Finnish Rye Bread

I dropped a pair of scissors on the kitchen floor. They scuttled across the floor and spun out of control. They shot through the open pantry door and stopped abruptly, pointy-ends piercing the bottom of a full 5kg bag of bread flour. I took it as a sign to bake some bread.



Finnish Rye Bread
from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess

225g rye flour
300g bread flour
1 x 7g sachet dry yeast
1 tablespoon dark muscovado sugar
2 teaspoons fine sea salt
300ml warm water
45g unsalted butter, melted

Put the flours, yeast, sugar and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the water and a tablespoon of the melted butter and with the mixer on low, mix until a dough is formed. You may need to add a little more flour or water to get a dense, soft, pliable dough. This should only take a few minutes.

Use some of the melted butter to grease a large bowl and put the dough into it, turning the dough over to coat the dough all over with some of the melted butter, this will stop the dough forming a skin. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and pop it somewhere warm for about an hour, until doubled in bulk.

Gently push the dough down and knead for a minute or so. Form it into a loaf and put it on a baking paper-lined baking tray. Cover with a tea towel and leave to rise for another 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C.

Slash the loaf a few times with a sharp knife and pop it into the oven and bake for 45-55 minutes.

Remove from the oven and immediately brush the hot loaf with the remaining melted butter. Cool on a wire rack.