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Volkorn Without Tears

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Vollkorn without tears

Dick Adams

5/18/98

Procedure for 1 day sour "Vollkorn" rye pan bread "without tears".

Take 2 cups coarse rye flour (or combination rye with minor amounts of cracked grains, up to 1/3 of the total) and put it into a bowl with capacity of about two quarts.

Add 1 fluid ounce of molasses (the darker the better).

Take 2 cups water, and add it gradually, to make a slurry. Water should be added only until there is a hint of a clear layer on top of the slurry.

Inoculate the slurry with about one fluid ounce of frothing (white) sourdough starter (to be on the safe side, notwithstanding that coarse rye flour is usually self souring) and mix until the color is uniform.

Over several hours, check to see that there is enough liquid so that there is a hint of a clear layer on top. Add more water as needed. Chances are that the two cups will be more than enough. Sits overnight at room temperature.

16 to 24 hours later (likely longer if the sourdough starter was omitted) the slurry should be bubbling and foaming. When that activity commences to subside (and when the slurry is quite sour to taste), add about a teaspoon of salt, and enough rye flour to make "thick mud". It should be possible to mix this with an electric hand beater. Mix or whip for several minutes. I do not expect that this mixture is kneaded effectively by this treatment, but some air is whipped in, which may improve the rise.

Spoon it into a loaf pan. Smooth and decorate the top with the back of a fork. Good to use a Teflon coated, or greased, pan.

Let it rise to double, and bake it for an hour at 375 degrees. (The rise can be quite rapid.) I have made it in a toaster oven because it is too small to justify heating up the gas oven. The recipe is appropriate for a person who has a toaster oven only.

This bread may legitimately be called pumpernickel. It can be sliced very thin, and will keep for days. You can sweeten it further, put semi-dry or glaced fruit, other stuff, in it and call it fruitcake.

---DickA (who has a mental block towards recipes)

But, for recipe fanciers, here is your shopping list (note that the only quantities to be measured are the salt and the first two cups of flour, and that the other quantities given below may be excessive.)

2 cups water (approximately)

5 cups rye flour, or mixed whole grain flour (excess)

1 teaspoon full of salt to taste

1/8 cup active sourdough batter approximately

1/8 cup molasses to taste

Optional raisins, nuts, seeds, sugar, honey, rum, semi-dry fruit

Loaf pan (5 x 9 inches at top x 2-1/2 inches deep OK)

Optional electric hand beater

Oops, almost forgot:

Large enough bowl (2 quart OK)

Double this recipe can conveniently be mixed in the Kitchen Aid mixer (use the flat beater), cooked in two loaf pans.

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Edited 10/14/16 by Sourdough@CarlsFriends.net (Mary Buckingham) format html file, corrected spelling


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