Any good rye bread anywhere in NI?

I wonder if anyone makes a 100% rye bread without usr of yeast or wheat.
Basically looking for a rye sourdough bread I can buy somewhere on my travels!

Found Arnotts Rye Cruskits on New World supermarket somewhere in Kapiti.
They taste nice and are cheap enough. Thanks Arnotts, now they just need to supply all supermarkets in Nz so we could all enjoy them.

im so glad there are others looking for rye bread.Vogels used to make the best spelt and dark rye.

Nobody really makes 100% rye bread. It is tricky, to say the least. I have made one loaf recently from a recipe I stumbled across, and while it came out OK, it is not up to commercial standards.

If you are still interested in buying a sourdough rye with other flours then you could call into Paris to Berlin, Michaels Ave, Ellerslie. It is quite close to the motorway and easy to get to. She makes a range of sourdough loaves and some do not have wheat in them, I think. They are not open Monday and Tuesday. I am not sure about Wednesday as well.

The swedish bakery in Bridge st Nelson makes a 100% Rye sour dough bread very nice

There's a German bakery van that sells 100% rye bread at the Whangarei markets on Saturday mornings. I make my own and think it turns out very well. I come from Scandinavia and found it's just easier making it than trying to find it in the shops/bakeries.

Jasmine, could we please have your recipe that you use to make your rye bread. Would be much appreciated.

This recipe makes heaps of bread, but I always like to freeze a lot.
You can easily just halve the recipe.
Part 1:
2 litres/16 cups warm water
half cup of starter - can be less or more, don't worry about it.
2.2kg rye meal/flour (I use a rough 50-50 mix of coarse rye meal and organic rye flour) The exact amount will depend slightly on the type of flour you use.

Mix thoroughly with wooden spoon or similar. The mixture will be quite stiff and very sticky. Leave in warm place, h/w cupboard is good, for 12-24 hours. Sometimes I leave mine in sink with warm water and stir it every so often. If you are not going to mix the dough, you can draw a line/cross in the dough and when it has disappeared, it is usually good to go. It will have risen, it is not as stiff anymore and will have a sour smell.

Part 2:
Take out you next starter! Half a cup or so will do. You can take out more and freeze them.

20g yeast - if you like - dissolved in warm water with a pinch of sugar
I bake my bread with yeast, but of course you don't have to.
20g salt
caraway seeds, if you like and according to taste
approx. 400g rye meal/flour

Add all ingredients above to the dough, which will still be very sticky. Leave to rest for another few hours in a warm place. If you use yeast, the dough should rise quite a lot.

Now, for the actual baking. You will need a bit extra rye flour/meal for this. Place a handful of flour on worktop in a nice little pile. Use a ladle or large spoon or whatever, to scoop some dough and plop it on top of the flour. The size of you bread will depend on how much dough you take out. I either make quite large flat breads, with a hole in the middle (taken out with a shot glass) or smaller, single serve breads. Dust a small amount of the flour over the dough, just enough to keep your fingers from sticking to it. "Jump" the lump of dough in your hands so the excess flour comes off. Place on baking sheet, a very light dusting of flour is ok on the sheet, especially if you want to take out the hole. Flatten into a round, maybe 2 cm thick. Now, if you made a large bread, take out the hole with shot glass - you may need to use a fork to help lift it out. This recipe will make approx. 12-14 large breads or 40ish small ones. Let breads rest again 1-2 hrs. Before baking them, prick the large ones with a fork and you can draw a criss cross pattern on them with the back of the fork (dusted with flour!) Bake at 200 degrees 25-35 minutes (large) 15-20 minutes (small) or until done! Once the small breads have cooled down I split them in half and freeze. So easy to grab one out of freezer, pop open and toast. The large ones I freeze as whole and when I need one, I defrost it in the oven, and it's like having oven fresh bread again :)

Here's two links to pics of bread

http://kauppa.emilhalme.fi/popup_image.php!pID=0101 http://finlandcenter.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/and-bring-back-as-much-bread-as-possible/

jasmine your recipe looks wonderful and I will be trying it later this week.

Do you think it would be possible to use smaller handfuls of dough and place one on top of the other so that it would split easily (rather than having to cut it) once it had cooked or is this not practical!

Do you add steam at the beginning of the cooking (I.e. some ice in a pre-heated metal bowl or a spritz of water on the sides and floor of the oven)!

I've baked a couple of loaves of 100% rye meal bread with rye berries. Was really surprised with its rich lovely taste and aroma.
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_j7-PwrJWLc9F7lXuGRFwQ!feat=directlink https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/UE6nfv0dX3uE8x2LOloRkQ!feat=directlink
The process itself is not hard, but achieving the right texture may be tricky. May need to gain more experience. The loaves themselves are quite heavy, may be this is the reason why it's hard to find it commercially, too expensive. I even saw vacuum packed bread from Germany in the supermarket cut into half loaves. Still expensive :)

buzzy110 - it could work, I've never tried that. The top might sink into to the bottom half during the rest time though.
No, I don't steam the oven for the rye bread (only for sourdough)

While the recipe and method is not terribly complicated, it does take a little bit of time and effort, and possibly a few failed attempts. Well, it did for me anyway! Dough not being sour enough has happened to me. Still makes ok bread, but when one is hanging out for SOUR rye bread. anything else is, well, disappointing. Also, have tried without yeast, but frankly, I just like the extra oomph a bit yeast gives the bread. Being able to keep the dough warm enough during the first part is essential for the fermenting to take place (obviously it also needs to be covered or the top of it will dry - I forgot to mention that in my other post)

jasmine77, thank you for posting those instruction, I will certainly try it.I will also google the Dutch sites for rye bread recipies as we also love dark rye bread. The pictures from lenart sited sow bread that is light and airy, whereas I prefer the more solid, but thinly sliced rye bread.

Here's two links to pics of bread

http://kauppa.emilhalme.fi/popup_image.php!pID=0101 http://finlandcenter.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/and-bring-back-as-much-bread-as-possible/

Bottom left hand corner is like the small ones I make most often now.

Thank you for all that information. I have the rest of the week free so will be able to get to the shops to stock up on rye flour and coarse rye meal. I don't mind the time it takes. I only bake sourdough butI do have some yeast in the freezer because I keep meaning to make the Bee Sting cake/bread that was posted in here a while back. I can see why the yeast is important to use and as the fermentation has already taken place, I have no objections to its use at all. I'm really looking forward to trying your recipe because your instructions are so thorough. I've also never come across a flatish rye before.

Interestingly, a 1950s-60s New Zealand School 'Home Science Recipes' book in my collection has a photograph of girls (wearing their white caps and aprons) 'knocking down the dough' in a cooking classroom.

Learning how to make bread was clearly part of the curriculum, as was preserving fruits and vegetables.

jasmine I started your recipe this morning. Can you please clarify the "2Ltrs of water/16 cups of water" part of the recipe. I used the 2litre measurement. That is only 8 cups. I thought that 16 cups would make the mixture way too runny. I'd like to alter my saved copy to reflect an exact measurement. I'm a bit anal about these things, ever since uli instructed us to use near to exact measurements to ensure the same loaf is reproduced every time and I have found that a very relevant and accurate piece of information.

It is quite easy to make 100% rye bread if you use bread tins - free form is another matter entirely.

If you want the bread to rise then you need yeast. It doesn't matter if that is a selected baking yeast from a packet or a wild yeast from your sourdough. The packeted yeast has simply been selected and multiplied on from a wild sourdough some hundred years ago - or whenever it was exactly.

So yeast-free bread is only possible as a flatbread with no leavening. And even the dough of the flatbreads are usually kept for a day or so to attract some wild yeasts to make it a bit more fluffy.

You could try making that sun dried bread - I think buzzy has tried it once. That is just simply flour and water and then dried.

P.S.: I am not sure if that bread you get on the Whangarei market is either really 100% rye - nor that it is only made with natural sourdough and not maybe a packeted sourdough replacement and yeast to rise the loaf.

Oops, my bad! 16 cups would indeed be heaps. 8 cups is correct.