This week for Tuesdays with Dorie, the recipe was
Pumpernickel Loaves. Whenever the TWD recipe involves yeast, I have the best of
intentions but time usually gets away from me. I really do best with yeast
recipes where I can do part of the work on day and some the next day. I really
wanted to make this one, so I tried to plan the time to do it. I didn’t quite
follow my plan, but I did get the recipe baked. So what if it came out of the
oven at 8:30 pm?
Pumpernickel bread requires quite a few ingredients:
chocolate, molasses, rye flour, caraway seeds. The most challenging ingredient
to find was prune lekvar or prune butter. This is an ingredient common to
Jewish cuisine, and there is a fairly large Jewish population not too far from
my town. The grocery stores in that town have great Jewish food sections and I
was able to find it. Now I just need to decide what to do with the rest of the
jar!
I halved the recipe and made one really big loaf. I followed
the recipe otherwise, but the one thing I couldn’t do was grind the caraway
seeds. I tried in a small food processor and with a mortar and pestle and I
didn’t have much luck. Did anyone figure out a good way to grind them up? This
bread takes a while to make, but there’s a lot of down time while the bread is
rising. I did an ok job of shaping the loaf as the recipe specified, but the
ends of my loaf are a little untidy. You hang the loaf in a hammock-like
contraption to help shape the loaf, and that was quite the feat. I did manage
to wrangle something together using a coat hanger and a towel. It looked
strange but worked!
This baked up very nicely, although I think the bottom crust
got a bit too browned. I cut it the next afternoon, which I was a bit worried
that the bread wouldn’t be as fresh, but it was fine. I love the flavor of this
and it tastes like a store bought loaf. I really enjoyed baking this bread,
even though it did take a really long time. Be sure to check out the Tuesdays with Dorie blog
to see how others faired with this week’s recipe.
Recipe from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan, page 95
4 comments:
Lovely looking loaf!! I couldn't find the prune lekvar, so had to make my own. Oh and I couldn't grind the caraway seeds either. I tried, but no such luck.
Great looking loaf! I bought a coffee and spice grinder ages ago, ands finally had a use for it,to grind up caraway seeds!
Lucky you to find the lekvar. I substituted plum preserves. When I made the European Rye loaf, I did the same as you trying to grind the spices in a mortar and processor to no avail. Ended up going to Target and buying a coffee grinder - works like a charm!
Nice pumpernickel loaf!
We loved the taste of this bread.
Loooong ingredient list, but worth making it.
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