You’ll want to prepare extra rye bread to share with your loved ones, friends, and neighbors because it’s so good! I obtained this recipe from a friend after spending more than 35 years in Northwest Connecticut, which is near to NYC and home to some of the best Jewish delis in the country. I hope you enjoy it.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 35 mins |
| Additional Time: | 2 hrs 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 3 hrs 25 mins |
| Servings: | 14 |
| Yield: | 1 loaf |
Ingredients
- 2 cups unbleached bread flour (such as King Arthur®)
- 1 cup dark rye flour
- 3 tablespoons dry potato flakes
- 2 tablespoons caraway seeds
- 1 ½ tablespoons demerara sugar
- 2 ½ teaspoons instant yeast
- 1 ½ teaspoons sea salt
- 1 cup warm water
- ¼ cup canola oil
- ¼ cup sour pickle juice
Instructions
- Place bread flour, rye flour, potato flakes, caraway seeds, demerara sugar, yeast, and sea salt in the bowl of a large stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Turn mixer to low and thoroughly mix dry ingredients. Beat warm water, canola oil, and pickle juice into dry ingredients.
- Switch to the dough hook attachment and beat until dough is rough and shaggy-looking. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rest for exactly 30 minutes.
- Remove plastic wrap and knead with the dough hook until smooth, firm, and only slightly sticky, 6 to 8 minutes. Turn dough onto a floured work surface and knead until smooth, 1 to 2 more minutes.
- Form dough into a ball. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, set into a warm place, and let rise until nearly double, about 1 hour.
- Grease a 5×9-inch loaf pan. Turn dough onto a lightly oiled surface, shape into a log, and place into the prepared loaf pan. Cover with a cloth kitchen towel and let rise until top of dough has risen slightly over the top of the pan, 60 to 90 minutes.
- Place rack in the middle of the oven; preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- Bake loaf in preheated oven until golden brown and cooked through, about 35 minutes. The internal temperature of the bread should be 190 degrees F (90 degrees C). If loaf browns too quickly, cover loosely with a tent of aluminum foil with the shiny side out. Remove loaf from the pan and cool on a wire rack.
Reviews
This is the author of this recipe. Thanks to everyone for trying my recipe and I am thrilled that you all enjoy this great Jewish Rye Bread. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!!
this bread is my go-to rye—i probably make it once a week—altho I do wish the crust came out a little browner.
I make this in my Cuisinart bread machine and all done in 3 hours and 20 minutes. This is my favorite rye recipe.
OMG, yum. Soft, fluffy, light, delish. Only changes I made … reduced caraway in half, used regular sugar and coarse salt; made in bread machine (dough setting). Will make this forever.
It was easy and it went well. I added raisins to mine only because I always like to do so.
I found the bread to be salty and sweet.
Followed recipe exactly – delicious!
So wonderful! I always double the recipe.
I have made this rye bread multiple times and it is perfect. I do not use the potato flakes and I don’t think they are missed. This recipe is easy and delicious.
I made one loaf following the advice of folks who said that more of both flours were needed. Big mistake! So, I made it again today and with the amount of flour I needed to have for it not to be too sticky, it came out to 2 1/4 Cup of bread flour and 1 1/8 Cup of rye flour. The amount of extra flour needed in a recipe is dependent on the humidity of the flour and the air of your kitchen. Be careful about using too much flour off the bat! I used instant mashed potatoes for the potato flakes and Mt. Olive pickle juice that comes in 2 oz. (1/4 cup) bottles – exactly what the recipe calls for. I had ordered the demerara sugar via Amazon. It was easy to work the dough this time and it rose nicely. Texture and color great. It did not have quite the aroma of store bought rye bread. But it tasted like rye bread and more like the store bought when I toasted a slice of each. This is a good recipe to start with. Next time I might use 3/4 cup of water and 1/2 cup (two of those little bottles) of pickle juice. I think the difference in the aroma was how much pickle juice was used.
FABULOUS actually made 3 qts pickles yesterday so had juice. BEST thing the 190 degree internal temperature hint. looked done at 35 but needed 40 minutes. Texture , flavor great. A very forgiving dough for novice baker but longtime cook. Nice if you are doing something else as lot of proofing steps . I made pot roast at same time. WILL MAKE AGAIN
The water to flour ratio is wrong! It should be about 3 1/4 cups I multiplied this recipe for four loaves so I could share some. Good thing my career was baking and noticed that ratio was off! Dough is resting now. Maybe I can post again with pictures later.
I don’t know what happened, but I followed the recipe exactly. It rose beatifully for each rise. I put it in the oven and sprayed with a little water for the rise. After 25 minutes, it had deflated by 2 to 3 inches and was now a flat top. I would appreciate any help as I love rye bread.
The recipe was easy to follow. It laid out the process well. I may have manipulated the dough too much when I made it into a log. It rose to slightly over the pan, but there was little oven spring. It tastes really good, but is a little dry. My sourdough rye has a lot more moisture. I will try this again, thanks. CP
Amazing rye bread! Making my second loaf this morning, omitting the caraway seeds as per my wife’s request. I make bread almost daily, and although we do have a stand mixer, I choose to use the Armstrong method to make bread… by hand. Too easy! After the first rise, I formed the dough into a log and placed it on a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet and let it rise in our microwave with the underneath light turned on… perfect for proofing bread. Once the loaf had doubled in size, I brushed the loaf with an egg wash, then carefully picked it up by the edges of the paper and transferred it to a preheated pizza stone, paper and all. Easy peasy! Resulting loaf was beautiful and the crumb was not too delicate. Nice to have a rye bread recipe I can count on!
I’ve made this bread 3 times now. Don’t have Demerara sugar or potato flakes; I use standard granulated sugar instead, did without potato flakes. Everything else was done per this recipe. It comes out excellent every time! As far as flavor, the caraway seeds and pickle juice obviously are essential. As far as texture, this mix of flours works well, not too dense and not too soft. If I want rye bread, this is my go to! 🙂
Best ever. Made a few recipe changes and added another 1/4 cup BF. The dough was tacky but it may have come around without adding it. I will add both BF and Rye in poportion next time if I do add. Actually I am baking another loaf today. Being a sourdough lover, I cut the yeast back to a bit less than half Teaspoon and added 100 g sourdough starter. Baked at 350 as directed. I proofed it for 4-5 hours but could have gone another 30-60 minutes. Will do so next time. Got a huge loaf and it was super good as I love rye. This makes fantastic toast but I like it as is with just butter. Plan to used it for sanwiches. This is a fantastic loaf to play with a bit and also I used Guinness dark beer rather than water. Not sure how it changed anything but it was a 10+ loaf so will continue with the Guinness. This is a very forgiving loaf and no matter how you make it you will have good bread.
Bread is good, only had kosher dill pickle juice to use, work ok.
I used organic whole wheat and rye flour and potato starch instead of flakes without caraway seeds – light and fluffy and plenty of rye flavor – delicious!
Was skeptical about adding pickle juice, but I couldn’t believe how great the bread turned out. Now I always have pickle juice in my fridge.
This turned out fantastic! I did make two slight alterations. 1- I couldn’t find madura sugar so I used molasses instead. 2- I added the liquid ingredients to the mixing bowl, and then the mixed dry ingredients to the liquids. This helped make sure better incorporation. Otherwise, this recipe is perfection!