I had rye flour left over from another recipe, so I decided to use it to make a loaf of bread in our bread maker. We don't use it very often, but it seemed like a convenient way to have bread ready for breakfast. I used both rye flour and wheat flour, adding the ingredients in the order the bread machine recipe book recommended (wet and then dry ingredients). I planned to delay start the bread, and also set it to a "less done" setting because it can overcook the bottom of the bread.
- 7/8 cup room temp milk
- 2T oil
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 2T molasses
- 2 cups bread flour
- 1 cup rye flour
- 1 packet active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
I adapted this recipe from one that came with the bread machine plus one that was printed on the rye flour. I didn't add any caraway seeds because my mom doesn't like them.
Unfortunately, because we don't use the bread maker very often, I wasn't familiar with the controls. Although I set a 1 1/2 hour delay, I missed the final step of pressing start. So I was very disappointed the next morning to find out that it had not mixed or baked bread. I started it then, but I forgot to reset the "less done" option.
My parents were able to wake up to the wonderful smell of fresh bread. Sadly, the end result was lumpy and hard. This was partly because the ingredients had sat for 8 hours instead of 1 hour before mixing. Instead of making a smooth dough, it was more like separate little balls. The edges and bottom didn't burn, but were overcooked. The thin parts were crunchy like crackers but the thicker part was tough to chew. My mom said it reminded her of grapenuts cereal.
What could we do with a loaf of failed bread? One option would have been to make bread pudding, but I didn't think I would like that. We decided to make homemade stuffing. I used a very sharp knife to cut the hard, dry bread into cubes. The onions and celery were cooked in a frying pan with butter, sage, cuban oregano, salt, and pepper. In another pot, I made 2 cups of broth from chicken bouillon, drippings from baked chicken (previously frozen into small cubes), dried parsley, sage, and thyme, fresh chives and rosemary, and jarlic. Some recipes call for eggs, but I didn't add any. We mixed everything together, then placed in in a 9x9 pan and baked for about 30 minutes. We stirred it a couple of times while baking to get the broth at the bottom distributed evenly.
The stuffing turned out good. It was a bit denser than the instant stuffing mix we usually make, but the flavor was right. It was great as a leftover too.
