Yah, yah, yah! I know. Another darn bread recipe. But first and foremost, this is my blog. So I get to choose which preparations I plan to develop and then if they work out, which recipes I want to share with all of you. So for those of you who are bread lovers and bakers, please keep reading. Those of you who follow my blog just to keep track of any new trouble I’ve gotten myself into, you may be excused. (I’ve been terribly boring lately, so you will have missed nothing exciting if you read no further.)

But for those of you for whom bread truly is the staff of life, start getting excited. This sourdough ciabatta bread really is easy to prepare, and absolutely delicious. And you get to use more of your sourdough discard. Yea team!

So a couple days ago, I wanted to bake a nice versatile bread to serve with dinner that really didn’t need to be buttered, but most definitely could be dunked into a hearty bowl of soup. And be substantial enough in both flavor and texture to hold its own against all the other flavorful ingredients in the soup. And a bread that was flavorful enough to be enjoyed all by itself. (Not asking too much, right?!) Plus, the shape of the bread was also a consideration. I wanted to be able to dunk the bread, and then be able to get the entire dunked end in my mouth without having to go through multiple napkins to stay presentable throughout the meal. (I tend to be kind of messy, so I have to plan ahead.) So I thought about the lovely flat shape, and nice thin pieces you can cut from a loaf of ciabatta bread.

So when I decided ciabatta was the right bread for the occasion, I knew just what additives I wanted to use. And yes, I have other bread recipes (Rustic Sourdough Bread with Garlic, Rosemary, Black Pepper, and Kalamata Olives and Rosemary Olive Bread) on this site that include rosemary and Kalamata olives. And they too are wonderful. But remember the dunked bread to mouth requirement I mentioned above, well the other two recipes just didn’t quite fill the bill in that regard. Plus I absolutely adore the texture of ciabatta bread.

So having bored you almost senseless with the reasons I chose to prepare this ciabatta bread, let me switch to some scintillating repartee to describe how delicious it is. It is YUM! Enough said.

As always, start thinking about cold weather food (soup, stew, chowder, chili, pot roast, etc.), keep remembering how wonderful home baked bread smells as it’s baking, and how comforting it is to your family members to know that someone who loves them is in the kitchen building food for their sustenance and enjoyment. And as the cook, how good it feels to provide that comfort. Peace and love to all.

¾ c. sourdough starter discard

1½ tsp. active dry yeast

¾ c. lukewarm water

1 T. extra virgin olive oil, plus more for greasing the bowl and the unbaked dough   

1 tsp. kosher salt

½ tsp. granulated garlic

1 T. finely chopped fresh rosemary

1 c. Kalamata olives cut in thirds

2½ – 3 c. unbleached all-purpose flour

flaky or coarse salt

Mix the sourdough starter, yeast, and water in the bowl of your stand mixer. Let sit for 5-10 minutes. (However long it takes you to chop the fresh rosemary and cut the Kalamata olives in thirds.)

Add the olive oil, salt, granulated garlic, 2 cups of the flour, chopped rosemary, and sliced olives. Using your dough hook, knead the dough, adding enough more of the flour to make a slightly tacky, smooth, and elastic dough. 

Pour a bit of olive oil along the edge of the mixing bowl. And using a stiff rubber spatula and your hands, form the dough into a ball lightly covered with oil. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it rise for about 90 minutes, or until doubled in size.

Lightly punch down the dough and turn it onto a lightly floured parchment paper lined baking sheet. The baking sheet needs to be large enough to accommodate an approximately 8 x 14-inch rectangle. I use my 13 x 18-inch half sheet cookie pan (also referred to as a jelly roll pan) for this purpose. Pat the dough into a rounded rectangle about 8 x 14-inches. Use additional flour as needed to prevent the dough from sticking to both your hands and the parchment paper.     

Cover the formed dough with a lightly greased piece of plastic wrap and let rise for 60-70  minutes or until slightly puffy.

Toward the end of the rising time, preheat oven to 425 degrees. Just before placing in the oven, brush the ciabatta dough liberally with olive oil and sprinkle lightly with salt.

Bake the bread for 10 minutes at 425 degrees. Then lower the oven temperature to 375 and bake for an additional 15 minutes, or until the bread is a very light brown and the internal temperature has reached at least 200 degrees. 

Turn off the oven, open the door, and allow bread to stay in the cooling oven for about 30 minutes. Then remove to a wire rack to finish cooling. Store in an airtight container or bag in your refrigerator. This recipe can easily be doubled. Lovely lightly toasted just before serving.   

Yes, I know. Everyone who bakes bread has their favorite recipe for whole wheat bread. But we thought this recipe gave us the whole wheat flavor we love, along with the perfect crumb (chewy but not gummy) that we insist upon. And bottom line. This bread was drop dead easy to build.

The only ingredient you may not be familiar with, is Vital Wheat Gluten.* And I must confess, I have not been using vital wheat gluten as much as I should have been even though I have had a bag of it in my pantry for years. So dear reader, if you plan on baking bread using a variety of flour types, this should be a product you use with regularity. I know I am going to begin using it in any of my bread recipes that I feel could use a protein or gluten boost. Maybe only a tablespoon. But I don’t feel it could hurt in any case.

So about this bread. I’ve already stated that it’s very easy to build. But I also need to let you know that it’s quick too. Two rises of course, but they are both short amounts of time. Especially for a bread that contains all whole wheat flour. Sometimes you can wait hours for whole wheat dough to do its thing. Not this baby. Just a couple short rises and your loaf is in the oven.

So I hope you enjoy this simple recipe. I plan to bake this bread often. Not only is it delicious, I feel less guilty eating a piece of toast made with this high protein content bread than in some of the other breads I produce. (Gotta get me my protein wherever possible.)

So as always, keep eating healthy, keep finding joy in whatever you do, and stay positive. Not always easy in this day and age. But it makes you a much nicer person to be around. (Note to myself. TAKE YOUR OWN ADVICE!) Peace and love to all.

1½ c. warm water

1 pkg. or 1 T. active dry yeast 

¼ c. honey

3 T. unsalted butter, softened

3¾ c. whole wheat flour (or more as needed)

2 T. vital wheat gluten* (I use Bob’s Red Mill)

1 tsp. kosher salt

extra virgin olive oil

Place the warm water in the bowl of your stand mixer. Sprinkle on the yeast, then add the honey and soft butter. Allow to rest for 10 minutes to allow the yeast to proof.   

Add 2 cups of the flour, the vital wheat gluten, and the salt. Using your dough hook, mix until the ingredients are well combined. Then knead in the rest of the flour (a small amount at a time) until the dough pulls away cleanly from the sides of the bowl. (You may need more or less flour than listed.) The dough should be smooth and elastic when it has been sufficiently kneaded. (This takes several minutes.) 

Pour a bit of olive oil along the side of the mixing bowl, and using a stiff spatula and your hands, form the dough into a ball. The dough ball should be lightly but entirely covered in oil. Cover loosely with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 35 to 45 minutes.

Lightly grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan with non-stick spray. Punch down the dough and shape into a loaf. Place in the prepared pan, cover loosely with greased plastic wrap, and let rise in warm place until doubled in size, 30 to 45 minutes. (Start pre-heating your oven to 350 degrees after 20 minutes.) Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches at least 190 degrees.

Remove from oven, carefully slip the hot bread out of the loaf pan, and allow to cool completely on a wire rack before slicing. Store in a plastic bag in your refrigerator.  

*Vital Wheat Gluten (VWG) is a natural (75-80%) wheat protein. It’s a wonderful additive in bread dough because it’s almost pure gluten. A small amount of VWG goes a long way to improving the elasticity and rise of raw dough and helps create a lovely crumb and chewiness in the final product. Most baking sources recommend about one tablespoon for every 2-3 cups of flour. You can add vital wheat gluten to any bread recipe, but it’s especially effective when baking with flours like whole wheat and rye.  

I love biscuits with my eggs in the morning. There’s just something heavenly about biting into a warm biscuit that has been liberally spread with honey or jam. And because of the sourdough and the bit of whole wheat flour, these biscuits are particularly delicious.

Now sourdough biscuits are never going to be as light as buttermilk biscuits. At least my sourdough biscuits aren’t as light and fluffy. But the flavor is well worth the difference. For me, my favorite biscuit is the one I happen to be eating at the time. And since I happen to have enjoyed one of these biscuits this morning spread with a lovely clover honey and wild huckleberry spread, why would these biscuits not be my favorite? (Well for as long as they last, that is! Or until the next batch of biscuits comes out of the oven.) Anyway, what I am trying to convey, is that these biscuits are really tasty. And ever so easy to make.

Now if you are not as crazy as I am for all things sourdough, I still have you covered. There are two really yummy buttermilk biscuit recipes on this site. So knock yourself out. But if you do love sourdough, give this simple recipe a try.

 I found this recipe on the venisonfordinner.com site. And yes I love venison. But there isn’t a way in hell I could actually shoot a deer. First of all, I would have to own a gun. Which I do not. Then how could I look a deer in the eyes and pull the trigger. I leave that to people who are braver than I am. Or for those, like in New Zealand, who raise deer for the meat. I can enjoy venison then. Or if it’s on a menu. I can do that too. As long as the meat comes wrapped in plastic wrap and is sold at a grocery store, or is presented to me in a restaurant and I don’t have to witness the slaughter, I can conveniently forget that a beautiful animal lost its life so that I could continue to indulge my carnivorous side. (I better stop writing like this or I will have all of us vowing to become vegetarians!) La, la, la – back to biscuits. (BTW – No animals were harmed in the preparation of these biscuits!)

So if you have a sourdough starter that is getting a little long in the tooth, use the discard to build yourself and your family a special breakfast treat. I promise you that you will be happy you did.

So as always, stay healthy, stay happy, and don’t let anyone ever tell you that you are not worthy, important, or necessary, and that your voice has no value. We are all part of the same overall picture regardless of our color, beliefs, etc. And as such, we need to stand up for our rights. We also need to stand up for the rights of the millions who are disenfranchised.  So be bold. Defend yourself, your family, and every other living human being. And the best way I know of to do that is to use your voice. Your voice that speaks kindness, that resonates with love, and that challenges hate, racism, bullying, or any other attribute that is demeaning and cruel.

And luckily for all of us, we have the perfect opportunity coming up to let our voices be heard. November 3^rd will be a historic day. 100 years from now, the annals will record either a positive change for the better, or the further decline of what was previously a working democracy. Not a perfect democracy, or a country with no inherent problems. But still a country where most of its citizens truly espouse equality, and liberty and justice for all.

So before November 3rd rolls around, please VOTE! Give wings to your voice. (But please don’t vote twice. Winning by cheating is just wrong! On so many levels. Plus voting twice is illegal!)

Peace and love to all from Chez Carr

1 c. unbleached all-purpose flour

½ c. whole wheat pastry flour or regular whole wheat flour

1½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. kosher salt

½ c. + 2 T. (1¼ sticks) cold unsalted butter

¾ c. sourdough starter discard

2 T. plain Greek yogurt

¼ c. whole milk

Whisk the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a mixing bowl. Using your cheese grater, grate butter into the flour. Mix well. (I use a regular table knife to mix the ingredients.)

In a small bowl, whisk the sourdough starter discard, yogurt, and milk together. Add to the flour mixture and let sit for about 20 minutes to “autolyze”. This little bit of time allows the whole wheat flour to properly soak up the liquid “autolyze”  and is particularly useful when working with whole-grain flour because the bran softens as it hydrates, reducing its negative effect on gluten development.

Scoop the dough onto a lightly floured counter, form the dough into a ball, and using your fingers, press the dough into a square or rectangle 1-inch thick.  Cut square biscuits to size of your choice. (I like about 2- inch squares.)

Transfer biscuits to a parchment paper lined baking sheet.

Bake in a pre-heated 450 degree oven for 15-20 minutes, or until they’re nice and golden brown on top. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack. Serve warm. Store in an airtight container on your counter.

Note: After the first day, the biscuits are not at their best, but still have a lovely crunch to their crust and fabulous flavor when I toast them whole. I tried splitting them before placing them in my toaster, but that was not one of my better plans. So I don’t recommend that method. Made for a crumbly mess in my toaster. 

I know, another darned sourdough discard bread recipe. But can you really have too many sourdough bread recipes? I don’t think so. But I might be getting close to topping out on ideas for using sourdough discard. Well, except for the delicious Sourdough Discard Whole Wheat Biscuits recipe I’m going to publish in the next couple of days. (I just can’t seem to help myself. I am totally addicted to sourdough.) But about this recipe.

As we were eating breakfast the other morning, Mr. C. commented that this bread made absolutely delicious toast. And at the same time, I was thinking the same thing. No jam or peanut butter required. Just a thin spread of room temperature butter was all that was needed to make a perfect accompaniment to eggs and bacon. And then later that day, I used some of the bread to make croutons. OMG – those were some fine croutons!

But how I had originally planned to serve this bread never happened. I had wanted to make a hearty stew or soup and serve the bread as a way to mop up the gravy or broth. The bread never made it that far. It was gone before I got my act together enough to produce either a soup or a stew. The good part however, is that I have yet another wonderful sourdough discard recipe to share with you. And I have sourdough discard in my refrigerator just living to be used. Life is good. This bread is good.

So as always, feel grateful for the simple things in life. Take pleasure from a lovely sunset, or a beautiful moon rise, or the way seeing a friend, even from a distance can totally lift your spirits. It’s the little things that matter. Not how rich you are, or how powerful you are, or how attractive you are. If you can smell bread baking, you’re lucky. If you have clean water to drink and bathe in, you’re fortunate. If you have the capacity to love others as yourself, then you are truly blessed. Peace and love to all.  

1 c. sourdough starter discard

2/3 c. slightly warm water

1½ tsp. active dry yeast

½ tsp. granulated sugar

1½ tsp. kosher salt

1 tsp. dried rosemary

1 tsp. dried basil

1 tsp. dried oregano

1 tsp. granulated garlic

⅓ c. finely grated Parmesan cheese

2½ c. bread flour, or more as needed

extra virgin olive oil

Combine the sourdough starter, water, yeast, sugar, salt, rosemary, basil, oregano, granulated garlic, and Parmesan cheese in the bowl of your stand mixer. Let sit for 5 minutes.

Add the flour and using your dough hook, knead dough until relatively smooth, about 6 minutes. (Most of the dough will form an irregular shaped ball around the bread hook. But there should still be a small amount of dough that clings to the bottom of the bowl.) 

Pour a bit of olive oil in the bowl, and using your hands and a sturdy rubber spatula, roll the dough into a ball totally covered with oil. Cover with plastic wrap. Allow to rise at room temperature for about 1 to 1½ hours, or until doubled in bulk. (Mine took an hour and 15 minutes.)

Lightly flour a surface. Divide dough in half. Allow to rest for 10 minutes. Place a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet. 

Shape each piece of dough into a round ball. Place on baking sheet and cover with greased plastic wrap. (Greased side down.)  Allow to rise 1 hour at room temperature.  

Bake in a pre-heated 450 degree oven for 15-18 minutes, or until a light golden brown and the internal temperature reaches 200 degrees. (I used the convection option on my oven for the first 10 minutes.)

Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before slicing.

There are just times when you want to build a quick and easy bread that tastes like it came from a bakery. Actually, for me, those times happen almost daily. I always want to not only eat great bread; I want to be able to serve it to my family and friends as well. And this my dear readers is a recipe for truly great bread. And ever so quick and easy to build.

The other evening I decided to fix a soup and bread dinner for our friends Mark and Vicki who are in the final stages of moving out of their old house and into a good friend’s cabin for about 3 weeks before their new home is ready for occupancy. So frazzled, tired, weary, distraught, disgusted, elated, stressed out, and every other universal emotion related to moving, I decided that what our dear friends really (insert your favorite expletive here) needed was some comfort food. And what is more comforting than a big old bowl of soup and freshly baked bread with tons of flavored butter to slather all over each piece. Drastic times call for drastic measures. And comfort food always helps. Well that and one (or two) of Mr. C’s adult beverages. They definitely help smooth out the road. (Wherever that road may lead!)

So along with this delicious bread, I served Italian Meatball Soup with Vegetables and Macaroni.

It’s really a stressful time right now. For everyone. Not just for people making huge changes in their life, like building and moving during the coronavirus! But also for those trying to make ends meet, make certain their family members stay healthy, and keep themselves available and approachable when maybe not always “feeling the love”. But we are cooks. And as cooks, we can prepare food that not only fuels the body, but feeds the soul as well. So this is the perfect time to prepare your family’s favorite dishes. Make popcorn every chance you get. Dunk apple slices in caramel sauce. Serve nachos for dinner. Whatever it takes to help your family feel connected to each other, appreciated, and loved.

And another great way to make sure this happens is to eat together. Sit around your dining room table and converse. Yes converse. (No electric gadgets allowed. This is sacred time!) It’s truly the best way I know of, to take the mental temperature of the people you hold most dear.

So bravo to each and every one of you for all the effort you expend for the benefit of all. As always, peace and love from our home to yours.

1 c. sourdough starter discard

2/3 c. slightly warm water

1½ tsp. active dry yeast

½ tsp. granulated sugar

1½ tsp. kosher salt

2½ c. bread flour, or more as needed

extra virgin olive oil

Combine the sourdough starter, water, yeast, sugar, and salt in the bowl of your stand mixer. Let sit for 5 minutes.

Add the flour and using your dough hook, knead dough until relatively smooth, about 6 minutes. (Most of the dough will form an irregular shaped ball around the bread hook. There should still be a bit that clings to the bottom of the bowl.)  

Pour a bit of olive oil in the bowl, and using your hands and a sturdy rubber spatula, roll the dough into a ball totally covered with oil. Cover with plastic wrap. Allow to rise at room temperature 1-2 hours, or until doubled in bulk. (Mine took one hour.)

Lightly flour a surface. Divide dough in thirds.  Shape into rough logs and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Prepare flat baking sheet by spraying with cooking spray and dusting with cornmeal. Or lightly spray a 15 x 13-inch 4 gutter baguette loaf pan and set it on a large baking sheet. (See picture of baguette pan under Thin Sourdough French Baguettes.)

Shape baguettes into long loaves.  Make shallow slashes with a lame or sharp knife.  Place on baking sheet or baguette pan and cover with greased plastic wrap. (Greased side down.)  Allow to rise 1 hour at room temperature.  

Bake in a pre-heated 450 degree oven for 15-20 minutes, or until a light golden brown and the internal temperature reaches 200 degrees. (I used the convection option on my oven for the first 10 minutes.)

Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before slicing. Great served with Herb and Garlic Butter. (See recipe below.)

HERB AND GARLIC BUTTER

½ c. (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 tsp. granulated garlic

1 tsp. Italian seasoning

½ tsp. granulated onion

½ tsp. dried parsley

¼ tsp. kosher salt

freshly ground black pepper

pinch paprika

Moosh all the ingredients together in a small bowl. Serve with baguette slices.

Can also be used to make garlic bread.

Place the bread slices on a baking sheet and spread liberally with the butter mixture. Bake in a pre-heated 375 degree oven for 4-6 minutes or until the bread is crusty around the edges and the butter topping is very hot. Serve either piping hot or at room temperature.

The seasoned butter is also wonderful melted on a grilled steak or slathered on corn on the cob.

BTW – Speaking of corn on the cob. Perfectly cooked corn on the cob. Grilled is wonderful. But for quick, easy, and perfectly cooked corn – bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the ear(s) of corn, bring the water back to a boil, and cook for 3 minutes. Not less time, not more time. Three minutes. Remove from water and enjoy.     

And yes, I’m still playing with bread recipes that include sourdough discard. And yes, I have been focusing on sandwich breads, because sandwich breads are so very versatile. They can be used to build sandwiches. (In a former life, I was the head of the Department of Redundancy Department in the city of Jersey City! Just kidding! I just always wanted to use that statement on a job resume, but never got the opportunity.) And sandwich breads makes great toast. (They fit in a toaster as if they were built just for that purpose.) And their square shape make griddle frying French toast easy peasy. But best of all – sandwich breads are stinkin’ easy to build. Especially this sandwich bread.

No fancy ingredients. And no special handling required. Just pat the dough into a regular old loaf pan. So, no fancy clay bakers or pizza stones required. (Not that I don’t advocate making breads that are a bit more difficult to make, and require a bit more trouble in the shaping and baking department. It’s just that everyone needs a simple bread recipe in their repertoire for busy days.) And this is definitely a busy day loaf.

This is also a loaf of bread that everyone in your family will enjoy. Not a lot of tang from the sourdough, just a soft crumb absolutely crying out to be spread with mayonnaise, mustard, deli meat, cheese, lettuce, and tomato. Or baked chicken or turkey. Or toasted and spread with butter and jam, or peanut butter and honey, or just buttered and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.

So do yourself and your family a favor, and bake up a loaf at your earliest convenience. It really is a quick and easy bread to produce. And the taste is wonderful.

As always, keep baking, keep learning, and keep growing as a person.

And although I started this as a food blog, I simply can’t refrain once in a while (actually it’s becoming more and more often) from sharing inspirational tidbits with you all. And yesterday, after working on a new recipe and writing a post for this site, I decided to watch the video of Michelle Obama’s speech from the democratic national convention.

The speech was so well prepared, so relevant, and so humble, that for the first time in a long time, I actually felt some hope. Because Michelle was speaking for most of us. Just regular people who believe in kindness, compassion, empathy, and for whom a social conscience has been ingrained from birth. I definitely needed to hear the words coming out of her mouth. I needed to know that someone else understood exactly how I was feeling. Because I’ve been sad. Sad because I know that we Americans are so much better than we are being portrayed. We are not being fairly represented in Washington DC. We are not all racist, or bigots, or greedy. We don’t all lie, cheat, and steal to get ahead. We care about others and genuinely want them to have as good a life as we wish for ourselves.

Even if we were not experiencing this horrific pandemic, and as much as I love to travel, I don’t think I would want to travel overseas right now. I’m embarrassed for America, even if I have done nothing personally to feel embarrassed about. But that’s not what is being propagandized. We are all being painted with the same brush. So why would I want to expose myself to some other nation’s ridicule? And frankly, I truly resent that.

And finally, I don’t want to be divided from others because of my political beliefs. I truly don’t give a flying fig if a person is a republican or a democrat. But I am sick and tired of watching our current political leader demonstrating daily, the worst possible traits of humanity. Greed, cheating, racist rhetoric, demeaning comments about fellow politicians, strong women, and verbal assaults aimed at anyone who is unwilling to bow and scrape to his every whim or thinks differently than he does on any subject. What kind of political leadership does this represent to other nations? What kind of leadership example is this for our youth? What kind of adult acts this way? So I’ve had it. And know that many of you feel exactly the same way.

I sincerely hope you will forgive me if I have in any way offended you. Or at the very least understand why I felt compelled to express myself through this rant. But sometimes it’s just better to set your feelings free rather than let them stay inside and fester. Peace and love to all.    

1 c. sourdough starter discard 

2 tsp. active dry yeast

2 tsp. granulated sugar

¾ c. slightly warm whole milk

⅓ c. instant potato flakes

1 tsp. kosher salt

1¾ – 2 c. bread flour, or as much bread as needed

cooking spray

Combine the sourdough starter discard, yeast, sugar, milk, potato flakes, and salt in the bowl of your stand mixer. Let sit for 5 minutes.

Add 1½ cups of the flour and knead for several minutes until the dough is silky smooth. Add additional flour as required. (The dough should be slightly tacky, and there should be a bit of dough that sticks to the bottom and a couple of inches up the side of the bowl.)

Pour a bit of veggie oil alongside the dough. Using a stiff rubber spatula and your hands, shape the dough into a ball, making sure the entire ball is lightly coated with the oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm, draft-free place for about an hour or until doubled in size.  

Place the dough in a greased 9×5-inch loaf pan. Pat the dough into the corners of the pan and flat on top. Cover with a piece of plastic wrap that has been lightly coated with cooking spray, (spray side down over the pan), and allow the dough to rise for another 30 minutes or so. (Dough should be just at the level of the pan rim.) Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  

Spray the top of the dough with cooking spray. Bake for 38-45 minutes or until the top is a light golden brown and the internal temperature reaches at least 200 degrees.

Remove from oven and turn bread out onto a wire rack to cool completely before slicing. (Do not be tempted to slice the bread when it is still warm. It will turn to mush.) Store in an airtight container.

OK, there are just some breads that I can hardly wait for you to try. And this is one of them. Why, you ask? Because this has got to be my new favorite sandwich bread. And I know, I say that about all the sandwich breads I bake. And it’s true each time I say it. I just happen to be the world’s most devoted fan of homemade bread. And when the bread is as easy to prepare as this one, why the heck wouldn’t I be excited to share the recipe with you? (That was a rhetorical question, BTW!)

So, if there was just one word to describe this bread, it would be OMG! OK, that’s three words, but I am not kidding when I say I could eat a piece of this bread every day for the rest of my life. This bread is JUST THAT GOOD! (Oh, and the crumb is soft and tender, and it makes really yummy toast when liberally spread with room temperature unsalted butter. But then, what doesn’t taste good slathered with butter? But I digress….)

Anyway, this recipe started from a post I read on the bakefromscratch.com site. I messed with the original recipe for Rye Sandwich Bread a bit (actually a whole hell of a lot) and came up with this variation. But it started with bakefromscratch.com. So a big thank you to those fine folks for the inspiration for this recipe.

Now I know what you’re thinking. Sure it’s easy for you Patti, because you’re crazy enough to bake bread at least once a week. OK, that’s true. I do bake bread often, and I am certifiably crazy, so you win that round. But, I have never lied to you when I state that a “whatever”, be it bread, cookies, marinara sauce, etc. is easy to prepare. And this bread is definitely easy to prepare. And absolutely worth every second put into its production. So much so, that if I were younger (much younger), I would mass produce this bread, which I’m positive would allow us to live part of each year in our very own Italian villa. This bread is JUST THAT GOOD! (Dang, I hate it when I repeat myself! But I simply must in this case! Plus I’m getting older. And repeating one’s self is part of the aging process. Simply goes with the territory!) So dear readers, I have nothing much more to say on the subject.

If you love rye bread, and you bake bread, just bake a loaf and taste for yourself what a truly delightful rye sandwich bread can taste like. IT IS JUST THAT GOOD! As always, peace and love to all.

Oh, and please don’t leave out the caraway and dill seeds. They are in the recipe for a reason. I promise their flavor is in no way overpowering. They simply make all the difference to the overall taste of the bread.

½ c. sourdough starter discard

1½ tsp. active dry yeast

¾ c. slightly warm whole milk

2 T. unsalted butter, room temperature

¼ c. regular molasses (not blackstrap)

2 tsp. kosher salt

1¼ tsp. caraway seeds, plus more for sprinkling

1¼ tsp. dill seeds

¾ c. light rye flour

1¾ – 2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour

vegetable oil

1 egg

1 T. water

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, combine the sourdough starter, yeast, milk, butter, molasses, salt, caraway seeds, dill seeds, and rye flour. Let sit for 20 minutes to let the yeast develop and the rye flour absorb some of the liquid and begin to soften a bit.

Add about a cup and a half of the unbleached all-purpose flour and knead for about 8 minutes or until the dough is smooth and only a bit is clinging to the bottom of the mixing bowl. Add additional flour as needed. (Please note: every sourdough starter is unique. Some contain more liquid than others. So each baker must decide how much flour to add. Sorry folks, I would give you a precise amount if I could.)  

Pour a bit of veggie oil alongside the dough. Using your hands, roll the dough into a ball, making sure the entire ball of dough is lightly coated with oil.

Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, 1½ to 2 hours. (Mine took an hour and a half.)

Deflate the dough to remove excess air. Form the dough into a loaf shape, and place in a greased 9×5-inch loaf pan. (I simply tuck the dough under to form a loose rectangular shape and then flatten it into the pan with my hands.)

Cover and let rise until it’s about ½-inch above the top of the pan. Mine took 1 hour. (After 45 minutes I realized I should probably start pre-heating my oven. I’m glad I did. Because by the time my oven was hot, the dough was just where it should be. Whew – lucked out again.)  

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a small bowl, whisk the egg and the 1 tablespoon of water together. Just before the loaf is ready to go in the oven, gently brush the egg/water mixture over the top of the loaf. Sprinkle with caraway seeds, if desired. Using a sharp knife or lame, carefully and lightly make 4 diagonal slashes across the top of the loaf. Bake the loaf until golden brown and an instant-read thermometer inserted in the center of the loaf registers at least 190 degrees. This takes about 30 to 35 minutes. (My bread only took 30 minutes.)

Remove from oven and let cool in the pan for 20 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely before slicing. Store in an airtight container on your counter.