If you have Sue Becker’s cookbook “The Essential Home Ground Flour Book” this is her Black Russian Rye Bread recipe – but I tweaked it a bit to how I like it.

I do think it’s easier to bake these into loaves with bread pans instead of free-formed boules, but you can do whatever you like!

This bread is DELICIOUS if you love a good, dark, ,hardy German or Russian bread. If you’re not a fan of these dark breads, this isn’t the bread for you ha

Dark Russian Rye Bread

Original recipe is from Sue Becker, but I've tweaked a few things to my liking!

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Servings 2 loaves

Ingredients

  

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• 2 1/2 cups water
• 1/4 cup vinegar white vinegar is what I usually use, but apple cider vinegar works well too
• 1/2 cup blackstrap molasses can substitute with light or dark molasses, but blackstrap will give you a richer and better flavor
• 1/4 cup butter
• 2 TB dehydrated minced onion or 1 TB onion powder
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tsp instant coffee can also use instant espresso OR replace 1 cup of the water with 1 cup of strongly brewed coffee and omit the instant coffee
• 1 1/2 TB salt
• 4 cups freshly milled rye flour mill about 3 cups of rye berries
• 2 1/2 TB caraway seeds don't skip the caraway seeds! This is what gives rye its typical rye-bread-flavor.
• 2 TB instant yeast
• 4-5 cups freshly milled hard white wheat flour mill about 3-4 cups of wheat berries. Can use hard red wheat, but it will change the flavor a bit due to hard red being more flavorful.

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Instructions

 

• In a small saucepan on low heat, combine water, vinegar, molasses, butter, minced onion, cocoa, coffee, and salt. Heat until butter is JUST melted. Do NOT heat this to boiling or crazy hot. You just want it warm like water you use in typical bread baking. If this is too hot, when you add it to your yeast it can kill your yeast.
• In a large mixing bowl or mixer, combine your warm molasses mixture, all of the rye flour, caraway seeds, and mix together. The batter will be thick. Sprinkle yeast over top and add 2 cups of hard white wheat flour.
• With mixer on, slowly start to add in a bit of hard white wheat flour (about 1/4 cup at a time) until the dough just starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl and starts to form a lump of dough. The amount of flour may vary from day-to-day just like with my Simple Yeast Bread Loaf recipe. When the dough starts pulling away from the sides of the bowl, stop adding flour and start your kneading time.
• Knead in a mixer (for my Bosch Universal Mixer Plus, I knead on the 1 or 2 setting; for the Nutrimill Artiste, I knead on the 4-5 setting) for about 5 minutes. The dough should be smooth and elastic and slightly tacky.
• Divide dough into 2 even size dough balls. You can choose to do a free-form boule style bread, but I prefer to bake in loaf pans. For each ball of dough, shape bread like I always do in my Simple Yeast Bread recipe. Roll dough out into a rough rectangle. On one long side, slight stretch out dough and fold over about 2/3 of the way. On the other long side, slightly stretch out dough and fold over the previous fold. Then turn the long rectangle of dough and roll up like a sleeping bag. Smooth over all edges. You want the top to be very smooth, the sides to be very smooth with no seams. Place in greased bread pans.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F while bread is rising. Rise bread in bread pans until they're about 1 inch above the bread pan (this does depend on what size pans you're using). Rising will take about 30-45 minutes. You're wanting the bread to double in size.
• Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for about 45-50 minutes (or until internal temp is 190 degrees F). Loaves will be nice and browned.
• Once baked, let loaves rest in bread pans for about 10 minutes, then remove to cooling racks to cool. Rest bread on its side while cooling!
• Slice and enjoy!

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