In the interest of health, I’ve focused my bread baking obsession of late on 100% or near 100% whole rye sourdough loaves. I’ve used as my guide a nicely illustrated book How to Make Bread by Emmanuel Hadjiandreou. His specialty is just the sort of rustic German style breads I’ve always wanted to learn to bake. What I love in particular about his caraway rye sourdough loaf (pictured above) is the crust. Unlike most other breads you don’t slash it before tossing it in the oven. The goal is a kind of perfect imperfection–a hard, thick crust with as many fault lines as the state of California. And this is a bread that requires no kneading so you can easily fit it into a busy schedule.

Here’s how I make it (recipe based on Hadjiandreou’s caraway rye sourdough):

350 grams dark rye flour
150 grams white bread flour
10 grams sea salt
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
250 grams rye sourdough starter (see step one)
400 grams warm water

1. The night before I want to bake I take a tablespoon of rye starter (see our video on how to make a starter) and mix it in with 125 grams of dark rye flour and 125 grams of bottled water.

2. In the morning I mix all the ingredients together. Ideally, let the mixture rest for a half hour to an hour before shaping it, but I’ve skipped the rest period and the loaf has turned out just fine.

3. Form into a boule (round) and dust heavily with rye flour. Place the boule in a 9-inch wooden proofing basket (banneton). You can improvise a banneton with a wicker basket.

4. In the late afternoon or evening when you get back from work preheat your oven to 450°F. I have to crank my old oven up almost to the broil setting to get it hot enough, so just beware that there’s considerable variability in oven temperature.

5. Commercial bread ovens have steam injection systems that create that nice hard crust. There are two ways to simulate steam injection at home. One was is to preheat a dutch oven or casserole dish, large enough to hold your loaf, when you warm up the oven. When you’re ready to bake, toss the loaf into the per-heated dutch oven or casserole dish and put on the lid. Take the lid off when the loaf begins to brown which is usually around 2/3rds of the way through the baking. Alternately, bake the loaf on a pizza stone or cookie tray. Preheat a shallow pan in the oven and, just before it’s time to bake, pour some water in the pan to create steam. Close the oven door immediately. Of the two methods, I prefer the dutch oven/casserole dish method. Note that if you have a Le Creuset cassorole dish they are now selling an oven proof knob for the lid. Bake the loaf for 30 to 35 minutes.

It’s in German, but you can see this exact style of bread being baked in a wood fired oven. Note the steam is created by mopping the oven just before the loaves are tossed in: