Rye bread

Ingredients:
300g rye flour
100g white bread flour
100g sourdough starter
1 tsp salt
300ml warm water (give or take)
1 tablespoon caraway seeds

Method:
Put the flour and salt into a large bowl and mix together.

Add the starter and slowly add the water and mix together to form quite a sticky dough that is more like a cake mix than a bread dough. You can add more or less water depending on how your dough feels. I find it varies slightly every time.

Add the seeds and mix well. There is no point kneading this bread.

Place the dough in a lightly greased loaf tin. Cover loosely with a damp cloth and leave for a few hours, ideally overnight. It won’t rise very much due to the low gluten content of the rye flour.

Heat your oven to its highest temperature.

Put your loaf in the centre of the oven for 10 minutes before dropping the temperature to 200 degrees Celsius if the crust is looking pale, 180 degrees Celsius if the crust is noticeably browning, and 170 degrees Celsius if it seems to be browning quickly. Cook for a further 40 mins.

Remove from the tin. The loaf should sound hollow when you tap it on the bottom.

Leave to cool fully before cutting.

Taken from my book ‘Eat like a Viking!’ Available now on Amazon