Pumpernickel Boule ドイツ黒パン

Although, most of the time, we eat home-baked bread, we buy some breads to use especially when we make sandwiches. Pumpernickel bread/boule is one of them. We used to get it at the bakery in Whole Foods. Sometime ago, for some reason, they stopped baking pumpernickel and Russian black bread.  We also discovered the local Giant grocery store stopped selling pumpernickel bread. So our usual commercial sources are not available. If we want pumpernickel we have to make it ourselves. I have baked a traditional pumpernickel bread which is very dense and good as a cocktail bread but not good for making sandwiches. So, I was tasked by “she-who-tasks” (i.e. my wife) to make pumpernickel bread suited for sandwiches. So I baked this pumpernickel bread using a recipe from King Arthur. It came out rather nicely ( picture #1). It has a nice crust but not too thick.

The cut surface shows nice uniform air holes and just right texture (picture #2). It has nice flavors as well, We had it as a part of breakfast with butter and honey. 

I made some common sense modifications especially in the directions.

Ingredients: (I weighed except for the yeast)
4 cups (480g) Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 cup (116g) Pumpernickel Flour*
2 tablespoons (11g) black cocoa, for dark pumpernickel color
2 1/4 teaspoons (14g) table salt
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons (425g) water, lukewarm

* The original recipe listed  1 cup as 96g. We keep pumpernickel bread in the freezer and my wife got me 1cup which happed to be 116 grams. The original recipe calls for  “rye bread improver” and “deli rye flavor” from King Arthur but we did not have and did not use them.

Directions:
1. Combine all of the ingredients and mix and knead  using a standing mixer fitted with a kneading hook for 7-10 minutes or until the dough is elastic and slightly sticky.
2. Let the dough rise in a lightly greased, covered bowl for 1 to 2 hours in a 85F proofing box; it should become puffy.
3. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface. Gently deflate it, and shape it into a ball.
4. Place the shaped loaf onto a “round silicon round loaf  lifter” with tabs (or parchment paper) and place in the bowl, covered with a plastic wrap and placed it back in the proofing box for 1 hour (or until the volume doubled)
5. Preheat the oven to 425°F.
6. Slash the loaf making a cross on the op  and place the dough in a preheated Dutch oven and place the lid
7. Bake the loaf for 35 minutes with the lid on and 5 more minutes with the lid off
(digital thermometer inserted into the center reads 190°F to 200°F) 
8. Remove the Dutch oven from the oven, and transfer the bread to a rack to cool completely. (I used “silicon round loaf lifter” which made this transfer easy and safe)

This bread had a light crispy crust and a nice, moist, dense interior texture. It also had a gentle savory pumpernickel flavor. The quality of the bread was perfect and far superceded the commercial variety. The sandwiches have “stepped it up a notch”.