Artisan Breads Every Day - Soft Rye Sandwich Bread

Another great recipe from Peter Reinhart's newest cookbook, Artisan Breads Every Day.

We love rye bread! Russian Black bread is one of Ed's all time favorites. I loved how this recipe turned out. It was so soft with a nice even crumb and rose spectacularly.

This rye bread has a very light flavor and if you do not particularly care for a strong rye bread, you would love this bread. There is not a lot of rye flour in the recipe (about 1/5 of the total flour volume) and most of the dark color comes from the addition of cocoa powder.

For rye lovers like ourselves, we would have preferred a deeper "rye" flavor. Maybe the next time I will experiment with adding a little more rye flour. And there will be a "next time"! This was a great bread!

I wanted to make multicolor loaves. I made two batches, one dark and one light and did a four strand braid like the book demonstrates for challah.

I had never made a braided loaf before but I loved the result! I made four loaves and baked two in bread pans and two as free standing loaves. Both turned out but I preferred the loaves baked in pans.