Dark Rye Bread

I decided to do something productive with my day off so I baked some bread and carrot spice muffins. I couldn't find the recipe I wanted online so I looked through my cookbooks. I finally found one in Better Homes and Gardens that I liked. It looked a little complicated, but I had 4 days off this week so I tried it out.

First of all I ended up destroying the (tiny) kitchen!

This is almost all the space I had to work with...I got a little claustrophobic.

The Recipe:

2 to 2 1/2 C all purpose flour (I used whole wheat)

1 package active dry yeast

1 TBSP instant coffee crystals

1 TBSP caraway seed

1/2 tsp fennel seed, crushed (I forgot to add this...)

1 1/4 C water (I needed more since it's so dry here)

3 TBSP molases

2 TBSP butter or margarine

1/2 square (1/2 oz) unsweetened chocolate, cup

1 TBSP vinegar

1 1/2 tsp sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 C rye flour

1 slightly beaten egg white

Combine 1 1/2 C al purpose flour, yeast, coffee crystals, caraway seeds and fennel seeds. In a saucepan, heat and stir water, molasses, margarine, unsweetened chocolate, vinegar, sugar, and salt until warm and margarine and chocolate are slightly melted. Add to flour mixture and beat on high speed for 3 minutes. Using a spoon, stir in rye flour and as much of the remaining all purpose flour as you can.

Knead in enough remaining all purpose flour to make a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic (6-8 minutes). Shape into a ball. Place in a greased bowl, turn once to grease the surface. Cover; let rise in a warm place till double, about 1 1/2 hours.

Punch dough down. Divide in half, cover and let rest for 10 minutes. Shape into two round loaves. Place on a greased aking sheet. Flatten each slightly to a 5-inch diameter. Cover and let rise in a warm place till nearly double (30 to 45 min). Combine the egg white with 1 tbsp water, brush over loaves.

Bake in a 375 oven for 30-45 min. If desired, brush again with egg white mixture about 5 min before removing from oven. REmove from baking sheet immediately and cool on wire racks. Makes 2 loaves, or about 24 servings.

I liked it a lot, but Dave didn't. He wanted something "fluffier" so I'm going to look up more recipes today and experiment with my remaining days off! I gave the 2nd loaf to my friend Arran, but we ended up cutting it up and dipping it in olive oil, garlic and basil and eating it at her house after a hike.

At the end of the day, I had lots of muffins (3 batches) and two loaves of bread made:

Carrot-spice muffin recipe