Peasant Loaf Recipe

Posted byStephany RileyPosted inBaking

I am working on a new method of making bread that feels to me like an older one. I really like using this mixture of rye, barley, and unbleached flour. Just a word of warning though, rye flour by itself doesn’t really make the bread you buy in the store.  The distinctive flavor people associate with rye bread comes from the addition of caraway seeds. The rye itself adds a nutty flavor. 

Ingredients
3 cups starter
1/2 cup rye flour
1 cup barley flour
3 cups unbleached bread flour
2 tsp salt
Semolina or cornmeal for the peel

If you do not have a starter, you can make this recipe by rehydrating 2 tbsp yeast in 2.5 cups of warm water and mixing in a cup of rye flour. Yeast revives best around 110°F (43°C). If you start with colder water than that the yeast will reactivate but it can off-gas some funky flavor. Don’t use water hotter than 135°F (58°C).

Directions for Making Dough and Rising

  1. I mix these ingredients with my kitchen aid using the dough hook. If you mix it by hand be sure to mix well.
  2. Put the dough in a crock with a lid.
  3. Put this in the fridge and wait for at least 24 hours so that the gluten and other anti-nutrient factors break down making the bread more nutritious. I learned that from a baker friend in Minneapolis who studied at Ballymaloe, a traditional culinary school in Ireland. 
  4. When I want to use the dough. I dust my peel and then shape a couple of loaves of bread to put on it.
  5. Don’t work the dough too much, just tuck the top surface of the dough into the bottom and then place it on the peel. It’s like making a roll with sticky dough. 
  6. Let it rise for 40 minutes.

Baking the Loaves

  1. 20 minutes before I want to bake my bread, I put my baking stone in the oven on one shelf and my broiler pan on the shelf underneath it and preheat it to 450 degrees.
  2. Dust the loaf with flour and decorate it with some sort of slashes
  3. Slide the loaves of bread onto the baking stone in the oven.
  4. Pour a couple of cups of hot water into the broiler pan. The point here is to use steam to create more even heat in the oven.
  5. Shut the oven quickly and bake the loaves for 25-35 minutes depending on how big they are.  They are done when the internal temperature reaches 190°F (88°C), and the crust is quite brown. The same baker friend also taught me that bread should always be cooked to that internal temperature, to be sure that all the gluten proteins have coagulated properly.

It will be a crisp crust so if you don’t like that you can use a pastry brush to brush some oil or butter on the crust. Don’t worry though the bread is not dry. You can see in this picture it has a moist chewy texture, which is my favorite.