German Dark Rye Bread

What do you think of when you hear the words, "rye bread?"  If you're anything like me, you're a bit wary.  I've had rye bread before...and I didn't like it!  But one day I tried this recipe, gave it a taste and what do you know?  I LOVE rye bread!  Turns out that much of the rye bread that is presented to us "out there" also tends to include a little something called caraway rye seeds...and THAT is the flavor I don't care for.  Thankfully, when you make your own bread, caraway rye seeds are optional.  If you like the flavor, go ahead and add it.  But if you think you don't like rye bread, try making this bread and omitting the caraway seeds altogether.  This bread is fantastic on its own or used for sandwich bread, or simply toasted with peanut butter or cream cheese on top.  You can't go wrong!  Especially when you discover that there is **chocolate** in this bread! ;)

3 1/2 c. rye flour
2 1/2 c. bread flour (or all-purpose flour)
2 T. vital wheat gluten
2 tsp. yeast
2 c. warm water
1/4 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. molasses
3 T. cocoa powder
1 T caraway rye seeds--**optional**
2 t. salt
1/4 c. butter, melted

Oven temperature: 400 degrees

Start out by combining your rye and all-purpose flours together in your mixing bowl.  (The rye is the darker flour on the left side of my mixing bowl.)

You also want to get the yeast developing, so go ahead and start that process.  As always, use very warm, but not hot, water--too hot kills the yeast, too cool doesn't activate it as well or quickly.  Add the yeast and the brown sugar to the warm water.

Give the water/sugar/yeast mixture a quick stir, then let it sit while you get your remaining ingredients going for the bread.

Add the salt and vital wheat gluten to the flour in the mixing bowl.

Now for the important part...the cocoa powder!  It, along with the molasses, helps to give the bread its deep, rich color.

At this point, I give the dry ingredients a quick whirl so that they are well combined.  (If you are using caraway rye seeds, this is the time to add them.)

Measure out the molasses.

Here's a hint for you.  Before pouring the molasses into your measuring cup, spritz the cup with non-stick spray.  The molasses will then come out of the cup with ease rather than sticking to the sides.

Also, remember that when you are measuring wet ingredients, you want to get down at eye level with where the numbers on the measuring cup.  If you are standing and looking down at your measuring cup, odds are you will actually be a bit shy of having enough of the liquid.  In this next picture, you can see that at eye level, the molasses measures very close to the 1/4 cup mark on my measuring cup.

Go ahead and pour the molasses into the mixing bowl.

At this point, the yeast has been activated and it's a good time to add it to the bowl as well.

Allow things to mix for a few minutes.

After about 3 or 4 minutes, add the melted butter.  Now the dough will get really sticky.

You can see that the dough sticks heavily to the bottom of the mixing bowl.

With a little time, the dough sticks more to itself than to the bowl.  You'll end up kneading the dough for approximately 8-10 minutes total.

Once the dough is no longer sticking to the bottom of the mixing bowl, you can go ahead and place it in another bowl to rise for an hour.  Spray the bowl with non-stick spray just to make sure the dough doesn't stick to it too much.  Do the same for the plastic wrap you place over the top.  This dough isn't much to look at at this point.  It doesn't look particularly appealing...but don't give up on it yet!

Dough at rest (prior to plastic wrap).

Dough an hour later.  It's not a phenomenal rise, but it has definitely changed.

Pour the dough out of the bowl and shape it to place it into your loaf pan.  Allow it to rise again for another hour.  I purchased an extra-long sandwich loaf pan for this specific recipe.  I love the length of the pan and that it's narrow enough to give the bread good height during the 2nd rise.

Dough at rest once again:

Dough an hour later.  A more significant rise.

As you can see, it's harder to obtain a perfect loaf of bread the longer the pan...but who cares about looks; the taste is what matters!

At this point, it's time to throw it in the preheated 400-degree oven and allow it to bake for 40 minutes.

When the baking time is up, remove the loaf from the oven and allow it to cool for 5-10 minutes in the pan.

After letting it cool for a bit, remove the bread from the pan and allow it to finish cooling on a rack.

You should really let the bread cool fully before cutting into it.  On this particular day, I had children hungrily staring at the bread, so I cut into it soon after it came out of the oven.  So my bread has some darker spots here and there in the middle from all the moisture (steam) that was still very much in the bread.

Still tasted great.  Slather on a little butter and enjoy!