Polish Cottage Rye Bread

Today I made some rye bread, again from the book, "Local Breads" by Daniel Leader page 327.

I enjoy reading his little stories of how he came by the recipes.

Luckily I had two rye starters going, as the one I had for this recipe didn't rise, but I put it in anyway and added some of my other rye starter. The only major difference is that I used one teaspoonful of vital gluten, as this recipe calls for unbleached bread flour that is high in gluten. I didn't have that so I just used my regular flour and added the gluten. I wanted to make sure this dough did rise, so I added 1 package of dry yeast, no extra water.

The recipe said the dough would be sticky, as you can see in the first picture, it was. The fermention of the dough turned out great, in second picture. It is rising in a colander, I don't have a banneton. (Maybe as a Christmas gift, from one of my children??? HINT) But I was surprised because I thought it turned out great, as you can see from the picture where the bread is in the oven.

I baked the bread for 40 minutes and did the thumping because a toothpick wouldn't go through. It sounded done, but I think Daniel is correct on adding 5 more minutes in the oven, as the bread wasn't quite done as I would have liked. I think you can notice that from the last picture. But the finished bread was beautiful and tasted great! (Croc, you're right, it does taste like the rye crackers) I enjoyed it with butter and my daughter with some honey.