Light Rye bread

Lately, I have started to bake more and more bread using rye and rye wholemeal flour.
 I read that Rye, a cereal grain, is a very good source of fibre.  Because it is difficult to separate the germ and bran from the endosperm of rye,  rye flour actually retains a large quantity of nutrients in contrast to refined wheat flour.



It doesn't just give you a feeling of fullness and satiety,  also at the same time it cleanses your colon, speeding up your digestion.  It is a real help for anyone who wants to lose weight, as well as to promote gastro health, is a better grain choice for diabetics, and more..
I noticed that too after I added this in my diet.

I observed, most recipes uses wholemeal or white flour to lighten the texture as rye is lower gluten than an average white loaf.  I have then experimented with different ratios of wholemeal flour, wholemeal rye flour and rye flour itself.  This is one of the basic rye bread recipes.  I will put up some other of my rye bread recipes later.

Rye bread has a rich taste especially if you add molasses instead of sugar or honey. It's a very hearty taste which I adore.  I plan to keep rye bread in my regular diet from now on.
Try it, you won't regret it.

Here's the recipe:
Water, luke-warm:  300ml
Butter or margarine:  20g  ( I used grapeseed oil)
Salt:  1 teaspoon
Molasses:   2 tablespoons
Caraway seeds:  1 tablespoon
Skim milk powder:   1 tablespoon
Bread improver:  1 teaspoon  ( I used natural yogurt 2 tablespoons)
Wholemeal flour :  460g
Rye flour:  100g
Dry yeast:  1 and 1/2 teaspoons


Method 1:( I used this).
Bread machine
Wet ingredients goes in first.  Molasses on one side  and salt on the other side, next comes the butter (or oil), yogurt, skim milk powder, caraway seeds, flours and last, the yeast.
Set menu to "Rye" and press "start".
On completion, let bread sits in container for 10 minutes.  Let it cool on wire rack after that.




Method 2:
Hand knead
Tip flours, yeast and salt into a bowl. In a jug, mix the molasses ( or honey) with 300ml of lukewarm water, pour the liquid into the bowl and mix to form a dough. Rye flour can be quite dry and absorbs lots of water, if the dough looks too dry add more warm water until you have a soft dough.

Tip out onto your working surface and knead for 10 minutes until smooth. Rye contains less gluten than white flour so the dough will not feel as springy as a conventional white loaf.

 Place the dough in a well oiled bowl, cover with cling film and leave to rise in a warm place for 1 -2 hours or until roughly doubled in size.  Dust a loaf tin with flour.

 Tip the dough back onto your work surface and knead briefly to knock out any air bubbles.

Add caraway seeds in the dough. Shape into a smooth oval loaf and pop into your tin. Cover tin with oiled cling flilm and leave to rise somewhere warm for a further 1-1.5 hr, or until doubled in size.

Heat oven to 220C/200C . Dust the surface of loaf with rye flour. Slash a few incisions on an angle and bake for 30 minutes or until dark brown and sound hollow when tapped.

 Transfer to a wire cooling rack and leave to cool.