Black Bread - Short and Tweet

This week's selection included suggestions for a number of different breads from @EvidenceMatters - you can find the Short and Tweet schedule for April here. You can find out more about the challenge and how to participate here. So this week's selection included Spelt and Ale loaf (I've just finished my spelt flour!), Walnut loaf (out for obvious reasons round this way), Soya and Linseed Loaf (I have recently baked, but not blogged about a soya containing loaf so didn't want to duplicate the bread in my freezer), Multigrain and Honey loaf and Black Bread. Both of these remaining breads included ingredients I'm really not sure that I'm keen on. I don't really do seeds very much and the Black Bread is full of slightly weird and wonderful ingredients.

Having recently aquired some caraway seeds I decided that it would be the Black Bread for me. Helpfully it didn't require the sponge stage that the multigrain and honey loaf needs. Helpful because I am not organised and have only just finished baking this loaf!

The loaf derives the intense black colour from a mixture of rye flour (although you can choose rye, spelt or wholemeal), black treacle, cocoa powder and instant coffee powder, plus there are additional flavours from the seeds - caraway, fennel and cumin are the suggestions so I decided on caraway. There is also an option on the starchy root vegetable too - carrot is suggested and is what I used, but I'm sure that parsnip, swede, turnip or even potato would work equally well. I guess that with all of these variations each loaf of black bread will be fairly unique to the baker making this particular recipe.

I halved the recipe - partly due to storage issues (again) and partly because I'm not sure that I'll like the end result! Having said that, when I halved the ingredients I was mean with the seeds, using just a scant tsp, mean with the coffee, using just over a half a tsp instant espresso powder (I really don't like coffee at all, even as a flavouring in cakes, but having successfully made Dan's Black Pepper Rye Bread that has coffee as the liquid component, I suspect that the coffee will add to the complexity of flavours rather than overwhelm the loaf), and used about 20g butter.

Cooked rye, muscovado sugar and yeast.

Leaving the yeast to sponge briefly with a portion of the rye that is cooked.

The same mixture after being left for almost an hour.

Lots of random ingredients, ready to be heated.

All in, now to mix...

Mixed up dough, rough and ready before kneading.

Just before shaping. I chose a baton shape rather than the specified round.

After prooving.

Dusted and slashed. I didn't coat mine with the specified sesame seeds, because as I mentioned above, I don't really do seeds.

Just out of the oven.

The crumb is so, so soft. I'm really pleased with the way this has turned out - I chose the right time to bake and was rewarded with oven spring and my slash opening out well, and the crumb is moist and even.

I baked for 10 minutes at Gas 7/220C, then 30 minutes at Gas 6/200C, followed by a further 10 minutes at Gas 6/200C upside down to crisp the base of the loaf.

Amazing looking bread - I haven't had any of it yet, but will update with tasting notes as soon as I can.

Edited 02/04 It's a stunning bread to eat - soft and moist but not pappy soft. The flavour is certainly unusual. The combination of rye, coffee, cocoa and treacle all sort of magically meld into one seamless complex whole - of those flavours I could probably have identified treacle as one but the others were mingled. I'm sure this is just how it is meant to be - after all, the coffee in the Black Pepper Rye bread isn't noticeable as coffee either. I'm glad about this as a non-coffee lover. The next thing I say may sound obvious to many of you, but bear with me, because I've only ever used caraway seeds once before in my life! The choice of seeds in the recipe is caraway, fennel or cumin and I chose caraway, simply because I had them available. The caraway flavour is still very prominent after baking. I thought that this may be the case, because it is a strong flavour, but wondered if it would be tempered by all of the other flavours in the loaf - not so much is the answer! This is fine and great if you love caraway, but I'm still not so sure. I guess this means I'm perching on the fence with this loaf. So it's a stunning loaf - visually, texturally and flavourwise, but use seeds that you know you like the flavour of. Next time I'll make it without seeds I think! I had mine with hard cheese, but think it would actually be much better with a cream cheese.

I'm also entering this into Alphabakes, hosted by Caroline at Caroline Makes and the host this month, Ros at The More than Occasional Baker. The Letter this month is B. So I think my Black Bread qualifies there!