Sourdough bread bakers seem to have increased in waves in the U.S over the past quarter century. In the 2000s, the flourishing of the internet and the advent of YouTube resulted in new access to DIY knowledge, including sourdough bread baking recipes and methods (e.g. Eric’s 2008 whole grain sourdough how-to video). Then in 2016 Michael Pollan’s Netflix mini-series Cooked seemed to inspire another wave of sourdough bakers with the episode Air which focused on bread and fermentation. The COVID pandemic in 2020 produced a tsunami of sourdough bakers driven by the combination of supply chain disruptions, lockdowns, and perhaps social media engagement (#crumbshot). So many of us nowadays are participating in this delicious craft of sourdough bread baking that is both simple and tantelizingly complex.
That’s just a smidge of recent history though, and recently I learned a little more about the sourdough “breaducation” happening in the occasional cooking show like this episode of Cooking with Julia from 1997 with Joe Ortiz and in books like his The Village Baker, published in 1993. In this book Ortiz gives instructions for making and using various kinds of sourdough starters, all of which begin with a stiff dough ball of flour and water (some variations also have cumin, milk, or honey). It’s left under a damp towel for several days and then the center is harvested and refreshed several times before it is ready to use. This is a French method that has some similarities with Belgian desem. (Ortiz also includes instructions for interesting yeast methods like the Austrian Flourless Sponge, where the active yeast is bloomed overnight in water only, supposedly yielding a more airy and aromatic bread.)
In The Village Baker Ortiz shares bread recipes from bakeries in France, Germany, Italy, and the U.S. and one of these recipes immediately caught my eye because it had a totally unexpected ingredient: soy sauce. The bread was being made in a Bavarian bakery that dates back to 1650 by a baker named Kurt König, a self described “organic grain madman.” He used a multi-stage dough and combined rye flour, sesame seeds soaked in soy sauce, and pumpkin seeds. I had to try it. My verdict? It’s fantastic. Rye grain and soy sauce may not be related culturally, but the fermented umami of soy sauce really enhances the earthiness of rye. And Ortiz and his wife Gayle must have agreed because they include in the book a sourdough version of the recipe which they baked and sold at Gayle’s Bakery and Rosticceria, in Capitola, CA. This bread isn’t on the menu these days but maybe it will make a comeback!
I’ve created a variation of König’s and Ortiz’s recipes, taking some ingredient amounts from each, putting it all into grams, and baking hotter in an enclosed vessel instead of an open oven. The main differences are that my sourdough starter build is with rye flour and it’s low-ish hydration–to get more rye flour into the bread and to make the ripening take all night. Also I used bread flour instead of all purpose flour because I love the chew it adds.
Note: This recipe makes a large dough, weighing 1.5 kg where most bread recipes are oval rattan proofing basket and batard clay baker (3.5 qts). If you have a smaller basket or baker, you may want to reduce the recipe ingredients e.g. multiply each ingredient by 0.67 to get a 1 kg dough.
Bavarian Village Rye Bread
This bread is adapted from a recipe (presented in Joe Ortiz’s The Village Baker) used by baker Kurt König, a self described “organic grain madman” in a Bavarian bakery with a history that dates back to 1650. He used a multi-stage dough and combined rye flour, sesame seeds soaked in soy sauce, and pumpkin seeds. I had to try it. My verdict? It’s fantastic.
Total Time
1 hour, 55 minutes
Ingredients
Seed Mixture
- 140 grams pumpkin seeds, toasted (1 cup)
- 60 grams sesame seeds, toasted in the soy sauce (1/2 cup)
- 10 grams soy sauce (2 tsp)
Rye Starter (night before)
Rye Sour Sponge (in the morning)
Final Dough (early afternoon)
- All of the Rye Sour Sponge from above
- 390 grams bread flour (3 cups)
- 14 grams salt (2 1/4 tsp)
- ~150 grams of the seed mixture (three-quarters of the total)
Topping (just before baking, late afternoon)
- 1 egg + 1 Tbsp milk beaten together
- ~50 grams of the seed mixture (the remaining one-quarter of the total)
Instructions
- Make sure you look at the Photo Gallery after this recipe to get an idea of dough consistency and expansion at the different stages. This bread is an 18-24 hour process, with the mixing of a rye starter the night before, a large rye sour sponge the next morning, and the final dough in the early afternoon. From there, the bulk fermentation is about 2 hours and the final proof about 1.5 hours. My starter build was in a cold winter kitchen (mid-60s) and the rest of my process was in the new Breadtopia proofing box at 76°F. The duration of each of these stages can be changed by varying your dough temperature. Moreover, you can experiment with less fermentation of the rye sour sponge and “make up for it” with extra time in the bulk fermentation. These instructions show one of many paths to achieve tasty and aerated bread.
Seed Mixture
- Preheat your oven to 350°F.
- Mix the sesame seeds and soy sauce, then spread the mixture on one side of a parchment lined baking sheet. Spread the pumpkin seeds on the other side or on another baking sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes until slightly browned, stirring the seeds around about halfway through.
- Remove the seeds from the oven. Separate out 1/2 of the sesame seeds and 1/3 of the pumpkin seeds and grind them into a powder (but not a butter) in a food processor, spice grinder, or with a mortar and pestle.
- Combine the seed powder and whole seeds in a bowl and set aside. Later you will use 3/4 of this mixture in the final dough and 1/4 on the top of the dough.
Rye Starter
- Mix the starter ingredients in a jar with space for tripling. Cover, note the level of the starter and let it ripen for 8-12 hours or until it is at least double in size.
Rye Sour Sponge
- In a bowl with enough space for a bread dough to rise, whisk together the water and the ripe rye starter. Add the flours and mix thoroughly; the consistency will be thin like a cake batter.
- Cover and let ferment until it is very filled with bubbles. Adjust the time frame up or down based on your ambient temperature e.g. more time for cooler temps. At 76°F my rye sour was frothy and roiling with bubbles in 5-6 hours.
Final Dough
- Add the dough ingredients (flour, 3/4 of the seed mixture, and salt) to the rye sour sponge and mix thoroughly. Cover and let the dough rest 15 minutes, then stretch and fold the dough to strengthen it and ensure the ingredients are evenly distributed.
- Let the dough rise until it has expanded by at least 50%. My dough needed about 2 hours at 76°F.
- On a lightly floured work surface, shape the dough to fit your proofing basket. This is a relatively large dough, so expect it to fill the basket more than a typical dough.
- Cover the basket and let the dough rise again (about 1/2 inch up the sides of the proofing basket) for 1-3 hours. At 76°F my dough rose for 1.5 hours.
Topping and Baking
- Preheat your oven and baking vessel to 450°F for 25 minutes.
- Turn the dough out of the proofing basket onto a piece of parchment paper.
- Brush the top and sides of the dough with the egg-and-milk mixture.
- Sprinkle on the remainder of the seed mixture and score.
- Load the dough into the preheated baking vessel and oven.
- Bake as follows:
- 450°F for 20 minutes, lid on.
- 400°F for 20 minutes, lid on.
- 350°F for 15-20 minutes, lid off and until the internal temperature of the bread is over 205°F.
- Let the bread cool several hours before slicing.
