Hey-oh! Ok, time to level. I have a problem, and it involves rich dairy products. For a week i made my mistos (A misto is a coffee drink made with 1/2 coffee and 1/2 steamed milk) with heavy whipping cream. Don’t judge me. Last week i ate an evening snack of cottage cheese mixed with sour cream. I can feel the judgement. I am going to stop my confession, take a deep breath and move on.

So naturally when i saw this recipe when i was perusing my bread bible i felt this primal urge to make it. And if you know anything about anything, you know that you never refuse a primal urge. The recipe:

Place the following ingredients in the bread pan in the following order:

2/3 cup            water

2 tbsp                balsamic vinegar

2/3 cup             sour cream

2 tbsp                dark honey or molasses

2 tbsp                vegetable oil

1 3/4 cup         bread flour

1 3/4 cup         dark rye flour

1 tbsp                 instant potato flakes

1 1/2 tbsp        gluten

1 tbsp                 caraway seeds

1 tsp                   ground coriander seeds

1 1/2 tsp           salt

2 3/4 tsp          bread machine yeast

Set the crust on the Basic of Whole Wheat cycle and press Start. The dough ball will be well shaped, but tacky and spread like a puddle during the risings.

When the baking cycle ends, immediately remove the bread from the pan and carefully place it on a rack. Let cool to room temperature before slicing.

I don’t have any advice to give you if you don’t have a bread machine other than to buy one; I know a lot of people are leery of them because in the past they haven’t made the best quality loaf but let me tell you – i use a bread maker. I would never use a bread maker if i had to sacrifice any amount of quality. The loaf looks normal, not like a square. The mixer paddle stays in the bread pan instead of getting lodged in the loaf (most of the time). Just do it. Go buy one.

This bread was very Rye-ey; actually a bit too much so for Erica and i. I made a reuben with the bread that was absolutely delicious and a perfect use for the bread, but eating it alone with butter the rye was a bit overpowering. You cannot taste the sour cream – it’s in the recipe more for the texture of the bread than anything, which was kind of disappointing since that was why i was making the bread in the first place.

I didn’t really make any changes to the recipe except that i STILL don’t have bread flour in the house. I know. There goes that judgement again. I ended up using 3 tbsp of gluten and substituted the bread flour for all purpose flour and it came out just fine!

Here is what the bread bible says about the loaf:

The acid ingredients in this recipe = vinegar and sour cream – give this rye dough a moist, pliable consistency that ends p producing a beautifully moist, fine-textured loaf. Sour cream is an unusual ingredient in rye bread recipes, but here the addition makes a memorable sandwich load. I like to make this bread when i have a pot of borscht full of beets and potatoes on the stove. The aroma of this bread while it is baking is quite exciting. The load is as delicate as a cake when it comes out of the pan, so remove it carefully and cool it standing rather than on its side.