I have a confession to make. One of my many idiosyncrasies is that I hate sticking my hands in the food. So I’ll never be a great bread baker. But I can get by with a bread machine. I scored a Sunbeam bread machine from freecycling this past year and have been trying out the recipes in the manual that came with it originally. This is the pumpernickel bread. I adapted the recipe a bit to make it vegan. It didn’t come out as dark as I’m used to with pumpernickel and it rose up really tall! It didn’t need more molasses so I’m not sure what it wants for brownness. It was tasty anyway. It made a great side with the lentils and winter vegetable stew I’ve been eating on.
Pumpernickel Bread
4 ounces soy milk
6 – 7 oz. water
1-½ teaspoon salt
2 Tbsp. molasses
1-½ Tbsp. margarine
2-½ cups bread flour
1 cup rye flour
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 Tbsp. cocoa, optional
2-¼ teaspoons active dry yeast
(Basic or Whole Wheat Setting – Not for Timer)
All ingredients at room temperature (70°F-80°/21°C-27°C), except soy milk
Measure all ingredients into bread pan in the order listed above. Select Basic or Whole Wheat setting. Select crust setting if other than “Medium.”Press the “Start/Stop” button to begin the bread making process. The display will begin counting down the minutes until the end of the cycle. When the baking is complete, the display will read 0:00 and the unit will signal (when this occurs, you may choose to press the “Start/Stop” button to cancel the “Keep-Warm” cycle if desired). Remove the bread and enjoy!
Notes
My bread maker seems to “sweat” a lot, so when the bread is done I will pull the bread out of the pan and put on the rack in the oven at about 350 degrees for about 5 minutes to dry up and moisture on the bread.