Rye Bread - it's all about the carraway seeds

I've made rye bread in the past, poorly.  It never rose properly and was always too stiff.  Last night, the dough I almost broke my mixer kneading was for two loaves of rye bread.  I made them using the River Cottage Bread Handbook's basic bread recipe.  The recipe calls for 8 cups of flour, so I used 2 cups of white flour, 3 cups of white bread flour, 1 cup of whole wheat bread flour, 1 cup of spelt flour, and 1 cup of rye flour.  I then sprinkled liberally with carraway seeds.  For the liquid, I mixed (rather old) buttermilk with water.  My theory is that buttermilk never goes bad, because it just gets more sour.  I'm sure that in the age of technology and pasteurized milk this is completely erroneous, but I don't care at all. 

I think it was a good idea to use bread flour mixed with the spelt and rye, because bread flour has better or more glutens than regular flour, which is better again than the denser whole wheat, spelt, or rye flours.  Or, in my personal, non-scientific version - bread flour = rise good; flour = rise okay; spelt/whole wheat/rye = rise not so good.  The bread rose nicely and is delicious, which I'm sure is due to the combination of rye flour, carraway seeds, and sour(er) buttermilk.  It has a slight sour flavor that is complex and wonderful, and then the carraway seeds make the flavor richer and bolder.  Toasted with a little cream cheese, it's divine.  Then again, what isn't divine toasted with a little cream cheese on top?

Technological Advances!

For about 36 hours, I was the proud owner of a Christmas bonus.  Now I am the equally proud owner of a factory refurbished KitchenAid mixer.  It rocks.  Mostly.  I've used it pretty much every day since I unpacked it from its huge box on Christmas Eve.  It was the muscle behind baguettes, rosemary rolls, focaccia, and innumerable batches of tortillas.  I love it.

I was initially skeptical about the usefulness of one of these machines, but after using my friend Beth's mixer, I realized that the machines actually make better bread than humans.  It took me a while to grapple with that reality.  I'm always trying to rely less on technology - less surfing the internet, fewer factory-made ingredients in my food, more reading, less t.v.  It was frustrating and fascinating to see how dough that was too stiff to work by hand became smooth and elastic in the machine.  I wanted to be able to do everything myself!  But, it's actually nice to let the machine do it for me.  It also decreases the time and effort I put in to the initial stages of baking, which means I can make bread on a weeknight, even if I stay late at work!

My only mishap to date occurred tonight, when I tried to make the machine knead dough that, if I had tried to knead it by hand, I would have realized was not moist enough.  It took the engine overheating and giving off an unfortunate odor for me to realize what I was doing.  I added water and kneaded the rest by hand, letting the engine cool down.  Hopefully haven't done irreparable damage, as I assume that being an idiot isn't covered by the warranty.