Accidental Soviet Rye Bread

Me in Istanbul and my parents in Russia started baking bread at home around the same time. While I approached the matter scientifically and studied one of the most fundamental books in the field, read home bakers’ forums and watched hours of video tutorials, my parents pursued the intuitive path.

My dad (the idea holder, in this and many other cases) wanted certain things in the bread: color as dark as possible, a lot of bran and natural aromatics such as the dry herbs, berries and spices he prepares in his lab consisting of a small dehydrator and a coffee grinder. My mom (the executor, in this and other cases) went online, found a base recipe and started fearlessly experimenting with it to make the bread dad envisioned.

During the weekly Skype catch-ups we shared the experiences. I recommended they buy a cast-iron pan instead of using bread loaf tins for the stone-oven like bread, and they were quick to implement. They encouraged me to look beyond French and Turkish breads predominantly made with white flour I started my baking with.

When I came to visit them this winter we had a chance to show each other how we bake bread. My parents complained that their bread was coming out a bit wet inside as if under-baked. After watching my mom making bread, I suggested she lets the dough proof longer before baking and meanwhile she starts pre-heating the cast-iron pot at least 30-40 min before placing the loaf in. W tested this idea immediately - with success. My mom was intrigued by the idea of setting up a preferment 12-14 hours before making the bread dough, which allows the gluten develop and the dough get a muscle it would have taken hours to develop with a straight dough.

In turn, I was intrigued by the kneading process my father was in-charge of. He was so keen on enriching the bread with his energy that he was full-contact with it, not unlike a dog character in a popular Soviet cartoon who was stretching the dough into imaginary sausages. I don’t bake loafs with less than 70 hydration (70 gram water to 100 gram flour), and such dough is sticky to handle. No wonder my dad was demanding more flour, and I refused to give him any. As a result, the wet dough was all over his palms. I showed him how he could quickly work only with his fingertips folding the dough over onto itself instead of getting half of the loaf stick to his palms.

After a few days we spotted whole-wheat flour at a supermarket shelf: this flour appeared almost impossible to find in my not particularly small home town. The discovery was worth a celebration, and I prepared a whole-wheat bread starter that includes all-purpose flour only, and the whole-wheat flour is added later to the dough.

When next morning I reached out for the whole-wheat flour, my mom passed me a bag of flour we had bought. I opened it and with a disappointment noted that the flour was over-processed with hardly any notable flakes of the ground germ. I added the flour to the rest of the ingredients, and once I started mixing the dough I heard my mother’s “Oh, I gave you the wrong flour”. We bought a bag of rye flour of the same brand for me to take to Istanbul, and so it happened that in the dim light of a winter dawn we confused the two when making the bread dough. This was the first time I worked with rye flour and had no idea what to expect, so I simply proceeded as usual.

After a rising, shaping, final proofing and 40 min of baking out came a round loaf that resembled the classic Soviet round rye loaf that we simply call “round” in the area where I grew up. It had a dark caramel color crust and rough surface powdered with flour. After it cooled down (ok, not quite completely; I still need to convey the idea of letting the bread completely cool down before digging into it to my dad), and we sliced it, the look of the crumb and taste also proved the similarity.

Later, I looked up the recipes of the said Soviet rye bread: it was easy to find one because one and the only exists. During the Soviet times food production was standardized, and throughout the Soviet Union all the bakeries were making the same types of bread according to the very same recipes known as “State Standard”. Now many home bakers seek those recipes to re-create the nostalgic flavors from the Soviet childhood and to boycott the mass-produced baked goods of our days with many funny additives that the “State Standard” would never allow.

Looking at the recipes I discovered that all the Soviet rye breads were baked with a leven (sourdough culture), practice aligned with the rye bread baking tradition in the Northern Russia, the Baltic and Northern Europe. Sourdough does create a hard-to-replicate taste in bread, but then not every home baker maintains the culture. That’s why I thought the recipe of my accidental Soviet rye bread may be useful for some.

Soviet Rye Bread

Rye flour comes in different types, and picking one or another makes a big difference. For this loaf I used medium rye flour (obdirnaya, in Russian): its color is light-gray or light-brown, its grind is finer in comparison with the whole-wheat rye flour (oboinaya, in Russian), and it contains less bran.

Preferment helps boost the bread flavor many folds in comparison with the straight dough prepared, fermented for only a few hours and immediately baked. Preferment takes 12-14 hours to ripen; it’s best to prepare it in the evening if you are planning an early afternoon baking and enjoying fresh bread for dinner. Alternatively you can prepare the preferment early morning, bake in the evening and have a wonderful loaf for breakfast. Rye bread proves relatively quickly: once you have the preferment ready it takes you only 3 hours from the dough to the finished loaf.

This dough is hard to knead, and a stand mixer with a dough hook is a great help. I don’t use one and instead enjoy the opportunity to engage my whole upper body in the process and get rid of any electricity accumulated in the body through kneading the dough by hand for about 15-20 minutes.

For baking a regular bread loaf tin can do, but you will achieve a way more superior result and pro-like looking and tasting bread if you bake it in a cast-iron pot with a fitting lid.

Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients

Preferment
200 g medium rye flour (see note above)
160 g water, at room temperature
1 gram fresh yeast (or 0.33 g instant yeast, or 0.5 g active dry yeast)

Dough
200 g strong bread flour (mine has 14% protein content)
112 g water, at room temperature
3.7 g fresh yeast (or 1.2 g instant yeast, or 1.95 g active dry yeast)
8 g salt
preferment

Directions

Make rye preferment: In a medium bowl dissolve the yeast in the water and then stir in the rye flour, until well-combined and uniform. Cover with a cling film and leave at room temperature for 12-14 hours.

Make rye dough: In a medium bowl combine all the dough ingredients leaving aside about 6 tbsp all-purpose flour per loaf. Knead the dough well for about 7 min: whether you are kneading in a bowl or on a working surface, make sure to use up all the flour and not to add any more. Then sprinkle 2 tbsp all-purpose flour per loaf on the working surface, flatten the dough, transfer 1/3 of the rye preferment to the middle of the dough and enclose it inside pulling the dough edges to the middle. Continue kneading until both the rye preferment and the flour on the working surface are fully integrated in the dough. Adding the remaining flour underneath the dough helps counterbalancing the wet preferment and prevent the dough sticking to your hands. Repeat the addition of the preferment and flour two more times. The resulting dough will remain sticky, and by no chance you should feel intimidated by that. Place the dough a medium mixing bowl, cover with a cling film and leave to proof at room temperature for 1 hour.

Shape rye loaf: Lightly dust the working surface with all-purpose flour. Transfer the dough on the working surface and tap to flatten. If making an oblong loaf, proceed as if you are folding a letter: with the help of a bench scrapper fold one third of the dough over onto itself, brush off any flour and press well and then in the same fashion fold in the remaining one third. Flip the loaf seams down and with your hands smoothen the loaf to give it an oblong shape. If making a round loaf: flatten the dough into a square shape, fold in the right upper corner and decompress, fold in the left upper corner and decompress, then similarly fold in the right bottom and left bottom corners. Flip the loaf seams down and with the your hands shape it into a round. Prepare a basket or bowl of a preferred shape, line with a clean kitchen towel and generously sprinkle it with all-purpose flour. Transfer the shaped loaf in the basket / bowl seems up, sprinkle with the flour and cover with a kitchen towel. Leave to proof at room temperature for 1 hour. 40 min before baking start pre-heating the oven and the cast-iron pot to 240C/F.

Bake: Uncover the dough and invert the proofing bowl right into the middle of the pre-heat cast iron pot. With a sharp knife (or even better - a razor blade) score the bread in your preferred way with quick and confident moves. Cover with the lid and bake for 15 min, then remove the lid and bake for 20 min more. Let the loaf cool completely before eating. Store the bread wrapped in a cotton towel and packed in a plastic container.