Whole Grain Rye Bread with Seeds and Grains
In recent years, I stopped buying bread at bakeries and started baking it myself at home.
I know, it sounds really complicated and not at all simple. That's why I always love discovering easy bread recipes.
When I first started looking into bread baking, I discovered a whole world of concepts like sourdough, fresh/dry yeast, pre-ferments, and countless techniques and various flours.
At first, it was a love affair with whole spelt flour, from which I baked a wonderful bread that I still bake regularly to this day.
When Harduf approached me to create a recipe with whole rye flour, I admit I was a bit intimidated.
I remember that my few attempts at baking whole grain rye bread were a total failure.
It's a coarser flour and harder to work with than spelt, but I accepted the challenge and dove into the web searching for information about rye.
I discovered a wonderful, rich world of heavy, sour, and slow breads—the kind that take a full day to prepare. These breads are very characteristic of Scandinavia and other North European countries.
In Denmark, there is a rye bread called Rugbrød; it's a traditional bread hundreds of years old with countless versions.
Some Rugbrød recipes don't use flour at all, only rye kernels soaked for days, and some mix in sourdough. But I managed to find a very easy recipe, without sourdough and with just a little rye flour.
The process of preparing the bread is very simple and sometimes doesn't require kneading at all—just mixing and a long rest (just like me).
The result is a very heavy bread, rich in seeds and dietary fiber, which provides a long-lasting feeling of fullness and energy.
Rye, in case you were wondering, is a tough grain capable of growing in extreme conditions (like low temperatures or hard soil) and is very rich in minerals, vitamins, fiber, and even protein. Its glycemic index is very low (40).
A bit about the Whole Rye Bread recipe
I used organic whole rye flour by Harduf (who also participated in creating this recipe).
If you want to use a different flour, I highly recommend against it. Simply switch recipes.
The recipe uses cracked rye kernels. You can substitute with wheat or barley.
If you don't want to use pumpkin seeds (which is a shame, they have tons of iron), you can substitute with sunflower seeds.
Do not substitute the flax seeds; they are necessary for creating the bread's mass.
Silan (date syrup) provides wonderful sweetness and color to the bread. You can substitute with any other sweet molasses like maple syrup.
To the mixture of flax and rye kernels, I added a few raisins both to create a wonderful sweetness and to help the yeast rise.
Nutritional Values: Whole Rye Bread
One slice out of 20, weighing 30g, contains:
- 120 calories
- 3g protein
- 23g carbohydrates
- 3g fat
- 4g dietary fiber
Whole Rye Bread with Plenty of Seeds
Ingredients
- 150 g Rye kernels Can use wheat/barley kernels (not pearl)/spelt kernels
- 75 g Pumpkin seeds Or sunflower seeds
- 75 g Flax seeds
- 480 ml Water
- 250 g Whole rye flour (I used Harduf organic rye flour)
- 1/2 tbsp Dry yeast Or 1.5 tbsp fresh yeast
- 1 tbsp Salt
- 1.5 tbsp Silan (Date syrup)
- 1 tbsp Vegetable oil for greasing the pan
Instructions
Day One
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In a blender, coarsely grind the rye, flax, and pumpkin seeds. No need to grind much, just break the seeds and kernels slightly.
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Transfer to a bowl and add 300ml water. Mix, cover with a kitchen towel, and let soak for 18-24 hours.
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In another bowl, mix the rye flour with the yeast and add 180ml water.
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Mix well until you get a uniform, dry dough. No kneading is necessary.
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Wrap with a kitchen towel and set aside for 18-24 hours.
Day Two
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Combine the contents of both bowls and mix well by hand or using a mixer.
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Add the salt and silan and mix well.
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Pour the mixture into a well-greased baking pan and let it rise in a warm place for about 2-3 hours until the dough doubles in size.
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Preheat oven to medium heat - 170°C.
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Bake the bread for about an hour and twenty minutes.
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Remove the bread from the baking pan, turn it over, and bake for another 5 minutes.
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Remove the bread from the oven and cool completely before slicing.
Recipe Video
