Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Pumpernickel Loaves

November 5, 2013 at 12:12 pm | Posted in BWJ, groups, savory things, tuesdays with dorie, yeast breads | 11 Comments
Tags: baking, bread

I really thought about skipping Lauren Groveman’s Pumpernickel Loaves. I was annoyed at the thought of having to make prune butter first. I didn’t have any caraways seeds. And then there was some crazy stuff about S-hooks and slings. I sucked it up and went to the store, made the prune butter (using the lekvar recipe that’s in the book) and thought about a way to form the bread that didn’t involve a sling.

I made half a recipe for one big loaf. Since I had a smaller batch, I mixed it in my KitchenAid. I found that I didn’t need quite the full amount of flour to get a nice dough. This pumpernickel gets its color (and a lot of flavor) from dark things like chocolate, espresso powder, molasses and, of course, that prune butter. Who knew that stuff was in there? After giving the dough two rests in a bowl, I shaped it and put it in a 9.5″x4.5″ loaf pan for its final rise (I sprayed and dusted the pan with cornmeal first).

I actually was expecting it to look darker than it turned out to be…I’ve had store-bought pumps that were almost black. The flavor from the caraway seeds is lovely and the crust is great.

There’s an accompanying recipe for Reuben sandwiches in the book, and I made those for dinner the other night. Yesterday I just had a plain turkey and cheese for lunch. Both were totes yum, and my husband was extremely excited about having homemade pumpernickel. I have this problem with slicing whole sandwich loaves, though. I can never get a straight slice, so my sandwiches are always lopsided (I tried to disguise that in this picture)!

For the bread recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan. It’s also here, and there’s even a video of Lauren and Julia making pumpernickel together. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

11 Comments »

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ooh that looks beautiful! Mine also wasn’t quite as dark as I was expecting, but it was good rye bread even if not the full blown black pumpernickel. Your loaf and sandwiches look delicious.

Comment by saucygander— November 5, 2013 #

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I like the shape and the nice crust of your pumpernickel. I ended up using my biggest kitchen towel for the sling – could not punch that darn hole 🙂

Comment by oven chaos— November 5, 2013 #

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Great looking bread. I would never have made this, if it wasn’t for this group. I’m so glad we got to try it. I was happy with the outcome.

Comment by SandraM— November 5, 2013 #

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I like how it turned out in a bread pan!

Comment by Karen @ Karen's Kitchen Stories— November 6, 2013 #

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I would love to tear into that loaf right now! All I need is a slathering of butter. Bread and butter for dinner is perfectly fine by me. 🙂

Comment by suezumout— November 6, 2013 #

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I don’t know the secret to even slices either. Maybe someone will clue us in. But your sandwich looks fabulous!

Comment by margaret— November 8, 2013 #

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Beautifully done! And if you burned yours like I did mine, you would have had a darker loaf 😉

Comment by thatskinnychickcanbake— November 8, 2013 #

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Your loaf looks beautiful, and it looks like it turned out well baked in a bread pan…good for making sandwiches too.

Comment by galettista— November 8, 2013 #

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Your loaf looks beautiful. I meant to buy turkey for sandwiches and forgot. 😦 Your sandwich looks great – uneven slices or not. (You can’t tell from the picture.)

Comment by Cathleen— November 8, 2013 #

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What a difference a good photographer can make. (You probably even own a camera outside of your phone!) Lovely pics.

My hubs went nuts over this bread too. He’s already asking for more before Thanksgiving so he can serve it with his homemade gravlax. yum!

Comment by tammy— November 12, 2013 #

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What a lovely photo.
The ingredients list and description were so long that I’ve almost skipped it as well, … but then, being a bread-aholic, I just couldn’t! LOL

Comment by Ckay— November 17, 2013 #

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