Mathias Dahlgren's Swedish Rye Bread - with an apple twist

by shiao-ping · More by this author { 2009 December 28 }

The Dough

Ingredient	Weight	Bakers Percentage
Rye flour	110 g	47.21%
White flour	123 g	52.79%
All of the soaker from Day 1	713 g	306.01%
All of the rye sourdough starter from Day 1	213 g	91.42%
Black Strap Molasses (Dahlgren's recipe has 140 g.)	85 g	36.48%
Granny Smith apple puree (or SPC apple sauce from supermarket)	345 g	148.07%
Total weight: 1589.00 grams

Percentages are relative to flour weight (flour equals 100%). Flour from the Starter is not counted. See How to read Baker's percentage tables.

Too much salt? Don't forget that the Starter also contains flour (usually half flour / half water), compensating for a higher percentage of salt.

The 40-year old Swedish chef-owner, Mathias Dahlgren, has two Michelin-starred restaurants, Bon Lloc and Matsalen, the latter in Stockholm. His style of cuisine is Swedish traditional as well as innovational (a fusion of Scandinavian, Tuscan, Californian and Oriental dishes).

I saw a picture of his Swedish Rye Bread in Coco: 10 World-Leading Masters Choose 100 Contemporary Chefs, page 101, and decided to give it a try. The recipe uses a rye sourdough starter. It also has a high percentage of instant yeast and molasses, which is 4.7% and 19%, respectively, of total flour, rye gains and seeds. The approx. dough hydration is 84%.

The bread is exceptionally moist and flavourful. For a person who does not normally like a lot of rye flour in bread, I find this bread quite delicious. The bitterness from the Black Strap Molasses that I used, together with all the grains and seeds and the fermented rye flour, formed a very interesting flavor and texture.

There is something, however, not quite how I would like it in a fully-loaded bread like this one. If no changes were made to the recipe, I would probably not make it again. As with the Chinese concept of ying (feminine) and yang (masculine), for something to be balanced, there has to be a ying and a yang element simultaneously. For instance, the enjoyment of a fatty and salty pork chop (the yang) is enhanced if it is eaten with, say, apple sauce (the ying) - the sourness in the apple sauce cuts through the fat while the sweetness in the fruit compliments the saltiness in the meat. Another example: the best chocolate lava cake would have some salt in there, or the sweetness would make you sick.

The issue with this bread for me is: it is perhaps a tad too masculine (too much "yang") because of all the rye grains and seeds in the recipe. I have no doubt that there are plenty of people who love this bread just the way it is. I just have a difference taste. To address the imbalance to my taste, I am adding apple puree as a hydration for the final dough. Also, I have changed the formula to a sourdough version.

I find molasses an attractive ingredient to add to a bread full of rye, grains, and seeds but too much of it makes the bread bitter so I cut it down in my formula (below).

Swedish Sourdough Rye Bread with apple puree

Day 1 - soaker

330 g water
125 g crushed rye grains
43 g rye meal flour (whole rye flour)
83 g sunflower seeds
53 g linseeds (flax seeds)
68 g rye sourdough starter (or any ripe starter) @100% hydration
11 g salt

Mix all the ingredients together and let stand at room temperature for 12 hours or at least overnight.

Also on Day 1 - rye sourdough starter (Note: Mathias Dahlgren's original recipe uses instant yeast and so there is no rye sour build.)

20 g any ripe starter @ 100% hydration
123 g medium rye flour
70 g water

Mix the ingredients together and let stand at room temperature for 12 hours or until ripe.

Day 2 - final dough

Ingredients

110 g Rye flour
123 g White flour
713 g All of the soaker from Day 1
213 g All of the rye sourdough starter from Day 1
85 g Black Strap Molasses (Dahlgren's recipe has 140 g.)
345 g Granny Smith apple puree (or SPC apple sauce from supermarket)

Method

1. Mix half of the apple puree with molasses and the other half with the starter.

2. Then, mix all ingredients together until thoroughly combined.

3. Grease two bread tins. Divide the dough by two and place them in the bread tins. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 3 hours (my room temperature was 28 - 30 C).

4. Pre-heat oven to 220C / 425F. Bake with some steam for the first 3 - 5 minutes, then lower the heat to 185C / 365F and bake for a further 40 minutes.

5. Turn out the loaves immediately after baking and let cool on a wire rack (or the bottom will get soggy).

My father-in-law and his wife came to stay for Christmas. They are very discerning diners and both keep in good shape. They have been told by their doctor to NOT have too much bread made of wheat flour and that if they must have bread, rye and spelt breads are the best. Whenever they come to visit, I try to make rye and/or spelt sourdough for them. For today's lunch I served this bread. They loved it.