Post 100! Mellow Bakers: Sourdough rye with walnuts

I missed my blogiversary (it was in early September), but I'm ready to celebrate post #100! Unfortunately it arrives at a time when I am so swamped with work and life that I don't have time to do it justice. So here I am, blogging about a bread I baked a week ago with only one (badly-lit) picture.

When I went to bake this bread, I discovered that I'd neglected my starter Austin, so I began by refreshing him a few times. Then I made the sourdough by combining rye flour, water, and a bit of Austin. I let it rest overnight, and I was happy to find that it did show signs of development after about 14 hours.

Then I mixed in the rest of the ingredients: bread flour, rye flour, water, salt, a hint of instant yeast. The dough was really wet and, because I'd only made half of the recipe, my dough hook couldn't seem to do anything with it. I took it out and did a couple of stretch-and-folds. Finally I gently kneaded in the walnuts.

The dough took a while to double - probably about an hour and a half, and then I shaped it into two mini loaves so that we could have one with dinner and still have one to take in to work for the first day of school. I baked them (steamed, too) for . . . okay, I actually can't remember. Maybe 15 or 20 minutes?

This bread was yummy, although the kids didn't like it (they're fussy about nuts in their bread). I loved the combination of light rye with the walnuts. It was quite popular at school, too!

Other Mellow Bakers' September breads can be found here!