For St. Paddy’s Day 2017, I made some epic vegan reuben sandwiches with corned beef-style seitan. This year, I found myself craving reubens again – especially the crispy, buttery toasted rye bread.
My inner food stylist/blogger thought that building the sandwich on marbled rye bread would make a great photo, but I couldn’t find a vegan-friendly marbled rye in any stores near me! And so, in the name of food porn, I busted out my KitchenAid mixer, picked up a bag of rye flour at Sprouts, and got to baking.
For this recipe, we create a base dough with dark rye flour and a blend of caraway, mustard and dill seeds to add distinctive flavor. Then we add cocoa powder, molasses and a bit of instant coffee powder to half the dough to darken it. These ingredients deepen the flavor of the loaf, but don’t worry; it won’t make your bread taste like chocolate!
We divide the dough into four pieces, then stack and roll them into our loaf. This can be baked in a pan, or shaped into a boule and baked on a tray. You’ll know the loaf is done when it sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. I tented my loaf with a bit of aluminum foil during the last 10 minutes to keep it from browning excessively.
Marbled Rye Bread
Ingredients
- 2 cups bread flour*
- 1 cup dark rye flour
- 1 cup warm water
- 1 0.25 oz package active dry yeast
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons caraway seeds
- 1 teaspoons dill seeds optional
- 1 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds optional
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon molasses
- 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon instant coffee optional
- 2 teaspoons salt
Instructions
- Combine warm water and yeast and allow to proof for 10 minutes. Yeast should be foamy.
- Whisk together bread flour, rye flour, seeds and salt. Add to yeast mixture along with vegetable oil and stir until combined.
- Divide dough in half. To one half, add sugar. To the other half, add cocoa powder, molasses and instant coffee. Knead each half for 5-8 minutes, until dough is smooth and elastic and springs back when poked.
- Place each half of dough in an oiled bowl. Cover and allow to rise in a warm spot for 1 hour, or until roughly doubled in size.
- Turn dough out onto a lightly-floured surface. Cut each ball of dough in half again, so you have two pieces each of dark and light dough.
- Using your hands or a rolling pin, flatten each piece of dough to a rectangle roughly the length of your loaf pan. Stack dough slabs on top of each other, then roll into a log. Tuck ends under, then transfer to an oiled 9×5″ loaf pan. Cover and allow to rise for another 1 hour in a warm place, until loaf has roughly doubled in size.
- During last few minutes of rise time, preheat oven to 350°Bake loaf for 40-45 minutes. Tent with foil if necessary to keep loaf from browning excessively. Loaf should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.
- Allow bread to cool for a few minutes in the pan, then remove and transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
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Should you have a shallow pan of water in the oven as well?