Angelika Maier wrote:Another name is pumpernickel
Pumpernickel is not the same as volkornbrot or rugbrød (rye bread) as it's called in Denmark. Even though it does look similar and have much the same ingredients pumpernickel is baked at a lover temperature and for longer which makes for a sweet and very dense bread. Here it's usually eaten aroud Christmas with cheese on top much like you would a cracker unlike the rye bread which we eat by the ton. There's even a joke that here bicycles have rye bread engines. It's a bread you eat just like any other sliced breads. You can eat it as an open faced sandwich which is one slice with cold cuts on top. I also like it with sliced tomatoes, salt and peber or instead or cake for my afternoon tea: butter and banana slices. The child friendly way is to eat it like a normal sandwich. I eat it for breakfast and lunch and if I can't be bothered for dinner with a fried egg.
The best thing about it is it's ridicoulously easy to make when you have the ingredients.
This is the reciepe I use:
7dl water
6 dl kernels
roughly 2 dl of sourdough (see explaination)
1/2 dl honey or syrup
2 tea spoonfull salt
200 grams wheat flour
300 grams rye flour
2-3 table spoonfull dark,malted flour
Stir ingredients together in a bowl. It makes a very loose dough. Cover with a damp dish towel and then leave to rise for 10-12 hours. After the dough is done rising put 2-3 table spoonfull of the dough in a jar and add a table spoonfull wheat flour and water. Stir the mixture untill homogenenous. Close the lid and return to the fridge. This is an important step because this is your new sourdough. Warning DO NOT fill the jar more than half way up or it will ouze all over you fridge. Bake the bread in a lined rectangular bread pan 12 by 30 cm in a preheated oven to 210 degrees centigrade for 1 hour. After about 5 mins of baking cut a slit down the center of the top with a wet spatula
(see the first picture). Wet is better because then the dough is less likely stick to the spatula. The slit prevents the bread from splitting on the side. It does nothing to the taste of the bread but it does make it harder to slice.
When the bread is done remove baking paper and wrap in a dish towel. Then leave to cool. It's ready to eat after it's cooled. If you try and cut it before that it compacts into a gooey mess that sticks to the knife. Store at room temperature wrapped in a dish towel.
reciepe explained:
Kernels:
If you want you can double the amount of kernels. This gives a more grainy bread. The reason I the amount listed is to make it economical as rye bread here is relativly cheap and it doesn't make the bread any less delicious or filling. I use a mix of what ever the supermarket has on the shelves which here wostly is flax, sunflower, pumpkin and sesame seeds and also whole grains of spelt og rye kernels. You don't need to soak these because the water in the dough and time it needs to rise does the soaking for you.
Sourdough:
The amount is what ever is in the jar from last time but it's roughly 2 dl. I keep my sourdough in the fridge because it slows the fermenting process. This way it's about ready when I need it to bake a new loaf.
Dark, malted flour:
This is a specialty flour. It's sprouted barley that has been dried, roasted and ground into flour. Depending on how long the kernels are rosted it ranges from light to dark chokolate brown. I use the dark one which looks like the dark unsweetend cocoa powder you can use for baking - small hint if you keep it in an unlabelled container make sure to give the tin a sniff before use so you don't use the wrong one. Some people think it's only purpose is to coulor the bread darker but we ran out of it and had to do without. I didn't like the result because it didn't taste as nice as it usually did. The coulor is not important depending on which brand you buy at the store the colour will range from a medium sand to dark chocolate colour so it wasn't my eyes decieving my mouth.
I buy the flour at the health food store and not every store here stocks it. It's not essential to the bread but it's the taste I'm used to so I think it tastes wrong if it's not added.
Rising time:
I either stir together the dough before I go to bed or when I get up because then I can either bake it when I get up or after dinner so this works really well
Wrapping in a dish towel:
It's important to wrap the bread while it's warm because the steam it gives of will help soften the crust. If not you get a very hard crust which is difficult to slice through without crumbling the loaf.
If the last bit of the loaf gets stale and boring you can make it into porridge by slicing it into small cubes and pour a bottle of brown ale with a low alcohol percentage over it. The one I use has a 1,4 percentage alcohol and this evaporates when cooked. Leave it in the pot over night. The next morning add some water and a pinch of salt and cook like you would oates into a porridge. The amount of water depends on how runny you like your porridge and remember just like oates it will end up with a consistancy of wallpaper paste if you stir it continously while cooking. You can put whipped or sour cream on top. However don't use more bread than you would if you were just eating it as slices or you will eat too much and you belly will feel like it is about to explode. As I said this bread is extremely filling and I even with my healthy appetite I can't eat more than 2 or 3 slices at a time.
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