“Wheat, white, or rye?” That’s the question you hear when you order eggs and home fries at most diners in the New York area. “Rye” is always my answer because I love the chewy and aromatic New York deli rye, also known as Jewish rye, that is served. It has a lot of caraway flavor and not as much rye flour as you might think. My research revealed most recipes use rye flour at 1/4 to 1/3 the total flour weight. Making this bread myself was easier than I thought, and it came out delicious (and pretty). NY deli rye bread also stales slowly, so I plan to eat slices of my midweek test bake toasted and buttered with eggs and potatoes on the weekend.
[Jump to recipe]
I made this recipe by combining aspects of two NY deli rye recipes — Stanley Ginseberg and Julia Moskin’s recipe on NYT Cooking and this recipe on the blog Baking Sense. I converted their leavening from yeast to sourdough, which also allowed me to skip the acidic ingredients like buttermilk or even pickle juice that you find in some NY deli rye recipes. Rye bread usually has a better texture (less gummy) when the dough is acidic.
This recipe has a cold final proof in a proofing basket and the dough is baked in an enclosed vessel. I believe this gives the bread more height and flavor, and a nice crispy crust though I do suggest lowering the oven temperature once the dough is loaded, and keeping the lid on for most of the bake in order to get a true-to-style thinner and softer crust.
Substitutions
If you prefer to use instant or active yeast, here is an FAQ on how to make this conversion, and if you do that and still want the zing and lack of gumminess of a more acidic dough, you can replace 10 grams (2 tsp) of the water in the recipe with lemon juice or white or apple cider vinegar.
You might also want to use more rye flour relative to bread flour. As is, the recipe is 1/3 rye flour, not including the flour in the sourdough starter, which can be whatever variety you prefer. (My starter was mostly high extraction all purpose flour.) With more rye flour, the flavor will be grassier and the crumb not as chewy or pliable. The dough will also be stickier, so you may want to do stretching and folding rather than kneading for gluten development, and if you go over 50-60% rye flour, you might skip active gluten development altogether.
I milled Breadtopia’s regular rye berries for this recipe and didn’t sift the flour. This is the same as our whole grain rye flour or what is sometimes called “dark” rye flour. You can also make this recipe with Breadtopia’s other rye berries and flours if you want: serafino, bono, or even our sprouted rye. Enzymatic activity in sprouted rye flour is higher, so I would definitely recommend sourdough leavening or the addition of an acid to a yeast-leavened dough with sprouted rye.
Below is a short video showing the target hydration and manageability of this dough after mixing and letting it rest for 15 minutes.
Here is the dough process after the refrigerated final proof. I am applying the glaze and seeds and scoring the dough. I smash the seeds a bit with my mortar and pestle to activate the aroma, but this isn’t necessary.
NY deli rye or Jewish rye is aromatic, chewy, and delicious. The caraway seeds and rye flour make this bread a wonderful part of big-flavor sandwiches like the reuben and pastrami on rye, and it's also delicious as toast with butter and even topped with marmalade.
Prep Time
40 minutes
Baking Time
40 minutes
Total Time
1 hour, 20 minutes
Ingredients
Dough
- 360 grams bread flour (2 3/4 cups)
- 170 grams rye whole grain flour (1 1/4 cups)
- 395 grams water (1 2/3 cups)
- 100 grams ripe sourdough starter of any flour (1/3 cup)
- 21 grams barley malt syrup or honey (1 Tbsp)
- 11 grams salt (2 tsp)
- 2 tsp caraway seeds (2 grams)
Optional Glaze and Topping
- egg white, whisked *Vegan alternative in Notes
- 1 tsp caraway seeds (1 gram)
Instructions
Mixing and Bulk Fermentation
- Thoroughly mix the dough ingredients in a bowl, cover and let rest for 15 minutes.
- Transfer the dough to a floured workspace and knead for 5 minutes or do several rounds of stretching and folding in the bowl, separated by 20-30 minutes.
- Let the dough rise until it has expanded by 75% (see photo gallery below). This took my dough 4-5 hours on the Raisenne dough riser at 80-85F. Expect longer rising time at lower dough/ambient temperatures.
Shaping and Final Proof
- Scrape the dough out of your bowl or bucket onto a floured work surface and shape it to suit the form of your proofing basket and baking vessel. If your dough is lacking tension (not holding its shape), feel free to do a pre-shape and 15 minute bench rest to strengthen it before the final shaping.
- Place the dough seam-side up in a floured proofing basket. Cover and let the dough rise at room temperature for 20-40 minutes, then refrigerate overnight (8-16 hours). If your dough is warm like mine, you may want to refrigerate immediately; and if it is cold, you may want to refrigerate the basket after closer to 1 hour. You can also bake the dough the same day if you proof for 1-2 hours at room temperature. And you have the option to place the dough in the freezer for 20 minutes to stiffen it during some of the oven preheat.
Baking
- About 30 minutes before the end of the final proof, begin preheating your baking vessel and oven to 500F.
- Flip the dough out of the proofing basket and onto a sheet of parchment paper. Brush off excess flour on the dough, then brush on the egg white (or starch glaze described in the notes), sprinkle with caraway seeds, and score lines or any other pattern you like.
- Place the dough in your preheated baking vessel, cover and return the vessel to the oven. Immediately lower the oven heat to 450F.
- If your baking vessel is a ceramic cloche, bake at:
- 450°F for 30 minutes, lid on
- 450°F for 10 minutes, bread out of the baking vessel, for even browning
- If your baking vessel is cast iron, bake at:
- 450°F for 30 minutes, lid on. At the 15-minute mark, place a baking sheet directly under the cast iron on the same shelf. This will prevent the base of the bread from burning.
- 450°F for 10 minutes, lid off. Keep the bread in the vessel on the sheet to prevent the base from burning.
- When baking is complete, the bread should have an internal temperature over 205F and it should sound hollow when you knock on the bottom of the loaf.
- Let the bread cool for at least a couple of hours before you slice it.
Notes
* Vegan Glaze
1 tsp corn or potato starch (3g)
1/2 cup water (118g)
Prepare the glaze in a pan on the stove by whisking the corn or potato starch into the water (cold) and setting it to simmer until it has thickened.
Photo Gallery
- Caraway seeds
- Flours, caraway seeds, honey, and salt
- Sourdough starter and water
- Resting for 15 minutes
- After 4-5 hours at warm temps
- Webby fermentation
- Shaped tight
- Start of the final proof
- End of the final proof
