Rye bread with black sesame and dried apricot

Want to maintain your slender figure but you love bread? Try rye bread instead. Rye fiber is richly endowed with noncellulose polysaccharides, which have exceptionally high water-binding capacity and quickly give a feeling a fullness and satiety, making rye bread a real help for anyone trying to lose weight.

 

I've been baking with rye a lot lately. Rye is a cereal grain that looks like wheat. It is generally available in its whole  or as flour or flakes that look similar to old-fashioned oats. Because it is difficult to separate the germ and bran from the endosperm of rye, rye flour usually retains a large quantity of nutrients, in contrast to refined wheat flour. Rye has a handful of benefits that cannot be compared by those made with white flour or even wholemeal flour, here are some listed by whfoods.com:

 

• Promotes weight loss
• Prevents gallstones
• Substantially lowers type-2 diabetes risk
• Promotes gastrointestinal health
• Significant cardiovascular benefits with postmenopausal women

The list actually goes on.

 

So now you know why I've insisted to add in rye flour to my baking lately.

 

Using the soft and fluffy recipe that I've always been baking bread with, it doesn't affect the texture to a great extent. It's still soft and I love seeing the little rye grains that appear on the bread. Looks very rustic and healthy indeed.

 

 

 



I have always baked my bread using an adapted and modified scalded dough method by Alex Goh which yield very soft and fluffy bread without adding any softener. It is easy and straight forward. You'll just need to scald 100g of bread flour with 70g of hot water, simply mix it with a spoon or folk, cover up, leave in chiller while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. When all the other ingredients are well combined and kneaded, add in the pre-prepared scalded flour and knead till evenly combined. The results are very worth the extra step taken. I have tried all sorts of method that claims to yield soft fluffy bread. This method, too, can produce bread with the same kind of fluffiness.

 

Here's the recipe for my rye bread with black sesame and dried apricot

 

First, prepare the scalded dough

• 100g rye flour
• 70g hot water

Combine both with a folk or spoon. There is no need to knead. Just combine and leave in a container in refrigerator while you prepare the rest of the ingredients (about 15-20min). You can prepare this ahead and keep in the fridge for up to 24hours.

 

The main dough

*The ingredients are listed in the order they are added into my breadmaker

 

• 40g (about 3tbsp) rice bran oil
• 250g water
• 2tbsp brown sugar
• pinch of salt
• 3tbsp black sesame powder
• 300g high protein flour
• 100g all purpose flour
• 1tsp baker's yeast (instant active dry)

• 5 dried black apricots, chopped (added in after 25min of kneading time in the breadmaker)

1. I have kneaded the dough using the 'DOUGH' mode with my breadmaker.
2. When all the ingredients has combined together, I add the scalded dough in pieces.
3. After about 25min of kneading, I add in the chopped dried apricot.
4. The breadmaker would finish kneading and go through a proving phase (about an hour).
5. Once it finishes its DOUGH mode, remove the dough from the breadmaker and punch it to remove trapped air.
6. To make loaf, divide the dough into 3 equal portions, roll into swiss roll form and place in loaf pan. Let the dough proof for another 45min or until the dough doubles its original size. Alternatively, you may also make buns by dividing the dough into 5-6 equal portions. Similar, the bun dough needs to be proven for another 45min. **I have always done this second proof in an oven (without turning it on).
7. Brush top of loaf or buns with water and sprinkle with black and white sesame seeds.
8. Once the loaf or buns are ready to be baked, preheat the oven to 165deg C, bake for about 20min (for buns) or about 45min for loaf.