This week, our group aimed to recreate our second medieval bread recipe. This one, titled ‘Rye Bread with Smoked Barley’, came from the cookbook, ‘An Early Meal: a Viking Age Cookbook 7 Culinary Odyssey’, by Daniel Serra and Hanna Tunberg that was generously lent to us by our course instructor. Due in part to the ingredients, as well as the baking procedures and equipment needed, this recipe would have been less accessible to all classes of medieval society. Therefore, we sought to gain further knowledge of medieval bread-baking processes and recipes by comparing this recipe with our previous experiment, with a focus on ingredients, preparation, appearance, texture, and taste.

Supplies:

•  Fresh yeast 
• 15 dl rye flour 
• Approx. 12 dl wheat flour
• 2 dl smoked barley malt
• 4 dl whey
• 1tbsp salt (optional)

Instructions:

The Starter:

Step 1: Our baking endeavor began by preparing our starter dough. Firstly, we took a pea-sized portion of the fresh yeast and dissolved it in 3dl of water. 

Step 2: Then, we added 3dl of rye flour and let the mixture ferment, covered by a cloth and left in a warm area. 

The Whey

Step 3: Next, we focused on making our whey. We started this by slowly bringing approximately 1L of milk to a boil on the stove-top, stirring occasionally. 

Step 4: Once it reached a boiling point and was significantly hot, we added 8 tbsp of lemon juice to the milk. It began to curdle instantaneously; after a few moments of stirring, we transferred the mixture to a larger bowl that was lined with cheese-cloth.

Step 5: Following this, we let the mixture drain into the bowl. When it seemed as though all the separated whey had leaked through the cheese-cloth, we gathered up the cloth and squeezed intermittently to ensure we had enough whey that the recipe called for – approximately 4dl. 

The Scalding: 

Step 6: Our next venture was to scald the smoked barley malt. We started this process by crushing our malt, then adding it to a pot of water, heated to approximately 70 degrees celsius on the stove.

Step 7: Once a time period of 30 minutes had elapsed, we raised the temperature and brought the mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally until the grains had a sludge texture, and the heat had converted the starch to sugar. Then, we took it off the heat and let the mixture rest on the counter, covered by a cloth.

The Dough:

Step 8: It was then time to begin preparing our dough. We began by mixing our starter, 2dl of the scalded barley mixture, 4dl of whey, and approximately 1 tbsp of salt into a mixing bowl. 

Step 9: Little by little, we began to add wheat flour in ¼ cup increments in an effort to reach a dough consistency, while being careful not to add too much. We kneaded the dough by hand. This proved to be quite difficult, as the dough for this recipe was much more sticky and tough to work than our other recipe. In the end, we needed approximately 4 cups of wheat flour and 10 minutes of intense kneading to form our mixture into a dough. We then left it to rise until it had doubled at room temperature.

Step 10: We then separated our dough into 12 pieces, rolled them into a bun-shape and then rolled them again in flour. Following this we each carved an ‘X’ shape on the top of the buns and placed them on a heated baking tray.

Step 11: We let the buns rise for an additional 30 minutes on the sheet covered by a cloth, before baking them for 40 minutes in the oven at 440 degrees fahrenheit, before removing them to cool on a cooling rack. 

Final Results:

Discussion, Comparison, and Final Thoughts.

Undoubtedly, this medieval bread recipe took much more time, effort, and preparation than our first recipe. Assuredly, the recipes varied in many ways, much more than a simple taste-test would define. Thus, I have separated our evaluation methods into different categories for clarity reasons.

Ingredients: While our first recipe featured many ingredients that could easily be found in a common kitchen, the supplies needed for this recipe were of a more specialized variety and required more work to obtain. By far, the smoked barley malt was the most difficult ingredient to source. Although we thought it would be available in perhaps a retail store, Amazon, or a home brewing kit, we ended up having to have it shipped from a Vancouver brewing company. Additionally, the preparation of the whey added another level of complexity to this recipe. 

Preparation: While our first recipe was quite simple, this one required ample preparation of the ingredients, as well as much more specialized cooking methods.

Appearance: This recipe yielded approximately 12 buns, each able to fit in the palm of your hand. While both recipes had a similar circular form topped with an ‘X’ shape, these buns were definitely darker in shade, and the flour on the outside provided a nice contrast – they were much more appealing to look at than our first recipe. 

Texture: the texture of this recipe was significantly cakier, but also more dense. 

Taste: We finished our second experiment with a taste-test.  As a group, we all agreed that this rye-bread recipe had distinctly more depth of flavor than our other recipe. We hypothesized that this was due to the more complex ingredients and cooking methods that were detailed in this recipe. Additionally, it was less sweet, presumably due to the lack of sugar.