Russian Black Bread (Bread Machine)

Submitted by COOKGIRl

"Adapted from the cookbook Big Book of Bread Machine Recipes. I make this *dense* (meaning not high rising) bread in the cold months and serve with a hearty stew or soup. Not too sour a loaf of bread either as some black bread can be."

 

• Ready In: 15mins
• Ingredients: 15
• Yields: 1 loaf

ingredients

• 3⁄4 cup strong coffee, brewed and cooled*
• 2 tablespoons white distilled vinegar
• 4 tablespoons unsulphured molasses
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1 1⁄2 teaspoons fennel seeds, slightly crushed
• 1 teaspoon caraway seed, slightly crushed
• 2 teaspoons dried onion flakes
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup unbleached white flour
• 1 1⁄4 cups rye flour
• 3⁄4 cup bran cereal flakes (I use All-Bran by Kellogg's) or 3/4 cup bran buds (I use All-Bran by Kellogg's)
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder (if using sweetened cocoa powder, omit sugar)
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 3 tablespoons sunflower seeds (optional)

directions

1. *Variation: Instead of 3/4 cup brewed coffee, substitute 3/4 cup warm water and add 2 teaspoons of instant coffee granules.
2. Place all ingredients except for sunflower seeds into bread pan in order directed by bread machine manufacturer's instructions.
3. Add sunflower seeds (if using), at fruit/nut beep cycle.
4. Yield: 1 1/2 pound loaf.

Reviews

[Bayhill]

Yes, this bread is dense! My loaf ended up being only about 3" high, but the flavor was great. The spices, coffee, and cocoa, along with the slight tang from the vinegar made this a delicious black bread. I had to add about 1/4 cup extra white flour because the dough was so wet and sticky that the dough hook on my bread machine could not mix it. Once the extra flour was added, it mixed up fine. I used the instant coffee granules in water and the sunflower seeds. **Made for Culinary Quest - Suitcase Gourmets**

 

[Donna M.]

Taking other reviews into consideration, I added 1 1/2 tablespoons of gluten to this recipe. I also found that I needed to add extra white flour to keep the dough from being too sticky. The result was a small loaf with excellent texture (dense but not heavy) and outstanding flavor.

 

[SmoothK]

There are several things wrong with this recipe. 1. This recipe uses mollasses as the primary sugar, bad idea! Mollasses contains much less useable sugar for the yeast. The mollases should be treated only as a flavoring. 2. The recipe uses all bran cereal. This is not what is done in Russia. The cereal is costly and it adversley effects the consistency of the bread. (however it does add moisture which is obviously why it was employed) 3. The white bread to rye ratio is off. The white to rye or whole wheat ect.. must be at least 50/50 or it will not have enough gluten to rise properly. I like to actually use a bit more white than the other types of flour. Furthermore I disagree that acidifying with vigegar will imporove the health of thier yeast. This is un-nessesary. The first time I tried this recipe it did not rise at all and was a failure. The second time I added 4 tbs of brown sugar which resulted in the bread rising slightly. The third time I added the following with better results. 1.5 cups white flour, 1 cup rye, 4tbs brown sugar, 4tbs mollasses, 3/4 cup coffee, salt, yeat, spices as specified above, butter 3tbs, coco 1tbs, This resulted in a black bread that rose but was still quite dense. I agree that black bread should be dense but why add yeat at all if you are going to starve them out of house and home.

 

[eljbartle]

Having lived in Russia, I consider this the closest to actually being back there. It's an excellent recipe and since I started giving it to friends and family, it is in high demand for repeats. Thanks Cookgirl.

 

[Rita1652]

Yes this is dense bread. It didn`t rise much. But was very tasty and hearty! I skipped the seeds.