Pumpernickel Bread

At Jeff's request I gave pumpernickel bread a try. It was interesting, my first time with rye flour and my first time with molasses. The dough was much more stiff than normal which scared me a little, I was worried my bread was going to come out too hard but it came out perfectly! A little lighter in color than I was expecting but still yummy.

Ingredients:
2 tbsps dry active yeast
2 tbsps brown sugar
2 c. warm milk

3 c. white flour
2 c rye flour
1-2 tsp salt (never actually measure my salt)
2 tbsp caraway seeds
1/2 c molasses
1-2 tbsp of olive oil (also never actually measured)

I started with 2.5 of white and 2 of rye and ended up having to add about a half cup as I was kneading it. It was very sticky at first. When I went to punch it down I met resistance for the first time, usually my fist just sinks in but this dough resisted me a bit which is when I had a small measure of panic because it was too late to do much of anything about it at that point but knead it as much as I thought it could stand and coat it in some more oil and cross my fingers. I came back 30 minutes later (I couldn't resist!) and peeked at it's progress at rising number 2, it was rising! Suddenly I had hope again for my bread. About 3/4 of the dough I saved in the refrigerator for Jeff to bake for his family on Sunday but the rest of it I molded into a ball and baked on my pizza stone. I ate two pieces almost as soon as it was out of the oven it smelled so good!

And yes, that's my garlic pesto bread in the ziplock bag in the background and my jalapeno bread bowl on the left. I made a lot of bread this week.

My hands smell of rye, molasses and olive oil, this makes me immensely happy.