I saw this recipe in this blog by one the members from www.thefreshloaf.com.  I was fascinated by using rye and having such a nice looking loaf of bread.  Usually Rye tends to be hard,  yet,  everyone describes this as a soft deli loaf that is delicious.  So,  I definitely had to give this a try.

Taking a closer look at the recipe,  it uses rye on the sponge only.  Ah!  That's why is a soft loaf.

Anyway,  I started on my starter.  It's been a long time since I used by starter,  it had turned greyish on the top. Scooping away the top,  taking about 20g from the bottom of the container,  I added 20g rye,  20g water,  mixed it and put it a side for 12 hours.  I started this on a Saturday afternoon.

Well,  there was little movement.  I took 50g of the rye starter, and started on the sponge,  well,  as I wasn't confident of the starter,   I added 1g of instant yeast to boost the activity.  So, this becomes a biga yes?

After 4 hours,  yes,  it started to get bubbly,  nice!  So,  by Sunday afternoon, I'm ready to mix the dough.

I gave it a good kneading to get well developed gluten.  It was a little sticky,  but I continued to knead till smooth.  Set aside to rise,  after 1 hour,  I gave it a good stretch,  and set it aside for another hour.  It rose really well.

Shaping it as a whole loaf,  huge loaf I must say,  using my oblong base basket,  again the dough rose nicely within 1 1/2 hours.  I tipped it over and I wasn't sure how to score it, but I decided to do a criss cross. 

In the meantime,  I heat up the oven.  The instructions was bake at 370 F for 30-40 minutes.  I set mine at 190 degree celsius for 50 minutes.  

I almost forgot to brush the cornstarch over the dough.  I put in the dough,  was already starting to bake for 1-2 minutes,  I immediately took it out and brush on the cornstarch made up of 1 tsp cornstarch plus some boiling water.  It was a little sticky,  but well,  I load it in again.

I'm suppose to sprinkle salt,  but not liking too much salt,  I decided not to sprinkle them.

Other than my husband not liking the caraway taste,  my son and I love the bread.  It was soft and chewy,  and a lovely taste,  there was little starter sourish taste,  I'm glad as we don't exactly enjoy a sourdough taste.  A bread that is definite a repeat on our breakfast table in the near future.  Thanks Eric.