Bauernbrot mit Brotgewürz

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large mixing bowl
• •Dutch oven with lid (3.5-liter minimum)
• •Banneton or medium bowl lined with floured linen cloth
• •Mortar and pestle (or heavy pan for crushing spices)
• •Sharp knife or lame for scoring
• •Wire cooling rack

Instructions

1. 1

   Build the levain

   The night before you bake, stir together 50g of your rye sourdough starter with 100g rye flour and 100ml warm water in a medium bowl. Mix until no dry flour remains. Cover with a plate or damp cloth and leave it on the counter overnight, eight to twelve hours. By morning it should be bubbly, domed, and smell sour and yeasty, like a brewery in the best possible way. This is your Sauerteig. It's the engine of the whole loaf. If it hasn't risen or bubbled, your starter isn't active enough. Feed it for another day or two before you try again.

   If you don't have a rye sourdough starter, a wheat starter works. The flavor will be slightly less complex, but the bread will still rise. What matters is that the starter is healthy and active.
2. 2

   Prepare the Brotgewürz

   Measure the caraway, fennel, anise, and coriander seeds into a dry pan. Toast them over medium heat for about two minutes, shaking the pan often, until you can smell them from across the kitchen. The caraway will go slightly darker. The coriander will start to pop. Tip them into a mortar and crush them lightly, just enough to crack the seeds open. You're not making powder. You want rough, uneven pieces that will release their oils slowly as the bread bakes and give you those little bursts of flavor when you bite through the crumb.

   Caraway is the backbone of Brotgewürz and the dominant note in any honest Austrian bread. If you can only find one spice, make it caraway. The other three support it, but caraway is doing the heavy lifting.
3. 3

   Mix the dough

   In a large bowl, combine the remaining 300g rye flour with the 200g bread flour and the salt. Add all of the overnight levain and 280ml warm water. Stir everything together with a wooden spoon or your hand until you have a shaggy, sticky mass. Rye dough does not behave like wheat dough. It's tackier, heavier, and it will never develop the same stretch. That's normal. Don't add more flour because it feels wrong. Add the crushed Brotgewürz and work it through the dough until the spices are evenly distributed. Mix for another three to four minutes. The dough should be cohesive and thick, pulling away from the sides of the bowl in a reluctant, sticky way.

   Rye flour contains less gluten than wheat, so this dough will always feel different from a wheat bread dough. You're relying on the rye's natural starches and the acid from the sourdough to give the loaf structure. Trust the process.
4. 4

   Bulk fermentation

   Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and let the dough rest at room temperature for three to four hours. It won't double the way a white bread dough does, but you should see it rise by about a third, with small bubbles visible on the surface and around the edges. The dough will feel lighter and slightly more aerated when you press it gently. In a cold kitchen this takes longer. In summer it may be faster. Watch the dough, not the clock.

5. 5

   Shape the loaf

   Dust your work surface generously with rye flour. Scrape the dough out of the bowl onto it. Wet your hands. Rye dough sticks to everything dry, but it respects wet hands. Shape it into a round boule by tucking the edges underneath, turning the ball as you go, building tension on the surface. It doesn't need to be perfect. Bauernbrot is farmhouse bread. It should look like a person made it, not a machine. Dust the top and bottom with rye flour and place it seam side up in a well-floured banneton or a bowl lined with a heavily floured linen cloth.

   If you don't own a banneton, a round bowl lined with a clean tea towel works beautifully. Rub rye flour into the cloth generously. Rye flour resists sticking better than wheat flour here.
6. 6

   Final proof

   Cover the shaped loaf loosely and let it proof for sixty to ninety minutes at room temperature. It should grow noticeably but not dramatically. When you press the surface gently with a floured finger, the dough should spring back slowly and leave a slight indentation. If it springs back fast, give it more time. If the dent stays completely, you've gone too far, but don't worry. A slightly overproofed Bauernbrot is still a good Bauernbrot. Thirty minutes before the loaf is ready, place your Dutch oven with its lid into the oven and preheat to 250°C (480°F).

7. 7

   Score and bake

   Carefully turn the proofed loaf out of the banneton onto a sheet of baking paper. It should land seam side down. Score the top with a sharp knife or razor blade: a cross, a single slash, a square, whatever speaks to you. The score isn't decoration. It controls where the loaf expands so it doesn't tear unpredictably in the oven. Lower the loaf on its paper into the screaming hot Dutch oven. Put the lid on. Bake at 250°C for twenty minutes with the lid on. The trapped moisture gives the crust its thick, dark, crackled character. Remove the lid, reduce the temperature to 210°C (410°F), and bake for another thirty to thirty-five minutes until the crust is deeply bronzed, almost mahogany, and the loaf sounds hollow when you tap the bottom. Let it cool completely on a wire rack. This is the hardest part. The crumb is still setting as it cools. Cut into it too early and you'll have a gummy center. Give it at least two hours. Three is better.

   The loaf will crackle and sing as it cools. That's the crust contracting around the crumb. It means you did it right.

Chef Tips

• •Your sourdough starter needs to be genuinely active. If you haven't fed it in a week, give it two or three feeds over two days before you build the levain. Lazy starter makes flat, dense bread with no tang. An active starter smells alive, almost alcoholic, and doubles in size between feeds.
• •Don't be afraid of the crust color. A proper Bauernbrot crust should be deep brown, nearly the color of dark chocolate. Pale bread means you pulled it out too soon. That thick, dark crust is what keeps the loaf fresh for days and gives you that satisfying crack when you break it open.
• •Slice this bread thin. Austrian rye bread is denser than what most people are used to, and a thick slice will overwhelm whatever you put on it. A centimeter thick is right. Let the Brotgewürz and the sourdough tang do the talking.
• •Store the cooled loaf cut side down on a wooden board, not in plastic. The crust breathes and stays crisp. Plastic traps moisture and turns that beautiful crust soft and sad within a day.

Advance Preparation

• •The levain must be built eight to twelve hours before you mix the dough. Build it the night before and mix the dough in the morning. This is not a shortcut you can skip.
• •Brotgewürz can be toasted and crushed up to a week ahead. Store it in a small jar with the lid on tight. The flavor holds well.
• •The finished loaf keeps for five to seven days stored cut side down on a wooden board at room temperature. It improves on day two as the crumb settles and the spice flavors deepen.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 78g)