing rye flour with water and fermenting it with lactic acid. You can also buy ready-made sourdough in stores, which saves you the time-consuming manufacturing step. Sourdough can be bought dry or liquid.

Recipe for bread made from rye and spelled

It is important that you observe the rest times so that the sourdough can do its work and bind the rye flour. For two loaves of bread or a large round loaf you need:

• 250g fresh sourdough (finished product or self-prepared)
• 350g spelled flour
• 200g rye flour
• 10g fresh yeast
• 1 high teaspoon of salt
• 300-350ml water

Mix the two flours together and set them aside. Then stir the lukewarm water (start with 300 ml) with the salt, the yeast and the sourdough. Then knead both mixtures into a dough. If the dough is too dry, add a little more water so that the dough becomes pliable.

Let the dough rest, covered, until it doubles in volume. Depending on the temperature, this can take up to 2 hours.

Knead the dough briefly (!) And divide it in half. Spread each half of the dough out into a flat sheet of dough that is as wide as the loaf pan is long. Then roll up the dough and place them with the “seam” facing down in a loaf pan that has been dusted with flour.

Then cover both loaf tins and let the dough rest again until it has clearly risen. Preheat the oven to 250 ° C and place a fireproof bowl of water in it. Bake the bread for 40-45 minutes, take it out of the mold immediately and let it cool on a wire rack.

Tip: If you don’t have two loaf tins, you can put the entire amount of dough in a springform pan. Then you have to bake the bread for at least 50-60 minutes.