This bread is a winner for Bob Sandy

Bob Sandy’s pumpernickel bread. /Photo | John Tavares

“This bread has an intense sour rye flavor that comes almost entirely from the four traditional bread ingredients: flour, water, salt and yeast. Some home recipes for pumpernickel rely on cocoa, molasses or even coffee for flavor. My Dad would never have stooped to such artifice.

The mix of flours in this recipe is 50 percent whole grain rye and 50 percent First Clear wheat flour. First Clear flour is somewhere between whole grain wheat flour and white bread flour. The high percentage of rye flour in this recipe yields a strong rye flavor but little rise. Gluten is required to trap the steam and gives the bread its lift, but rye flour has no gluten. Not having access to the high-gluten First Clear wheat flour my Dad used in his bakery, I added a little vital wheat gluten to help with the rise.”

                – Bob Sandy

Gabor Sandy’s Utterly Authentic Jewish Pumpernickel

Makes approximately

one 5-pound loaf

Sour starter from King Arthur Flour (KAF) for $8.95 or free from Robert Sandy

5 cups Pumpernickel Flour from KAF at $10.95 for 3 pounds or Great River Organic Rye Flour from Amazon for $37.29 for 25 pounds

1 teaspoon dry active yeast

5 cups First Clear flour from KAF for $8.50 for 3 pounds

1 tablespoon coarse kosher salt

2 cups cane sugar

1/2 cup cornmeal

2 tablespoons cornstarch

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

4 tablespoons vital wheat gluten from KAF for $6.95 for 1 pound

4 slices old pumpernickel or rye bread (don’t use a supermarket rye bread, the flavor comes from chemical flavors in a dry mix)

Sour:

Put starter sour in a large bowl and add 2/3 cup of lukewarm water.

Add 1 cup of pumpernickel/rye flour.

Mix ingredients by hand.

Consistency should be thicker than a batter but softer than bread dough.

Leave for two hours in oven at proof setting or four hours at room temperature. The sour should double in volume.

To the previous ingredients add 2/3 cup of lukewarm water and 1 cup of pumpernickel/rye flour.

Mix thoroughly by hand. Leave for two hours in an oven at proof setting or 4 hours at room temperature.

It is OK for the sour to have risen and fallen back. That gives it a stronger sour flavor.

Caramel color:

This coloring can be made in a large batch and kept. Put 2 cups of cane sugar into a metal pot.

Add 2 cups water and stir with a wooden spoon.

Bring to a boil.

Stir occasionally until a light amber color appears.

Thereafter stir continuously.

The mix will start to smoke so you will need a kitchen exhaust fan and an open window.

The color of the mixture will turn from light amber to honey to medium brown to a deep brown. Let it cool on the stove. It will harden into a solid.

Add 1 cup of boiling water on top of the solid mass. Set pot on high heat.

Stir, working the water into the slowly dissolving solid. Keep stirring until there are no solids.

Be careful as the hot mixture can burn. Once the mix cools enough to handle, pour into glass jars.

Glaze:

Mix 2 tablespoons of cornstarch into 1/4 cup of water.

Pour mixture into 1 cup of boiling water.

Boil until it thickens.

Altus:

Tear up four slices of old pumpernickel or rye, place in a bowl and soak in water. Squeeze out the excess water.

Pumpernickel Bread:

If you have the large KitchenAid mixer, you can make this dough in one batch. If not make the dough in two batches.

Put the sour into the mixing bowl. Add 2 cups of lukewarm water.

Add 1 teaspoons of active dry yeast.

Add 1 tablespoon of coarse kosher salt.

Add 3 cups of pumpernickel flour.

Add 5 cups of First Clear flour.

Add 2/3 cup of caramel color.

Add the altus.

Add 4 tablespoons vital wheat gluten.

Run the mixer with the dough hook at its slowest speed for 20 minutes.

The amount of flour cannot be determined precisely because of ambient humidity, flour settling and age can affect the result.

After 20 minutes the inner sides of the mixing bowl should be free of dough.

If the dough is not adhering to the dough hook you have too little flour. If the dough isn’t shiny and smooth then you have too much flour. Add a little more First Clear flour in the first case and add a little more water in the second.

Turn the dough into a very large work bowl that has vegetable oil spread over its interior.

Flip the dough over so that the oil is on both sides. Form by hand into a smooth mound.

Cover with aluminum foil.

Put into an oven with a proof setting for 90 minutes or leave at room temperature for four hours. Proofing time at room temperatures is sensitive to temperature and humidity of your kitchen.

The dough should double in volume.

Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface.

Dust hands with flour then knead dough by hand thoroughly.

Form the dough into a round loaf.

Spread cornmeal over a peel and place formed loaf on it. Put the peel with the loaf into the oven on proof setting or leave it on the kitchen counter covered with kitchen towels. Proof for 30 minutes in an oven or an hour at room temperature. The ready-to-bake loaf will be 50 percent bigger than the original loaf.

Set oven to 350 degrees. Just before putting the bread into the oven brush its exterior with the cornstarch glaze.

Use a skewer to punch a dozen holes in the bread. Push your thumb into the middle of the loaf to make an indentation the depth of your thumb.

Slide loaf onto an oven stone.

Put 2 cups of boiling water in a iron skillet in the bottom of the oven to generate steam.

Bake for approximately 75 minutes. An internal temperature of 190 degrees on an instant read thermometer indicates that it is done.

Let it cool before trying to cut.

EDITOR’S NOTE: For more on Bob Sandy see page 18.