Super-serious Onion Rye Sourdough !
Well the last batch of onion sourdough I called Serious Onion because I thought it was pretty intense….WRONG! According to my sons, it needed… more! So I baked up a batch of Super-serious Onion Rye Sourdough on Saturday. I made up a preferment on Friday night, putting all of my whole grains and whole flours into the preferment (sponge). I like to preferment any whole grains or flours because they handle better in the dough, they break down more so you get more flavor, so you can digest them better, and because they don’t steal hydration from the dough later on making dry bread.
Mostly because it just feels right to do it that way! I have been doing it for some time now since I noticed the flavor difference and the hydration of the dough difference. Anyway, here I am mixing up the new onion rye preferment and I go a head and put in twice the amount of the onion granules, toasted flaked onions, Dill seeds, Caraway seeds etc. I thought that fermenting those would be a great idea too. I meant to chop up and caramelize two or three large onions next day to put into the finished dough , but unfortunately I did not have the time to do that.
Next day I added the rest of the ingredients and bread flour, autolyzed, etc. The dough smelled so good that my teenage son pilfered some and fried it up in a skillet to eat for lunch because they couldn’t wait! A heavy wafting odor of onions and Caraway pervaded the kitchen. One of the commenters on the blog had a really great idea after my last batch of Onion Rye. He suggested blenderizing the caramelized onions and adding them to the dough. I was going to try that idea this time, but as I told you already, I didn’t even have time to carmelize any onions 🙁 We were up and about early and I mixed up the dough, then we took off for several hours and when I got back, I had to make up lunch and clean house besides taking care of sourdough. Anyway the Super-serious Onion Rye was looking great and I shaped it up, proofed and baked. One of my sons said it was the very best rye breads he had ever tasted.
However, I knew that he would have liked it even better if I had been able to get the carmelized onion into the dough! Here are some pictures of the Super-serious Onion Rye Sourdough:
The bread turned out really wonderful, it is moist yet chewy, heavy with flavor and just the right denseness for a great Rye. Super-serious Onion Rye toast is out of this world! Next time I do Onion Rye, I will follow the same recipe but I will add the carmelized onion!!!
