Breadchick's Dark Onion Rye

This was supposed to be Dark Onion Rye, courtesy of Breadchick from The Sour Dough - this month's Bread Baking Babes host, however, dark rye flour wasn’t available here, so I had to go with what they had which was just “rye flour.”

The idea of trying this rye bread (along with being bestowed the title of 'Bread Baking Buddy'!) excited me. I’ve been on the sourdough bandwagon for some time now. When I moved here, I retired my 11 year old starter that I had made during my first year of graduate school back in 1996 because I couldn't take it through security with me. Can you imagine trying to explain it to TSA? When I first moved to Akron that year, I had very little money for entertainment, so I bought myself “Bread Alone” by David Leader. The bread gods must have been smiling down at me, because the creation of my first rye starter was a complete success. I baked a loaf or two every week, freezing the starter when I’d be away for long periods like visiting family or doing field research.

It was sad to see such a great starter go into the annals of my baking history, but I told myself that this would give me the opportunity to try different starters. When I came to Alaska, I purchased Peter Reinhart’s “Crust and Crumb” after totally LOVING his “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.” I started with his wheat flour barm and never made it to the rye starters. His barm was consistent, lively, and had great flavor. I’ve been using it for nearly a year now for breads, bagels, and pancakes. It wasn’t until I saw what the Bread Baking Babes were doing this month that I decided to venture down the rye starter path once more.

I mixed up Breadchick’s sourdough starter, and diligently coddled to life this past week. There was a fine wine like aroma that was less acidic and more 'rich' than my wheat barm starter.

Yesterday morning I made the sponge and let it sit out for just over 10 hours. Last night I pulled together the dough. I did make one other substitution, I used malt barley syrup instead of molasses. The overall dough looked lighter than what Breadchick had pictured, but that could be the difference in the flours.

I let it proof until doubled which was less time than indicated, so I decided to throw it into a well-floured towel lined bowl and let it retard in the refrigerator overnight for the final proof. Not only would this let me have just-baked bread for lunch today, but the time in the refrigerator would probably let the flavor develop even more.

This morning I pulled out the boule, turned it out onto a parchment lined pan, slashed it and allowed it to come to room temperature (about 1.5 hours) while the oven was heating.

I sprayed it with water and put it into the 400º oven and followed Breadchick’s instruction of baking 20 minutes followed by 25 minutes at 375º. I rotated the pan a few times to make sure the baking was even. I left this to cool before going to work:

When I came back for lunch it was gone. All of it… Apparently the dog decided it was time to practice his ninja skills. I can assure you that he’s usually a well-behaved freak of nature, as well behaved as those can be anyways, but sometimes my creations excite him to the point where he forgoes all knowledge of politeness and obedience and decides stealing something tasty is worth dealing with my anger. Evolution is a funny thing, however, because it granted him the ultimate trump card – uber super cuteness (how can I be mad at that?):

Looks quite please with himself, doesn't he? Luckily he has the iron constitution, if you get my drift, and the onions in the loaf will only torment us with a bad case of gas instead of a vet visit. I have to take Kramer’s word for how good it was, there was nary a crumb left. So maybe next week we’ll try this again and actually get to sample how it tasted. Thanks for the recipe, it smelled fantastic throughout all stages, I’m sure it will taste just as fantastic when we finally get to try it!