A dark, dense, moreish loaf that will sit so stoically supporting your avocado and eggs or cream cheese, dill and luscious cured salmon.
Ingredients
- 375g leaven (recently fed sourdough starter)
- 375g boiling water
- 500g organic dark rye flour
- 12g fine salt
- 30g black treacle
Method
This recipe starts with your sourdough starter, which you can make using this recipe HERE if you don’t already have one. The night before your bake, refresh your starter and feed it with equal quantities of flour and water to make up your 375g leaven.
I make this bread using a stand mixer (trusty Kitchenaid) with a dough hook, as it’s particularly sticky and difficult to handle.
- Pour the hot water over the rye flour, mix together, cover with a shower cap or damp tea towel, and leave to autolyse for 4 hours.
- Add the leaven, treacle and salt.
- Mix/knead for 10 minutes.
- Cover and leave to proof for 4 hours.
- Heavily flour a material-lined banneton basket.
- Tip your dough out, squash it all together and pop it into the banneton with the help of a dough-scraper.
- Cover the basket and leave it to proof for another 4 hours.
- Preheat your oven and baking stone or dutch oven if using, to 250°C.
- Reduce the heat to 180°C as soon as you place the bread in the oven, and bake for 1 hour.
- Remove your bread and leave it to cool on a wire rack.
This bread will improve in flavour if given a couple of days to mature.

A great idea – this recipe looks fantastic.
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Ah thank you for this! This recipe is similar to one in the Sourdough School by Vanessa Kimbell, I believe she calls it “Russian rye bread” nonetheless the “formula” she provides in the book is well…lacking in detail. Your blog helped clear up my questions after two days of googling, so thank you!
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So glad that i could help you Petya 🙂
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