Cooking with Beer 2 - Christmas Rye Bread

For Christmas Eve, I made up a batch of Christmas Rye Bread for Jo's family.  The key to this is that it takes a bottle of stout instead of using water.  I put the recipe at the bottom of the post for those interested.

That's a stout my brother gave me for Hanukkah.  Thanks Dan!  It's mixed with fennel and butter and heated up a bit.  Then, some dark corn syrup, orange rind, sugar and salt are added.  Finally, you add some flour and rye flour and start mixing it up.

Once it's all mixed and kneaded, you end up with a ball of dough.

Oil a bowl, flip the dough around and let rest until doubled.  Punch it then let it rest again until doubled.  After that, you take it out, split it into two foot long loaves and place into a 13x9 pan.  Let rest again for a bit.  Finally, place the dough in the oven and wait until two tasty loaves of bread appear.

The bread was delicious and I still have two bottles of stout left to try.  Win, win.

Recipe:

1 1/2 cups stout
1 tbsp anise or fennel seed, pounded
2 tbsp shortening
1/2 cup dark corn syrup
grated rind of 1 orange
1/4 c sugar
1/2 tsp salt
4 c sifted all-purpose flour
2 c sifted rye flour
1 pkg dry yeast
1/4 c water

1. Mix stout, fennel seed and shortening in saucepan and heat to lukewarm.  Pour into large mixing bowl and add syrup, orange rind, sugar and salt.  Mix well.

2. Add 2 cups all-purpose flour and 1 c rye flour.  Beat until smooth.  Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water and add to first mixture.  Beat until thoroughly mixed.  Add remaining flour.

3. Turn dough out on lightly floured pastry cloth.  Knead until smooth and elastic.  Place in greased bowl, cover well and let rise until double in bulk, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

4. Punch down and again let rise until double in bulk, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.  Shape into 2 loaves, about 12 inches long.  Place loaves in greased pan, 9 x 13 x 2.  Let rise until double in bulk, about 1 hour.  Perforate each loaf 5 or 6 times with a fork.

5. Bake at 350 45 to 50 minutes.  Remove from oven and at once brush top of loaves with hot water.  Cool on cake racks.