Pumpernickel bread with sourdough starter

1 Servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
1 tablespoon Active dry yeast
⅓ cup Nonfat dry milk
1 cup Warm water
¾ cup White flour
½ cup Rye flour
1⅓ cup The starter
⅓ cup Nonfat dry milk
2½ cup Warm water
3 cups White flour; preferably unbleached, (up to 3-1/2)
2 cups Pumpernickel flour*; (up to 2-1/4)
1 tablespoon Active dry yeast
4 teaspoons Salt
¾ cup Stone-ground corn meal
2 tablespoons Molasses
¾ cup Toasted rye bread crumbs or wheat germ
Corn meal; (for round loaves)
1 tablespoon Molasses mixed with 1 tsp water

Directions

THE SOURDOUGH STARTER

THE BREAD DOUGH

GLAZE

Mix all ingredients for the starter together in a medium-size bowl, beating into a smooth batter. Cover with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place, such as on top of the stove near a pilot light or close to a radiator. The starter will rise and bubble up, then sink back. It is ready to use after 24 hours. To keep: put in a screwtop jar - 1-quart size or larger, if you want to keep adding to it - and refrigerate. About every five days feed your starter ½ cup flour (3 parts white to 1 part rye) and ½ cup water mixed with 2 tablespoons dry milk. Leave, covered, in a warm place until it bubbles up again, then use what you want of it to make bread; return the rest - or all of it, if not using immediately - to the refrigerator.

The bread dough: Make a sponge first by mixing 1⅓ cups of the starter, the dry milk, 1 ½ cups warm water, 1 cup of the white flour, and 1 cup of the pumpernickel flour. Cover with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place 2-3 hours.

In a large bowl dissolve the yeast in the remaining cup of warm water. Stir in the sponge, salt, corn meal, molasses, the bread crumbs, and the remaining flours, holding back about ¾ cup of the white flour. Turn the dough out on a floured working surface after it becomes too stiff to stir and let rest while you clean out the bowl. Knead the dough, adding more flour as necessary. The dough will be very sticky. After 10 minutes kneading, return the dough to the cleaned ungreased bowl, cover, and let rise until double in volume - about 2 hours.

Punch down the dough, knead briefly in the bowl, cover, and let rise again until double in volume - about 1 ½ hours.

Turn the dough out and divide in half. Either shape into 2 loaves to go into two greased 9-inch bread pans or make 2 round loaves and place far apart on a greased baking sheet sprinkled with corn meal. Let rise, covered with a kitchen towel, for about 1 hour.

Brush the loaves with glaze. Bake in a preheated 425 F oven - if you have tiles or baking stone, slide the round loaves directly onto the hot surface. Bake 10 minutes, then lower the heat to 350 F and bake 35 minutes more. Remove and cool on racks. * If you cannot get coarse pumpernickel flour, use instead dark rye flour and bran in proportions of 2 to 1.

Posted to MM-Recipes Digest V5 #013 by lena36@... (Lena P Mitchell) on Jan 12, 1998

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