How to Make Homemade Rye Bread | Alexandra's Kitchen (2024)

Made with a mixture of bread and rye flours, a small amount of honey, and a few teaspoons of caraway seeds, this simple no-knead rye bread tastes beautifully tangy with a hearty, chewy texture perfect for sandwiches or toast. It comes together in no time and bakes in a single loaf pan, but the recipe can be doubled, and the baked bread freezes very well.

Rye bread has a reputation of being dense and heavy as well as aggressively sour in flavor. While some people love these qualities, others, understandably, do not. I love a rye bread with a subtle tang and a hearty but not leaden texture.

This no-knead rye bread is just that: made with a mixture of bread and rye flours, the texture of the finished loaf is light enough for a sandwich but makes excellent toast as well. A small amount of honey balances out the sourness and lends a nice chew, while caraway seeds, which can be left out, impart subtle notes of citrus and anise.

This recipe calls for 1 cup of rye flour and 3 cups of bread flour, and while you could play around with increasing the proportion of rye in this recipe (which is roughly 20% by weight), keep in mind that the more rye flour you use, the denser your bread will be. Why? Because rye flour is different than wheat flour in a number of ways, namely:

• Higher in Bran and Minerals: Flour with a high amount of bran and minerals will produce bread that is lower in volume because the sharp shape of the bran cuts the gluten network.
• Different Proteins + High in Pentosans: Wheat flour contains two gluten-forming proteins: glutenin (which promotes elasticity) and gliadin (which promotes extensibility). When these proteins mix with water, gluten begins forming. Rye flour on the other hand contains gliadin and a protein called glutelin (similar to glutenin). It also is high in pentosans (a polysaccharide composed of carbon sugars). The pentosans absorb water and compete with the gliadin and glutelin for moisture, which inhibits the development of gluten in rye breads.

Got all that? I’m still processing it. It comes from Jeffrey Hamelman’s Bread, which is a great resource if you like to understand the science behind bread baking. I have to confess I have never made a recipe from the book, and I pull it out seldomly but when I do, I always find the answer I am looking for (and more!).

Homemade Rye Bread, Step by Step

This recipe calls for a mix of rye flour and bread or all-purpose flour. I’m using Zingerman’s freshly milled rye flour.

The Importance of Using a Scale

I was curious as to how much 1 cup of this particular rye flour would weigh, so I set my measuring cup on the scale and spooned in as much flour as I could without it spilling out.

I was able to get 96 grams of flour in without spilling, then I gently shook the cup…

… which brought the flour down to just below the rim of the measuring cup. This is an example of why it is so important to use a scale. Depending on how we measure, 1 cup of flour can vary dramatically in weight.

Once you have your ingredients measured accurately…

whisk together the flours, salt, instant yeast, and caraway seeds, if using.

Whisk together the water and honey until the honey dissolves, then add the mixture to the bowl, followed by the oil.

Stir with a spatula until you have a sticky dough ball.

Cover the bowl and let rise until doubled, 2 to 3 hours.

Rub the surface of the dough with a tablespoon of oil, then deflate the dough.

Turn the loaf over, then roll into a loaf shape.

This video may help:

Transfer to a buttered 8.5×4.5-inch or 9×5-inch loaf pan.

Let rise until the dough crowns the rim of the pan by about an inch.

Bake for 45 minutes at 375ºF.

Let cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing. I like to slice it, then freeze it in bundles of 3 to 4 slices.

Like the maple-oat bread and the three-seed bread, this one makes great toast:

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