I'd never heard of rye chops until I got an email from King Arthur Flour promoting them. So of course I asked for a sample.
Essentially, rye chops are roughly cut rye berries. They're not a flour, and they're not rye flakes. They're chunky bits. Sort of like the steel cut oats of the rye world.
It's embarrassing how many types of rye flour I usually have on hand. I love rye.
But rye doughs aren't as easy to work with as all-white doughs. They tend to be sticky, which invites adding more flour. Then they become dense. They don't have as much gluten, so even when there's just a portion of rye in a dough you need to knead a lot longer to get decently stretchy dough.
As far as all-rye breads, nah, I don't do that very often. I like the structure that bread flour provides in a mixed dough. So that's what you're getting here. And it's pretty darned good.
Whenever I'm working with a whole-grain or chunky grain product, I like to let that soak just a little bit, either just with water or along with the yeast. I think it helps soften the grain a bit.
Rye Chop Bread
1 cup water
2 teaspoons yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
2 cups (9 ounces) bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
Combine the rye chops, water, yeast, and sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer. Stir to combine and set aside for 20 minutes.
Add the bread flour and salt, and knead until the dough is elastic. Add the oil and continue kneading until it is completely incorporated.
Form the dough into a ball, drizzle with olive oil, and return it to the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap, and set aside until doubled, about an hour.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Flour your work surface and turn out the dough. Form it into your preferred shape - round or oval. Place it on the prepared baking sheet and cover it with plastic wrap. Set aside until it doubles in size, about 30 minutes.
Slash the loaf as desired and bake at 350 degrees until nicely browned, about 45 minutes. Let cool on a rack before slicing.
The Giveaway! (contest is closed)
Well, no event is really complete until you take home the free gifts. One of the things we all received was a copy of the King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion cookbook.
But I already have that book. They offered me a different book. But no, I've got all the King Arthur Flour cookbooks already. So I said, no problem, I'll give it away when the time is right.
Well, it's by birthday, and I'm giving it away!
It's got a couple little crumples in the cover from being shipped to me in a box full of flour and stuff, but otherwise it's a brand new book. My well-worn copy is on my bookshelf.
Contest will be open from the time this posts on September 16 through midnight, mountain time, on September 23. US and Canadian residents only, please. It's a heavy book.
How to enter:
1) Leave a comment on this post. Whatever you want to say.
2) Tweet a link to this post mentioning the giveaway. Include @dbcurrie and/or @cookistry in the tweet so I see it. Then come back here and leave a comment that you've tweeted.
But wait! There's more!
There are several other contests running on Cookistry (and there will be more before this one runs out.) I will give you one extra entry in this giveaway for EACH TIME YOU TWEET A LINK TO ANY OF THE OTHER (currently active) CONTESTS - up to one tweet per day per contest. Come back here and tell me you've tweeted, and which contest you've tweeted. You get ONE entry in the other contest for tweeting a link there, and after that, you can get multiple entries here for tweeting the other contests.
Confused? Yeah, me too.
Example:
You comment here. One entry.
You tweet this contest and leave a comment saying you tweeted. One entry.
You tweet a links to the other three active contests and leave a comment for each tweet here. Three more entries.
Note: If you want to ENTER the other contests, that's a separate tweet, commented on that contest. You don't have to enter those contests first, if you're not interested, though.
You come back in a couple days, tweet links to the same contests again (as long as they're still active), and you tweet about any NEW contests I've started, and comment here for each tweet. Hoo boy! More entries!
Good luck! Winner will be chosen randomly.
This has been submitted to Yeastspotting.
Cookistry went on hiatus for a while, but I'm back and blogging. Possibly sporadically, but I plan on updating it more than in the previous years. Thanks for reading!
