A light rye for spring, and someone else's proving basket

27 March 2026bakingsourdoughrecipevideo

The new starter is a rye starter at heart, so it seemed fair to give it some rye to work on before asking it to raise anything ambitious. This is the loaf I make when I want something that tastes of more than white flour but will still come out of a tin as a recognisable slice: 40% rye, the rest strong white, a lot of water, no shaping to speak of.

That totals 1055 g, which is slightly more than my tin wants. I make it anyway and bake the extra 150 g as a small roll, because a roll is the only way to taste the loaf on the same day without cutting into the loaf.

Method

1. Mix everything with a stiff spatula for three or four minutes. It will be sticky and look nothing like bread dough. That is correct.
2. Rest 30 minutes covered, then wet your hands and fold the dough over itself a few times in the bowl. It will hold its shape a little better.
3. Bulk for about two hours at 24 °C. Rye at 40% does not need much bulk; most of the work happens in the tin.
4. Wet hands again, roll into a rough log, drop it into an oiled tin, smooth the top with a wet spatula.
5. Prove until the surface has risen to roughly a centimetre below the rim and shows fine cracks. For me that was two hours and ten minutes.
6. Bake at 240 °C for 15 minutes, then 200 °C for 35 to 40 minutes. Out of the tin for the last five minutes if the sides look pale.
7. Cool completely. Not as long as the dark rye needs, but at least four hours.

Watching it happen

The proving stage is the one I find hardest to judge, because rye does not rise so much as swell. So here is a short time-lapse that I did not make: it was filmed by Maximilian Schönherr and shared on Wikimedia Commons. His dough is in a banneton rather than a tin, which I do not own and have never felt brave enough to use with rye, but the behaviour is the same.

What to watch for is the surface, not the height. Early on it is smooth and slightly glossy. Towards the end it goes matt, the flour dusting opens up, and fine cracks run across the top like dried mud. That cracked, matt look is the signal I use. If you wait until the cracks are wide and deep, you have gone too far, and the loaf will slump in the oven and leave a gap under the crust.

My loaf went slightly too far, by perhaps fifteen minutes, because I was outside looking at the Moon and lost count. The crumb was fine. The top had the small air pocket under it that means "you were not paying attention", which is also correct.