Malt-house Rye bread (no sourdough starter required)

It has been a while since I did any "bread experiment". The main reason for it is that both Anjalie and Naz have been asking for sandwiches and I was stuck with making sandwich (mainly white and potato) breads. I have been craving my rye bread as well. I was faced with 2 fold problem: 1) To get soft rye bread I need sourdough starter which means a lot of planning and Naz does not care for the sour taste 2) Anjalie & I love the tangy taste of sour dough :( To please everyone, the hamster in my brain came up with the idea of using yogurt instead of sourdough starter. This meant Anjalie & I get to enjoy mildly tangy tasting rye bread and Naz will not have a problem with the "yogurt tangy" taste since it is mild and he is used to that, whew! While, I was at it, I thought I will add in Malted flour for a good measure to get the slightly sweeter taste and darker color at the same time making it multi-grain and healthy. I usually add malt syrup (instead of sugar) to malt house bread. But I was all out of malt syrup though, so, I will have to try that one next time. Since it was the weekend, I hand-kneaded the dough on Saturday night and left it raise over night. I did the final shaping and proofing this morning (shown in the pics below). Unfortunately, with Anjalie around, I could not spend time to take step by step pics. Now for the recipe...


You will need:
2 cups white bread flour
1/2 cup rye bread flour
1/2 malted bread flour
1/4 cup wholewheat bread flour
1 cup non fat yogurt (at room temperature)
3/4 cup warm water + 1/4 cup warm water
1 tbsp softened butter
2 tbsp sugar/malted syrup/maple syrup
1 and 1/2 tsp salt
1 and 1/2 tsp active dried yeast (you can replace it with instant yeast)


In a large mixing bowl, add all the dry ingredients. Mix sugar and yeast in 1/4 cup of warm water. Set aside for 15 mins to activate the yeast. If using instant yeast, you can add it directly to the dry ingredients. Personally for hand baking I prefer the active dried yeast since the slow process will allow things to happen in the bread over night while I sleep. You may have to use instant yeast if you are using the bread machine. Getting back to the recipe. While the yeast is proofing (activating), mix salt and butter into the flour and add the yogurt to the mix. Once the yeast is ready add the yeast liquid and add the rest of the water little bit at a time until you have a firm and soft dough. Now comes the kneading process. You can either knead continuously for 20 mins or do it for 5 mins and get some rest for 10 mins and come back and do another 5 mins etc for a total of 20 mins. When the dough feels stretchy cover with a damp cloth and leave to raise over night in a warm dry place. 

If using a bread machine to bake this bread, simply place the ingredients, according to the bread machine instructions and choose whole-meal or multi-grain setting. 

I left it for 10 hrs overnight and then shaped the dough into a loaf and placed it in a lightly greased loaf pan. For shaping into a loaf, roll out the punched down dough into a rectangle. Fold the longer side by 1/3 on each side down to the middle and place in a greased loaf pan. Leave the shaped loaf to raise one final time for 2 hrs (1 hr if using instant yeast) approximately until doubled (as shown in the pic). Bake in the oven preheated to 160 degrees Celsius (fan assisted) for 40 mins. Malt-house bread turn dark in color so you need lower temperature/ shorter time than normal.

Here is the slightly dark colored crust which is due to the malted flour. It would have been even more lovely and dark had I used Malt syrup instead of sugar. Perhaps next time...