Wheat-rye sourdough bread with nuts and dried fruits

The recipe for this simple sourdough bread in the oven includes active rye sourdough, rye flour (I used peeled, but wallpaper or sifted will work fine), wheat flour (the variety is not so important), water, rye malt (if you don’t have it, no problem), salt, as well as dried fruits and walnuts.

First of all, to get 400 grams of active rye starter, take 1 tablespoon of starter from the refrigerator (if you store it in the cold) and feed it in 3 doses with 200 grams of rye flour and 200 milliliters of clean water. It is necessary to divide this feeding into 3 unequal parts in increasing order, that is, approximately 25 grams of flour and water for the first time, then 50 grams (after 6-8 hours) and finally 125 grams (after 6-12 hours). After the last (third) feeding, the starter will be ready for use, it will grow 2-3 times. We take exactly 400 grams, and leave a tablespoon for storage — this is the starter. You can brew rye malt. We take 50 milliliters of water from the total volume, bring it to boiling water and brew the malt. Mix thoroughly and leave to cool.

Place the active rye starter in a suitable container and add 180 milliliters of warm (not higher than 40 degrees) water. Add salt there and mix everything well.

Add brewed malt, which has already cooled to room temperature.

Mix and add rye flour. mixed with wheat.

Knead a homogeneous dough. There is no need to do this for a long time, since rye flour still does not contain gluten. This dough turns out sticky and soft, it sticks very strongly to your hands — this is normal. Round it, cover the bowl with film or cover with a towel and leave for 30 minutes at room temperature for fermentation. During this time, the dough will hardly change, only visually it will swell a little and loosen inside.

While the dough was resting, we managed to pour boiling water over it and chop the dried fruits not very coarsely, and also chop the peeled nuts into medium-sized pieces.

Add them to the dough and just mix for about a couple of minutes.

Then grease the baking dish with a small amount of refined vegetable oil and place the dough into it. We tamp it thoroughly with our hands (lubricate our fingers with oil or moisten with water) so that there are no voids in the finished bread, and smooth the surface. It remains to cover the mold with film and leave the dough warm (about 28 degrees) until it doubles in size.

My dough took exactly 2 hours to rise, but the proofing time always varies and depends on the strength and maturity of your rye sourdough.

When the dough is almost ready for baking, you need to turn on the oven and preheat it to 250 degrees. Place a bowl of boiling water at the bottom of the oven to create a steam bath. Sprinkle the dough generously with water. We bake wheat-rye sourdough bread with nuts and dried fruits at 250 degrees for the first 15 minutes using steam (a bowl of boiling water), then remove the steam (remove the boiling water), reduce the temperature to 200 degrees and cook the bread for about 30-35 minutes.

Remove the finished wheat-rye bread from the oven, let it cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then take it out and cool completely on a wire rack so that the bottom does not get soggy. Wrap the bread in a linen towel and leave to rest until completely cool (at least), preferably 5-6 hours.

Try making this bread too. I'm sure you will appreciate its taste.

Wheat-rye sourdough bread with nuts and dried fruits simply must be not only on our table, but also on yours, because it is not only tasty, but also very healthy!