German Rye Bread

German Rye Bread. The house smells wonderful. The taste is divine.

RECIPE
Mix 2 &1/2 Tsp yeast into 2 Cups warm water. Add 2 Cups rye flour. Whisk until smooth. Cover with saran wrap and set aside for 4 hours.

Stir in 6 TBSP sugar, 2 TBSP Caraway seeds, 2 Tsp salt. Then stir in 2 Cups of warm water, mixing well.

Dump in 5 Cups All-Purpose Flour OR Bread Flour and stir together.

Then add 2 more Cups of All-Purpose or Bread Flour stirring after each cup is added.

Generously flour a large surface. Sprinkle the top of the dough mix with flour before turning out the flour onto the floured surfaced. Coat your hands with flour and knead. This is a VERY moist dough and you'll need to add enough flour to continue kneading into a workable ball. Knead 5-8 minutes. This is not a firm tight stretchy dough. While it does bind nicely, the moisture content is very high.

Cover and rest for 15 minutes.

Spray two large baking sheets with a non-stick spray. Using a coarse cornmeal, create two circles about 8 inches wide on each baking sheet.

Divide the dough into four equal portions. Cover and rest 15 minutes. Shape into four balls. Place the dough balls onto the baking sheets. Score an X into the top of each loaf. Let rise about 45 minutes.

Wash tops with egg water. (Whisk one egg and 1 TBSP water together.) Top with a good sprinkling of caraway seeds. Bake 32 minutes at 400 degrees. I bake mine one pan at a time. It doesn't really affect the rise very much to bake the pans separately.