A Mischbrot, after watching someone else's kitchen
Most baking videos are filmed in kitchens with marble worktops, a window the size of a door and nothing out of place. Watching them makes me want to tidy rather than bake. This one is different. Someone on Wikimedia Commons, credited as Arquus, filmed an ordinary German home kitchen, from mixing to a finished loaf, in about six minutes:
There is no presenter and no showing off, just hands and a bowl and an oven that has clearly been used a great deal. What I took from it was less a recipe than a reminder of how little fuss bread actually needs. The mixing is brisk, the shaping takes seconds, and nobody stops to admire anything. Watch it for the hands rather than the measurements.
It sent me back to a loaf I had not made in years: a Mischbrot, the everyday mixed bread in much of Germany, somewhere between a wheat sourdough and a proper rye. Mine uses Morris as the sour, with enough rye flour in the dough that it tastes of rye but still rises like wheat.
| Ingredient | Percent | Grams |
|---|---|---|
| Strong white flour | 60% | 300 |
| Wholegrain rye flour | 40% | 200 |
| Water | 72% | 360 |
| Morris (starter, fed with rye the night before) | 20% | 100 |
| Salt | 2% | 10 |
| Caraway seeds, lightly crushed | 1% | 5 |
| Total | 195% | 975 |
The hydration looks low next to the everyday loaf, but rye soaks up far more water than wheat and the dough is softer than the number suggests. Do not add more.
Method
- The evening before, feed Morris with rye only: 30 g Morris, 50 g rye, 50 g water. Leave on the counter overnight. By morning he will be domed, sour-smelling and ready.
- Mix everything in one go with water at about 30 °C. Work it in the bowl for five minutes with a wet hand or a stiff spatula. It will be sticky. Rye dough is always sticky. Wet hands, not more flour.
- Bulk ferment for about two and a half hours at 24–26 °C, with one stretch and fold after the first hour. It should grow by about half and feel puffy. This is shorter than a wheat dough; the rye and the acid speed it up.
- Shape into an oval on a well-floured counter. Do not fuss: two or three folds and a roll. Put it seam-side down into a floured basket, or seam-side up if you want the rustic cracked top, which I do.
- Final proof for 45 to 75 minutes at room temperature, until the surface shows fine cracks in the flour. No fridge for this one; long cold proofs make a 40% rye dough too sour and too slack.
- Bake in the preheated pot at 250 °C, lid on for 15 minutes, then lid off at 210 °C for another 35–40 minutes. Rye wants a longer, gentler finish than wheat.
- Cool completely. At least four hours, ideally overnight. The crumb is still setting as it cools, and cutting early gives a gummy middle.
First attempt came out slightly flat, because I proofed it for the full 75 minutes and it spread when I turned it out. Second attempt, 50 minutes, held its shape and cracked across the top in a pattern I would like to say was deliberate. The flavour is the real point: mildly sour, faintly sweet from the rye, with the caraway in the background rather than shouting. It makes very good cheese sandwiches, and it is still pleasant on the fourth day, which the everyday loaf is not.