Riga bread

This aromatic wheat-rye bread has long won over many people with its taste. Today, Riga bread can be bought in a store without any problems, but some chefs are happy to cook it at home. Riga bread is good even by itself, goes well with any first and second courses, and is also used as a base for sandwiches.

In general, Riga bread is baked with a hearth (that is, not in a baking form, but on a hearth or on a baking sheet) in the form of an oblong loaf with blunt ends. This bread is characterized by a delicate caraway aroma with malt notes, a pleasant sour-sweet taste, a thin crust and a rather dense crumb.

I must say that it is quite difficult to prepare real Riga bread by all standards. In particular, such bread is cooked on a brew, and it is necessary to maintain its certain temperature for a decent long time. That is why I offer you a more simplified version of Riga bread, which even a novice baker can handle. It will turn out to be quite a worthy alternative to this tasty and aromatic bread.

Ingredients

• Wheat flour of the first grade (480 grams)
• Rye flour (240 grams)
• Water (350 milliliters)
• Natural honey(50 grams)
• Sunflower oil(3 tablespoons)
• Rye malt (1 tablespoon)
• Cumin (1 tablespoon)
• Cooking Salt (2 teaspoons)
• Fast acting yeast (5 grams)

Directions

1. This recipe for Riga bread includes the following ingredients: first grade wheat flour, rye flour, water, natural honey (in the original dark molasses, but I didn't have it), rye malt, refined vegetable oil, caraway seeds, salt and yeast (5 grams is 1 heaped teaspoon). In my case, instant yeast was used, that is, those that are added directly to the flour. If you have just dry (we also take 5 grams) or fresh (pressed - 15 grams), they must first be diluted in warm water with honey and let stand for 10-15 minutes. When a frothy cap appears on the surface of this yeast cocktail, you can proceed to kneading the dough for Riga bread.
2. Sift first grade wheat flour and rye flour into a suitable dish. If you have seeded rye flour, it does not need to be additionally sieved through a sieve.
3. Add rye malt, salt, fast-acting yeast and caraway seeds to the flour. If you wish, you can boil the malt with boiling water (3 tablespoons of the total water), then cool it completely and add to the dough. I do both this and that, but I will say that there is not much difference. Well, maybe the malt aroma is more intense when brewed. Mix everything thoroughly with a spoon or hand so that the dry ingredients combine and the yeast spreads evenly throughout the flour.
4. In a separate bowl, dissolve natural honey in warm water. The liquid should be lukewarm, pleasant to the human hand. If the water is hot, the yeast will simply die and the dough will not rise.
5. In the center of the flour mixture, make a depression and pour sweet water and vegetable oil (3 tablespoons) into it. First, you can start stirring the dough with a spoon, and then with your hands, when the flour absorbs the liquid.
6. Knead the dough until smooth and completely homogeneous. This will take about 5-7 minutes if you knead with your hands. The kneader or bread maker will cope even faster. Round the dough, tighten the bowl with cling film or cover with a towel and leave in a warm place for an hour and a half.
7. During this time, the dough for Riga bread will noticeably swell and increase in volume.
8. We take it out of the bowl and transfer it to the work surface. You can, of course, dust the table a little with flour, but I didn't - the dough doesn't stick to my hands at all. Gently level it with the palm of your hand into an approximately square-shaped layer.
9. Then we start to shape the loaf. To do this, fold the far edges of the dough to ourselves and press firmly with our fingers.
10. Now we do the same with the edges of the dough closest to us and also press tightly. Again, it turns out to be roughly square.
11. We press two corners, near and far, to the center of the dough layer.
12. It remains to fold the workpiece in half towards you. Punch the junction with fast movements with the edge of the palm to tightly fasten the seam.
13. We roll up the workpiece so that the dough takes the shape of a loaf. The seam must be on the bottom. We transfer the workpiece to a baking sheet covered with baking paper and a little floured. Cover the future Riga bread with cling film or a towel and let it stay warm for 1 hour.
14. In an hour, the workpiece will swell and noticeably round. It's time to bake bread.
15. Before planting in the oven, sprinkle the workpiece a little with water from a spray bottle, just not very abundantly.
16. We bake Riga bread in a preheated oven for 40-45 minutes at 180 degrees. In general, the crust of this bread should be dark, but my old oven blushed the baked goods very badly, so the bread turned out to be light.
17. Remove the ready-made Riga bread from the baking sheet and cool on the wire rack so as not to soak the bottom. Let it cool completely and after 3-4 hours you can take a sample.
18. I am sure that using this simple homemade baking recipe you will get the same aromatic and tasty Riga bread. Good luck and bon appetit, friends!