One of my goals with the B&B was to provide as much of the baked goods as was possible, and for the past couple of years I have been working on homemade yeasted and sourdough breads, muffins, biscuits, and etc. The image at the top of this post is a country style yeasted white bread using a recipe my mom gave me several decades ago, and that I have made sporadically since. It makes excellent toast!

Sandwich Rye Bread

Earlier this week I prepared a sandwich rye bread following the recipe in Peter Reinhart’s “Artisan Breads Every Day“. This was the second time I have used this recipe, and this time I added the optional cocoa powder. This is just one of many varieties of homemade yeasted and sourdough breads served at The Sidecar Inn.

Homemade yeasted and sourdough breads
The sour rye starter after an overnight stay in the refrigerator

This sandwich rye starts with a sour rye starter using some of my sourdough starter, a medium rye flour, and room temperature water. The recipe notes that it will look and feel like modeling clay, and that is pretty accurate! After about 8 hours at room temperature, it then goes into the refrigerator. The next day I used all of the sour rye starter along with bread flour, more water, molasses, vegetable oil, yeast, cocoa powder, salt, and caraway seeds to create the dough.

Proofing & Shaping

After kneading it was split in half and put into lightly oiled bowls for 12 hours for the first loaf, and 48 for the second. Around 4 days is the maximum proofing period recommended. After proofing the dough is shaped, in this case sandwich loaves using a 4 1/2″ by 8″ loaf pan, but freestanding shapes such as boules are also possible. Then a second proofing of 2 hours takes place before going into the oven.

Homemade yeasted and sourdough breads
The finished loaf of sandwich rye

One essential step is to let the loaves cool for at least one hour before slicing. Bread that is still warm from the oven is tempting, but important changes in the structure continue during the cool down phase.

Homemade yeasted and sourdough breads
Sliced sandwich rye bread

This loaf had a good crumb structure and texture. Since it was lunch time, I used it to make a grilled ham and cheese sandwich!

Homemade yeasted and sourdough breads
Polish ham and American cheese on grilled rye