Honey Rye Sourdough Yeast Bread

Now that you have all made some great sourdough starters, or at least read my how-to, here is a recipe for a very yummy honey rye bread. It's one of our favorites and who knows, maybe it will be yours as well?!

It is a mixed flour bread, with both rye and wheat flour, so the rye is not too overpowering. Just enough to give your tummy something to work on. :-)

I'm going to start you off with a bread that has both sourdough starter and yeast. To ensure your success, although I have complete faith in you being able to do this!

A note about yeast: I use bread machine yeast (also called instant active dry yeast) which comes in the small glass containers. Once the bottle is open, I store them in the fridge. Since I bake bread almost every weekend, this works well for me. If you are used to baking with other kinds of yeast, fresh (Lucky you!) or active dry yeast, you can use this conversion table to figure out just how much to use.There's one more thing to remember about yeast: dry yeast can be added with all the other dry ingredients (like the flour) while fresh yeast will need the warm liquid to dissolve in before you proceed. There are a million different opinions on how to add the yeast to your bread - throw it in and hope for the best, that's how I do it!

These loaves are on the small side. I've doubled the recipe before, so you should be able to, and then just bake them a few minutes longer. Maybe double the recipe and make three loaves as my friend suggested.

Honey Rye Bread with sourdough starter
1 1/4 cups of warm water
1.5 tablespoons honey (I've used both raw honey and "regular" honey)
2 tablespoons rye sourdough starter
1 1/4 cups bread flour
6 - 7 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 1/4 cups rye flour
2 1/4 teaspoons bread machine yeast
2 teaspoons salt

Mix all ingredients in mixer (or in a bowl by hand if you want to!).

Run 3 minutes on low (Knead by hand for 6 minutes).
Run 9 minutes on medium (Knead by hand for 10 minutes).

Let the dough rest for 90 minutes with a kitchen towel covering the bowl.

Here is my dough after the first rise. It should double in size.

Pour the dough out on a floured tabletop and cut it into 2 pieces (or 3).


Form round balls with your dough, and then stretch them by turning and pushing the dough up on the underside....so that the dough stretches across the top.

Pushing the dough up on the underside while stretching with my hands.
Move the bread round in your hands to stretch evenly on all sides.

Stretched bread dough.

Let the dough balls rest for 10 minutes under a kitchen towel. Form into oblong shapes using this simple technique:

1. FLatten the dough by pushing down with your hands to form a rectangle.

Gently pull on the edges and flatten with your fingers
until you have a 10-12 inches by 6-7 inches rectangle.

1. Fold one long edge over to the middle.
2. Fold the other long edge over to meet in the middle
3. Fold the two folded edges together
4. Roll slightly to get everything to stick together

Place your loaves on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper.

You can add a design by cutting with a sharp knife across the top - lengthwise.

Let the breads rise under a towel for 60-90 minutes - until double in size.



Turn oven to 480 F. (or as close as your oven gets!)
Put your loaves in the oven and spray some water into the oven. You can also add some icucubes to a tray underneath your bread.
Lower the temperature to 425 F and bake for 25-35 minutes.
Let your loaves cool on a rack under a kitchen towel.

Enjoy! If you bake this - please leave me a comment and let me know how it went!