Pumpernickel is a dark bread that taste similar to rye bread but it has a soft crust and is a little moister and a little sweeter sometimes seasoned with other flavors. I think Pumpernickel is  great with egg salad, chicken salad or just whipped sweet butter. I don’t see much real rye bread around Phoenix AZ and I almost never see any Pumpernickel Bread here so I started to research Pumpernickel before I try to bake one.

There are many different styles of Pumpernickel Bread.

This bread looks like German Style Pumpernickel (note how it looks like a pressed brick)

Pumpernickel Bread was invented in Germany. A German Style Pumpernickel Bread uses a sourdough starter with course rye berries and often old leftover soaked rye breads and crumbs from leftover breads that are usually rye. The dough gets baked in covered tins and a low temperature that you slowly drop for up to twenty four hours. The German Style Pumpernickel gets it’s dark color from the slow low cooking time.

American Style Pumpernickel doesn’t use a sourdough starter. American Style Pumpernickel gets it’s dark color from cocoa and molasses and gets baked like regular loaves of bread.

Got an recipe for Pumpernickel Bread from a very old American Cookbook called The Settlement CookBook. This recipe includes cornmeal, shortening and two cups of mashed potatoes with Rye Gram Meal ( ground rye berries), Wheat Flour and Caraway Seeds.

Russian Style Pumpernickel also called sometimes as Borodinsky Bread is made of Wheat Flour, Rye Flour, Rye Malt, Pressed Yeast, Salt, Sugar, Molasses, Coriander and Cumin.

I use to work for a bakery that sold baked goods and breads and among the breads they sold were rye bread, pumpernickel bread and what they called black Russian Pumpernickel. The regular pumpernickel was similar to rye bread but a little darker with a soft crust. I remember that the Black Russian Pumpernickel  was much more flavorful than the regular pumpernickel. It was a black soft bread so I’m guessing coffee and or cocoa might have been in the ingredients so it seems that there are endless variations of Pumpernickel Bread.

References

www.RusExplorer.com

www.TheKitchn.com

www.HuffingtonPost.com

www,TheBreadKitchen.com

www.WiseGeek.com

The Settlement CookBook

My first attempt at Rye Bread came out pretty good so I will attempt a Pumpernickel Bread sometime in the near future.

That was a little Forking Truth about Pumpernickel Bread.

The Forking Truth