100% whole wheat loaves may be made with a bread machine in the whole wheat program. High WW flour formulas that aim for sandwich loaves with an moderately open crumb use a dough with enhanced visco-elastic properties; the dough is enhanced with vital wheat gluten or bread flour and enriched with fats – oil or butter – and sugar in the form of molasses, honey, milk, brown sugar or refined sugar.
Much “whole wheat” bread multigrain bread. Multigrain covers many blends made with 50-90% flour being high protein white flour and some whole wheat flour. Loaves with high white flour content may use, and carmelized sugar products (e.g. molasses) for sweet flavour and brown colour. These loaves deliver the energy part of nutrition – starch – like sandwich bread and other processed carbohdrates. A multigrain loaf high in white flour can be baked in a bread machine with the basic bake program.
Bread machine recipes have to be customized; each machine needs a different amount of yeast to ferment to produce enough carbon dioxide to inflate the dough and make the dough rise within the time limits of the program. The best way to find the right amount of yeast for a bread machine recipe is to understand the manufacturer’s recipe for basic bread. The amount of yeast depends on the type of yeast and amount of salt in the recipe. I use instant yeast, and I write recipes in tables.
The manufacturer’s recipe for the whole wheat program is a suggestion of how produce a goof loaf with whole wheat flour, water, salt, added gluten, sugar, fats, and dry yeast in 4 hour program. Zojirushi’s recipe for 100% Whole Wheat Bread provides medium (1.5 lb.) and large (2 lb.) loaf formulas for the Zojirushi machines with large pans such as the BB-PAC20. I used those recipes to find out how to leaven 100% whole wheat for that device, a precaution to avoid overflowing or collapsing loaves.
The Zojirushi medium (1.5 lb.) recipe says to use 3.5 cups/420 g. of whole wheat flour recipe. The manual recommends measuring by scooping flour into a measuring cup – i.e. lightly scooped and less dense. This is a 3 cup recipe by weight. The manual says 4.2 g. [1.5 tsp] active dry yeast. 3 cups of whole wheat flour can be leavened with 3.6 g. of any instant yeast [a little more than 1 ¼ teaspoons]. It used a teaspoon of salt which is much healthier than many whole wheat recipes, but can be reduced using the usual calculations. Because I try to use 33% or 50% of the sodium (salt), than a recipe prescribes, I have to make a corresponding adjustment to yeast. The rule of reducing salt and yeast in the same proportion by weight works with whole wheat.
The dough made with the Z. recipe is enhanced with vital wheat gluten at a ratio of 1 tbsp. to 1 cup flour (8 g. to 139 g.). This exceeds the often generous prescriptions of Beth Hensperger for a 100% whole wheat loaf in the Bread Lovers Bread Machine Cookbook. The Z. dough is enriched with sugar, >43 g. for 417 g. of flour in a medium loaf (35 g. refined sugar, 7.5 g sugar in 10 g. molasses, lactose in milk powder) i.e. about 9% of dry ingredient weight. The recipe bakes into a denser bread than I like, which is fixed by reducing the water by a few teaspoons to get a loaf that rises, crowns and holds a loaf shape. Bakers hydrate whole wheat flour more intensely that bread flour to get suitable dough. Some of the water comes out in the baking. Whole wheat loaves have to be left to cool and dry out a bit. I find that in a machine, I can just leave out a little water. I can happily bake and eat this bread. I haven’t tried to toast it.
I have baked Beth Henspergers “Tecate Ranch Whole Wheat”, BLBMC (p. 126), a 100% whole wheat flour loaf enriched with canola oil, honey, and molasses a few times. It gets sugar from honey, molasses and milk powder (lactose is milk and dry milk is a sugar) . It may have as much or more sugar than the Zojirushi formula. BLBMC named it for a spa in Baja California that served “Zarathustra” bread; the spa used Zoroastrianism as one its themes. Exotic naming was a staple of marketing several times, in different decades of the 19th and 20th centuries. For an SF reading of the name, consider watching 2001: a Space Odessey, listening to the fanfare of Thus Spake Zarathustra. This could inspire a vision of black monolith. With gluten and adequate yeast the loaf rises and crowns nicely. I adapted the BLBMC source – it uses too much yeast (and is not low sodium). I get a loaf that rises, crowns and holds a loaf shape with just a little less water.
Adding gluten offsets the tendency of whole wheat to produce dense loaves by providing enough additional elasticity to use the CO2 produced by fermentation to provide some crumb and lift. The sugar weakens the gluten slightly, which enhances pan flow.
Organic stone ground flour doesn’t require changes to recipes. It seems to lead to slightly more open and rustic crumb. I am not able to find a flavour difference.
I have a Flax seed multigrain loaf recipe with 2 cups of bread flour and 1 cup of whole wheat flour for a medium loaf. I am adapting my sister’s Flax Seed Whole Wheat bread with 2.5 cups of whole wheat flour, 1 cup of white flour, oatmeal, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, poppy seeds, flax meal, and 1.75 cups milk. It works in her machine, producing a loaf with an open crumb. I have adapted it for the Zojirushi BB-PAC20 for low sodium – this is a work in progress.
The Nafufians, hunter gatherers in Jordan, were making bread with wild cereal 12,500 BCE. The master formula for ancient bread is to grind dried grain into a paste or flour, add water and yeast, let the stuff ferment, tear it in pieces and cook the pieces on a hot surface. People know how to grind and mill flour, and bake bread before the science was understood. The master formula for a loaf of bread is to make paste of flour and water and handle the paste until to becomes a mass of dough and put pieces of dough on the hot surface and bake it.
The wild cereal evolved into wheat, which grew in the Fertile Crescent and Egypt (and North Africa) when the climate was wetter. Wheat has been grown in Western Europe, on the Eurasian plains and the North Amercan plains. Most bread is made with wheat flour. The supply chain for a consumer of flour or bread is farmer (land, seed, work, machinery) to mill (machinery to refine wheat to flour) to bakery to retail store to consumer. The interactions between actors along the chain have changed wheat, flour, baking and bread. Wheat can be classified based on millers’ descriptions or botanical taxonomy. Wheat evolved, under the direction of plant breeders into varieties of a short grass that produces high carb seeds. Farmers grow cultivars of annual wheat. Organic agriculture criticizes the wheat monoculture and the use intensive chemical fertilizers. Millers want wheat that they can mill into white flour. Bakers want white flour that can be mixed and baked into white bread.
White bread became a widely available commodity. White flour became a standard miller’s product, a commodity, and staple for consumers after the development of steel roller milling. White flour is highly refined – the bran and germ of the wheat kernel are milled out. White flour does not require refrigerated storage. It is shelf stable. White flour is nearly pure starch. White flour, in the U.S.A, is identified and labelled as being in one of several categories including Bread (or strong), All-Purpose, Pastry and Cake.
Bread flour is milled from high protein “hard” wheat (Canadian All-Purpose is high protein like US bread flour) and has more gliadin and glutenin, the insoluble proteins that bond to form gluten than white cake or pastry flour. Bleaching1the source is now gated became legal in the US in the 20th century. According to the science cited by the milling and food processing companies, bleaching did not affect nutrition. There was instant reaction by some bakers, consumers and food scientists. European food scientists debated about the effects of industrial mixing methods on the quality of white bread. Consumers accepted the convenience and low price of sliced bread. Through much of the 20th century American bakers concentrated on making sandwich bread. Nutritionists criticized white flour in the 1930s. American regulatory decision makers required the enrichment of white flour with nutrients. Consumers became suspicious that mass-production white bread lacked culinary or nutritional quality. Some independent artisan bakers used baking technique to produce better white bread.
Whole wheat baking was a counterculture idea in the 1960s, rather than a restoration of traditional baking practices, remembered through cookbooks from that era such Edward Espé Brown’s Tassajara cookbook. The pioneer counterculture bakers were vegetarians, enviromentalists and spiritual thinkers, interested in authentic and natural products. Their methods were often trial and error; they were skeptical or unaware of food science and culinary tradition. They had to learn about leavening and other baking methods. Some followed traditional regional styles for flatbreads, which had efficiently used grain, fuel and time. Recipes from vegetarian, vegan and nutritional/health oriented recipes tend to produce brick-like loaves. Peter Reinhart has a chapter in Whole Grain Breads (2007) on how he learned to bake before he started Brother Juniper’s Café/Bakery in Santa Rosa, California in 1986. He describes the 1960s and 1970s as a preamble to an American culinary awakening. Independent artisans or craft bakers used methods including use long or cold fermentation to make very tasty loaves with whole wheat flour. Industrial bakers responded to demand and opportunity with their interpretation of whole grain baking producing brown bread, which is usually a white flour multigrain bread. Artisan baking did not scale to industrial baking.
Millers do not use high protein wheat to mill whole wheat flour. There is an abundance of steel roller milled whole wheat flour available. It is not as shelf stable as white flour, but more stable than traditional whole wheat flour. Stone ground whole wheat and “organic” whole wheat flour is less stable and more expensive. It is usually made with basic market wheat, and seldom made with identified varieties of wheat.
A home baker and an artisan baker can make whole wheat bread with starters, soakers, sponges, barms and sponges. This gives the loaf time for preliminary fermentation which adds flavour. It also allows for more gluten formation which starts when flour and water are mixed. Bakers hydrate whole wheat flour more intensely that bread flour. Sugar it is hygroscopic and weakens (relaxes) gluten. Small amounts relax gluten for flow and rise much. With time and hydration, loave with whole wheat flour, water and sugar will form gluten and shape up and bake into loaves that crown up. A commercial baker working in with pans will not have time or space to let loaves rise slowly and could enhance whole wheat dough with vital wheat gluten and enrich the dough with sugar. These recipes may use about 6 g. (less than a tablespoon) of gluten to 300 g. of whole wheat flour. In bread machine recipes, gluten may run at a tablespoon and sugar(s) to 1 ½ to 2 tbsp. per cup of flour.
“Farm to table” cooks (e.g. Dan Barber, The Third Plate) and plant breeders (e.g. The Bread Lab at Washington State University) try to find good wheat that can be grown sustainably. The Bread Lab is a resource for recipes and techniques to bake with “unsifted” whole wheat flour. It has recipes for an “Approachable” sourdough whole wheat loaf on its Unsifted page and Bread Lab Collective page.
The white chickpea is a staple dry legume in the cuisines of regions from the Meditarranean to India. The Romans named it cicero; the Italian word is ceci. It is also known in America as the garbanzo bean. In India it is known in as chole or chana. The Hindustani name is kabuli chana – the chickpea from Afganistan, to differentiate from the black and green chickpeas of South Asia. It is harvested whole. It can be ground into a flour used to make flatbreads and dumplings.
White chickpeas are cooked whole in the skin. They keep their shape and do not shed their skin – this provides texture and assorted nutritional benefits. Undercooked chickpeas are grainy or even crunchy. Some recipes start with dry legumes and cook them in a sauce; some cook the legumes first, and then cook them again with other ingredients. Cooked chickpeas absorb flavours. Some recipes suggest removing skins after the cooked legumes are cool, before mashing or other processing. Well known dishes:
South Asian dishes including chana masala, chana aloo (chana with potatoes) and other vegetable curries;
Chickpeas take a long time to cook, compared to other dry legumes. Soaking reduces cooking times for all cooking methods. The main methods of soaking:
naturally for hours in water at room temperature, or
a short period in boiling water, or a pressure cooker (quick-soak).
Variations include soaking in salt water and soaking in water with baking soda. These methods require the cook to drain and rinse the soaked beans and discard the soaking water.
Most recipes call for cooked or canned chickpeas, or have a distinct step of cooking the beans. Often the canning fluid in not palatable, and salty. A few recipes will use the fluid of some canned beans. This is not useful if the fluid is not palatable, or salty. Recipes often recommend disposing of the canning fluid and rinsing the beans. Several recipes conserve and use the soaking and cooking fluid of cooked dry chickpeas. This is workable if the fluid has not been salted or treated with baking soda.
The modern kitchen provides several options for cooking dry chickpeas. On a stove, and working with soaked beans, sources favour bringing the water to a rolling boil and backing off to a steady boil or simmer. Cooks judge slow or gentle boil differently. Stove and pots perform differently. Beans may be old. Sources provide a range of cooking times. Time in minutes. Soaked or dry noted as S or D. For pressure cooker – use slow or natural release (which adds 15-20 minutes).
Sources
Simmer
Slow Cooker¹
Electric Pressure²
Italian Vegetarian Cookbook (1997), Jack Bishop
35-60
366 Delicious Ways to Cook Rice, Beans and Grains (1998), Andrea Chesman
2 hrs.
Indian for Everyone (2014), Anupy Singla; The Indian Slow Cooker (2nd ed. 2018), Anupy Singla
45-60
Soaked 4 hrs High3
The Complete Slow Cooker (2017), America’s Test Kitchen
Dry 8-9 hrs High
Hip Pressure Cooking (2014), Laura Pazzaglia
Soaked 18 High + Dry 38-40 High +
¹ Instant Pot, Slow Cooker Program. America’s Test Kitchen and other have raised questions about whether an Instant Pot can perform recipes for slow cookers. The Instant Pot can do dried chickpeas. I use smaller amounts (under 3 cups). I soak these legumes in the Instant Pot, and add more water to cover the beans if the soaked beans have swelled above the surface. I follow with a quick soak – cooking the legumes on Pressure Cooker High for one or two minutes, and let the pressure drop naturally. Then, and while the beans and cooking water are hot, I start the slow cooker program on High (More in some models), cooking with the pressure cooker lid with pressure release valve left open. 6 hours on High cooks thoroughly.
² Instant Pot Pressure Cooker Program. The electric pressure cooker method works in the Instant Pot.
I am describing the small dry legumes, including lentils, as opposed to small phaseolus beans (including black turtle beans). T
These legumes are commonly sold as dry grain; some canned lentils are available. Some were sold in bulk food stores and as bulk foods in grocery stores. The availability of bulk products was affected in 2020 by the Covid-19 epidemic.
Lentils
Lentils (Lens culinaris and related species) have several varieties which look different and cook differently. Brown lentils cook (get soft in boiling or simmering temperature water) faster. Green lentils take longer and taste different. Some of the differences in cooking time are shortened or can be ignored with pressure cookers and slow cookers. Recipes may suggest soaking some small legumes, but soaking is often left out.
The interior parts of brown lentils are reddish pink and can be hulled and processed into red lentils. Some exporters, wholesalers and retailers refer to brown lentils as red lentils. Some Green and brown/crimson lentils grown in the US (Pacific Northwest, Eastern Washington, Northern Idaho) and Western Canada are larger than other lentils. Canadian growers mainly grow green culinaris lentils of the Laird, Richlea and Eston varieties, and a large crimson lentil (Lens esculanta).
Whole green and brown lentils and red/pink/salmon lentils grown in the US or Canada were widely available in grocery stores before Covid-19. Whole brown lentils were popular in stores in the US but not as common in Canada. The availability and presentation began to vary during the pandemic. Black lentils, small lentils that cook brown, were and are a specialized product, remained available in some channels.
Other
Other small dry legumes could be available in stores specializing in selling supplies for South Asian, Middle Eastern, North Afican, or regional European cuisines or health themed stores including vegetarian/vegan.
Legume, English/Euro name(s)
South Asian
Condition
Appearance
Dry
Cooked
dark chickpea
chana dal (duhli)
split, hulled
yellow
pigeon pea
toor dal (duhli)
split, hulled
yellow
moong bean, mung bean
(sabut) moong dal
whole
green
moong bean
moong dal (duhli)
split, hulled
yellow
yellow
urad bean black bean
(sabut) urad dal
whole
black
black
urad bean
urad dal (duhli)
split, hulled
white
brown (spanish or german) lentil
(sabut) masoor dal
whole
brown
brown
red, pink, salmon lentil
masoor dal (duhli)
hulled and split
red
yellow
crimson lentil
hulled and/or split
red, large
yellow
green lentil
whole
pale green
French green lentil Lentil de Puys
whole
dark green, speckled
black or beluga lentil
whole
black
brown
Cooking
Lentils and other small legumes are almost inedible to humans without cooking. The hulls are hard and have to be removed mechnically, or softened by cooking; the seeds are dry and hard and have to be softened by cooking. Many recipes reduce split and hulled legumes to a gruel. Recipes for whole legumes may specify a legume with a hull that softens rapidly such as a French lentil. Other recipes for whole small legumes require long cooking – e.g. the urad bean. The seeds have to be flavoured, often by an infusion of other plants including peppers. Meat and vegetables can be cooked with legumes for nutrition or flavour. Some recipes cook small legumes in a sauce. South Asian dal recipes may require a tarka – a sauce of spices friend in oil or ghee (clarified butter) be added to cooked legumes and other ingredients. Some recipes pre-cook small legumes, and cook the legumes with other ingredients in soup, sauce or stew.
The modern kitchen provides several options for cooking dry legumes. all involving cooking in water at a boil or simmer. There are recipes to simmer small legumes in ceramic tagines and other ceramic vessels. Few cooks have such tools. On a stove, in a metal vessel, sources favour bringing the water to a rolling boil and backing off to gentlly boiling, braising or steady simmering. Cooks judge simmer or gentle boil differently. Stove and pots perform differently. Beans may be old.
Traditional slow cooker recipes for usually start from dry (unsoaked) legumes. Traditional slow cooker recipes work in pressure multi-cookers such as Instant Pots in the slow cooker program, with adjustments. There are Instant Pot and pressure multi-cooker recipes for the slow cooker program. Electric pressure cooker and pressure multi-cooker pressure program recipes also usually start from dry (unsoaked legumes). The cooking times are at pressure, and do not estimate or count the time for the machine to preheat to pressure. The release of pressure has to be natural (i.e. about 15 – 20 minutes). Slow cookers, pressure cooker and pressure multi-cookers can pre-cook dry legumes, or cook a recipe using dry legumes in a sauce or stew.
Sources provide a range of cooking times (minutes unless other unit noted):
Legume/Dal
Source
Simmer
Slow cooker
Electric Pressure
Brown, Green, French Green or Black (beluga) lentil
How to Cook Everything and, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, Mark Bittman
20-30 test and cook longer depending on tenderness
brown lentil
Italian Vegetarian Cookbook (1997), Jack Bishop
25-35
brown lentil
Pakistani & North Indian Cooking (2015), S. Abbas Razza
45
brown or green lentil
366 Delicious Ways to Cook Rice, Beans and Grains (1998), Andrea Chesman
25-40
brown or green lentil
Easy Beans (1994), Tish Ross and Jacqueline Trafford
30-40; 1-2 hrs for soups
green lentil
At Home with Madhur Jaffrey (1973), Madhur Jaffrey
40
brown lentil
The Indian Slow Cooker (2nd ed. 2018), Anupy Singla
Low; 3 hrs
brown or green lentil
Hip Pressure Cooking (2014), Laura Pazzaglia
High 12-14
brown or green lentil
Vegan Under Pressure (2016), Jill Nusinow
High 6
red lentil
366 Delicious Ways to Cook Rice, Beans and Grains (1998), Andrea Chesman
15
red lentil
At Home with Madhur Jaffrey (1973), Madhur Jaffrey
40-45
red lentil
Indian for Everyone (2014), Anupy Singla; The Indian Slow Cooker (2nd ed. 2018), Anupy Singla
12 + final boil
Low; 3-6 hrs
red lentil
The Complete Slow Cooker (2017), America’s Test Kitchen
High; 2-3 hrs Low; 3-4 hrs
red lentil
Hip Pressure Cooking (2014), Laura Pazzaglia
High 1
red lentil
Vegan Under Pressure (2016), Jill Nusinow
High 6 +
toor dal (duhli)
At Home with Madhur Jaffrey (1973), Madhur Jaffrey
1 hr +
chana dal, toor dal (duhli),
Indian for Everyone (2014), Anupy Singla; The Indian Slow Cooker (2nd ed. 2018), Anupy Singla
*soaked 2-4 hrs, 25-60
High; 6 hrs
sabut moong dal
Indian for Everyone (2014), Anupy Singla; The Indian Slow Cooker (2nd ed. 2018), Anupy Singla
25-30
Low; 2 ⅟₂ hrs
moong bean
Hip Pressure Cooking (2014), Laura Pazzaglia
High 7-8
sabat urad dal
Indian for Everyone (2014), Anupy Singla; The Indian Slow Cooker (2nd ed. 2018), Anupy Singla
1 ⅟₂ hrs
High; 8 hrs
moong dal duhli
At Home with Madhur Jaffrey (1973), Madhur Jaffrey
An Instant Pot can be used in the pressure cooker program for simple cooked legumes, and some curries and prepared dal dishes. The pressure cooker program will be the better choice for some dishes. The pressure cooker program is also useful to cook or quick soak dry legumes for slow cooker dishes. Laura Pazzaglia has a chart of legumes and pressure cooking times, starting from dry, naturally soaked, and quick-soaked. It is comprehensive, with a few gaps and ambiguities:
Her “split chickpeas” means hulled split dark chickpeas (chana dal);
Split yellow and red lentils. The yellow split lentil may be a hulled split moong bean (moong dal duhli). The split red (or pink or salmon) lentil masoor dal duhli) is a hulled split brown lentil. Her moong dal and masoor dal recipes call for longer cooking times for these dry beans than her table.
She doesn’t include pigeon peas or split pigeon peas (toor dal); but her recipe for toor dal suggests soaking for a short time and about 10 minute high pressure – like borlotti, cannellini, and pinto beans;
The black bean in her chart is the (small-medium) Central American black turtle bean, a Phaseolus.
She doesn’t include whole urad beans (black gram), small hard black beans (technically Vigna, a pea). Her recipe for urad beans suggests cooking whole urad beans like black beans – 7 minutes on high, followed by natural release. Madhur Jaffrey would soak them overnight, cook 30 minutes on high, and natural release.
An Instant Pot is not a traditional slow cooker. It is an electric pressure cooker. Recipes for traditional slow cookers assume:
heat is delivered by the element around the lower vertical sides of a ceramic crock to food totally or partly immersed in a cooking fluid;
fluid near the element may reach boiling temperature and bubble. The hot fluid circulates between and around the food at the micro and macro levels and transfers heat to ingredients further away from the hot sides. Food near the element may cook faster or even reach a sauté/fry/burn temperature;
the average temperature of the food in the pot will increase over time but circulation of fluid and heat depends on what’s cooking;
the device will not get hot enough to bake or steam the ingredients within normal cooking time;
two cooking settings: low and high
low gets the food to same temperature as high, more slowly.
The first couple of hours on either setting raise temperature to the lower end of the range when the food starts to cook;t
6 hours on low is equivalent to 4 hours on high.
Many traditional slow cooker recipes for 5 to 6 quart croclks or cooking vesssels involve 2-3 quarts of food and fluid. Many traditional slow cooker recipes call for 4-6 hours on low or 2-4 hours on high. An Instant Pot can simmer food in fluid for long slow cooking, but recipes that work in traditional slow cookers will not necessarily work in an Instant Pot. Laura Pazzaglia says:
Readers have reported under-cooked food and less evaporation when slow cooking with all Instant Pot models, … The under-cooking is … a side-effect of all new generation thermostat-regulated slow cookers versus the traditional wattage-regulated cookers and the uneven heat distribution between a stainless steel insert compared to ceramic inserts.
A traditional slow cooker “warm” setting and Instant Pot slow cooker program Less (Low) are not cooking settings! The Instant Pot slow cooker program cooking settings involve a preheat period to get to the set temperature, as read by the sensor, and a timed period, in half hour increments. The preheat is short and relatively cool. Instant Pot identifies three temperature settings for the slow cooker program in its pressure multi-cooker product lines in the 6 and 8 quart models. The Instant Pot manuals for the Duo and Ultra models (5, 6, and 8 quart) indicate the slow cooker program cooks in a range of 180-210 F. The ranges for each setting:
Traditional Slow Cooker≃
Duo
Ultra
Range
Set
Less
Low
180-190 ℉ (82-87.8)℃
185 (85)
low
Normal
Medium
190-200 (87.8 – 93)
194 (90)
high
More
High
200 – 210 (93 – 99)
208 (97.7)
Custom
≥ 104 – ≤ 208 (40-97.7)
The heat source in a pressure cooler is an element at the bottom of a tall narrow pot. There is a temperature variance between temperature read by a sensor at the bottom and temperature read 2 cm from the top surface. The Instant Pot slow cooker program on High/More gets 1 – 3 quarts of ingredients in fluid to a good simmering temperature and keeps the temperature at the set temperature – near the element – for the entire cooking period. 4 hours on Instant Pot slow cooker program at the High/More setting means 4 hours at the set cooking temperature. at 4 hours on high in a traditional slow cooker involves a lower average temperature for the first hour (subject to hot spots) and a higher average temperature during the last 2 or 3 hours.
Instant Pot and other appliance manufacturers exaggerate the convenience of electric pressure cookers and multicookers as devices that can cook an entire main course in one pot at the same time. Slow cooker program recipes of Instant Pots and other pressure multicookers are rare. The Instant Pot genre is largely devoted to pressure cooking. Madhur Jaffrey has recipes for lamb (and goat) including a lamb pilaf using the slow cooker program of an Instant Pot (her Instantly Indian Cookbook refers to a 6 quart Duo v. 3)
A sub-genre of multicooker cookbooks and recipes provides recipes that have a common first stage, with alternative fast (pressure cooker) and slow (slow cooker) methods for finishing. The first stage includes prepping ingredients and may include using the sauté function to fry some ingredients. This approach fosters the impession that the should be a convenient 9 (i.e. less that 4-6 hour) slow cooker alternative for every fast recipe. The cookbooks in this genre:
Melissa Clark’s Dinner in an Instant (2017);
Cooks Illustrated/America’s Test Kitchen Multicooker Perfection (2018);
Milk Street Fast and Slow (2020).
Cooks Illustrated/ATK’s Multicooker Perfection (2018) reported that the Instant Pot slow cooker high setting will heat 4 quarts of water in an 8 quart model to to 206 ℉. – a simmer. The Multicooker Perfection Team warned that High/More did not reliably do what traditional slow cooker high was supposed to do. Cooks Illustrated/ATK asserted that the Instant Pot did not deliver enough heat, the right way, in its slow cooker program, to emulate a traditional slow cooker. Heating 4 quarts of water to a near boil temperature tests the capability of the device to heat that much water. Some cooks may want to make 4 quarts of soup or stock by a slow cooker recipe. The lesson in the CI/ATK test is that the Instant Pot slow cooker program will not get that amount of fluid hot enough.
CI/ATK suggests using Instant Pot slow cooker high setting where a Multicooker Perfection recipe says slow cooker low. This is useful advice. Christopher Kimball and his team at Milk Street Cooking provided what they found to be realistic slow cooking times for the slow option for recipes in Milk Street Fast and Slow (2020), and practical tips on using the Instant Pot to prepare ingredients for a slow cooker recipe.
An Instant Pot user can heat the fluid to boiling in another program (or boil it in another device and add it it to the Instant Pot) before using the slow cooker program to simmer. The slow cook high setting will maintain the contents of the pot at the simmer temperature. The Instant Pot slow cooker program works, with limitations. A few suggestions when experimenting with the slow cooker program:
Precook or parcook or prepare dry legumes, or other suitable ingredients in fluid on the pressure cooker or sauté setting. The pressure cook program can be used for a short pressure quick-soak of dry legume or to cook the dry legumes;
Consider other tools and methods to sauté or brown other ingredients;
Keep the quantity to 2 – 3 quarts of food and fluid in a 6 quart pot;
The optional tempered glass lid is not helpful in using the slow cooker program; it may be counterproductive. It is better to use the sealing lid with the pressure release valve open. (The glass lid can let some heat out while simmering on a higher heat settings);
Leave time to finish cooking by some faster method if a dish is not finished on time and consider using other tools and methods to finish.
A dish that does not cook in a reasonable time can be started or finished in a stovetop vessel. This will involve watching and stirring to distribute heat. Or the the Instant Pot can be reset and started in another program ( the Ultra models’ slow cook custom settings and Ultra program are not useful for the extra heat parts of these tasks):
boiled for a while and then simmered on a slow cooker program setting,or
simmered on a slow cooker setting, and then boiled for a short time – as long as it takes to make sure everything is cooked. Boiling at the end works when the pot contains ample watery fluid that is free to circulate but can set off the Hot warning with a some foods.
Higher heat settings may allow for simmering or boiling in the Instant Pot. This works with fluid in the pot and will not work if the food is thick – the burn warning will shut down the pot):
Sauté;
Steam setting – the no pressure steam setting can bring liquid to a rolling boil;
A short time on a pressure setting can speed up a dish that fails to cook on a slow cooker setting. The pressure settings require the sealing lid, locked in place. The release valve can be closed for pressure, or left open. If the valve is left open, it will vent; and some cooking fluid will evaporate.
The Instant Pot slow cooker program can do dried legumes. I use smaller amounts (under 3 cups of dry beans) in a 6 quart Instant Pot.
Lentils and small split and skinned legumes can be cooked dry. I use the slow cooker High setting for 2-4 hours. Larger dry legumes can be soaked and cooked on slow cooker High. I long-soak these legumes (i.e. dry beans in water at room temperature) in a bowl or in the Instant Pot, and add more water to cover the beans if the soaked beans have swelled above the surface. I follow with a quick soak – cooking the legumes on Pressure Cooker High for one or two minutes, and let the pressure drop naturally. Then, and while the legumes and cooking water are hot, I start the slow cooker program on High (More in some models), cooking with the pressure cooker lid with pressure release valve left open.
The delay function allows me to leave beans soaking, and start cooking and finish by the time I want to use cooked beans and the cooking fluid. It is necessary to adapt cooking times and settings from traditional slow cooker recipes.
For 10-15 years, 2006-2020 multi-cookers were electric pressure cookers with:
a heating element in a round plate below the cooking vessel,
stainless or non-stick metal pots,
sensors,
a control panel and
a programmed control responding to feedback from the sensors.
Midea of Guangdong Province, China patented a multi-cooker in 2006. Fagor America and its European parent company brought the Fagor Lux multi-cooker to market in 2015, and the Fagor Lux LCD in 2017. Fagor America ceased operations including honoring warranties and providing support for customers and dealers in 2018. The devices reemerged from the reorganization of the Fagor companies under the Zavor brand. The Instant Pot multi-cooker came to the market 2015-6. It was handicapped by poor manuals, a lack of information about how to use it and a lack of recipes. Users found technique and recipes in publications about stove-top pressure cookers, and began to experiment and circulate information on web sites and social media. Jarden Consumer Appliances, owner of the Crock-Pot name and brand, introduced a pressure multi-cooker with a non-stick metal insert called the “Express Crock Multi-Cooker”.
Blenders with heating elements that can make smoothies and cook soup or even chili. Moulinex has sold Thermomix blenders since 1961. There have been newer and less expensive variations on this idea. Philips makes a Soup Maker – an electric kettle mated with an immersion blender. In 2019, Instant Pot put is brand name on an appliance line including rice cookers, air fryers and the new Ace blender/soup maker. Multi-cookers without pressure cooking capabilities came into the market 2018-19: new iterations of rice cookers or slow cookers programmed for saute, steaming and other functions including “slow cooking”. Examples: Zojirushi Multicooker EL-CAC60; Philips HD3095/87; T-fal RK705851; Aroma Housewares ARC-6106 MultiCooker; Midea Mb-fs5017 10 Cup Smart Multi-cooker. Cuisinart introduced a 3-in-1 Cook Central slow cooker with a nonstick insert with a saute setting.
Appliance manufacturers exaggerate the convenience of electric pressure cookers and multicookers as devices that can cook an entire main course in one pot at the same time, and claim that their multi-cookers “replace” a rice cooker, a steamer, and a slow cooker. Cooking appliances presented challenges and opportunities for writers and publishers. Back in 2000, slow cookers were supported by a few books – many of them not particularly good. Cooks Illustrated/America’s Test Kitchen put out the Slow Cooker Revolution books for the ceramic crock slow cookers. Those books were good and apparently successful at the time.
Some multicooker cookbooks and recipes provides recipes that have a common first stage, with alternative fast (pressure cooker) and slow (slow cooker) methods for finishing. The first stage includes prepping ingredients and may include using the sauté function to fry some ingredients. This approach fosters the impession that there should be a convenient (i.e. less that 4-6 hour) slow cooker alternative for every fast recipe. The cookbooks in this genre:
Melissa Clark’s Dinner in an Instant (2017);
Cooks Illustrated/America’s Test Kitchen Multicooker Perfection(2018);
Milk Street Fast and Slow</em> (2020).
Cooks Illustrated/ATK’s Multicooker Perfection (2018) tried to rate the best pressure-multicooker. It favoured the Fagor Lux LCD and Lux devices in 2018, and then nearly identical Zavor device. Zavor models are more expensive than Instant Pots, and not widely available. Zavor does not honor Fagor warranties or provide support for Fagor models. Parts and accessories are rare.
Cooks Illustrated/ATK supported its recommendations with its test results. CI/ATK tested the low and high slow cooker settings by heating 5 lbs (i.e. 2.7 liters or 2.8 quarts) of water for 5 hours. It reported that the Instant Pot slow cooker high setting will heat 4 quarts of water in an 8 quart model, to 206 ℉. (a simmer). The test seems to clear and simple. Heating 4 quarts of water to a near boil temperature tests the capability of the device to heat that much water. Some cooks may want to make 4 quarts of soup or stock by a slow cooker recipe. The lesson in the CI/ATK test is that the Instant Pot slow cooker program will not get that amount of fluid hot enough, fast enough to make that a useful way to spend time and resources.
CI/ATK say that its slow cooker recipes in Multicooker Perfection work well if a device gets the food to 195-210 F and maintains that temperature. Cooks Illustrated/ATK :
warned that the slow cooker settings on some devices are too cold, and on others too hot;
warned that High/More slow cooker settings in some pressure multi-cookers did not reliably do what traditional slow cooker high was supposed to do; and
asserted that the Instant Pot did not deliver enough heat, the right way, in its slow cooker program.
No electric pressure cooker or pressure multi-cooker will be capable or cooking all recipes taken from a slow cooker recipe source. A slow cooker heats the food into the range where the food simmers slowly. The slow cookers sold in America in the 20th century used constant low heat. While in principle the food was not boiled, most of these device eventually cooked the dish at a temperature above the boiling point of water. Electric pressure cookers or pressure multi-cookers switch the power off when the device decides the pot is hot enough, and then turns the power on to bring the temperature up. It isn’t the same as controlling the flow of power to an element on a stove, and it is not the constant low heat of the traditional low cooker. Slow cooker settings in electric pressure cookers and pressure multi-cooker put out enough heat to warm the base of the pot to a set temperature, monitored by a sensor.
Instant Pots have three settings in the slow cooker program Low, Normal or Medium, and High. Slow cookers often have a warm setting and low and high slow cooking settings. Instant Pot slow cooker program Low setting provides the function of a slow cooker Warm setting in a slow cooker; it is not equivalent to a slow cooker Low cooking setting. A rule of thumb for following a slow cooker recipe with a pressure multi-cooker: cook at medium (“normal”) where the slow cooker recipe says low.
Pressure cookers can cook the same soups, stews etc. that can be cooked in a slow cooker or in a pot on a stove or in an oven. Pressure multi-cookers, including Instant Pots, can perform many slow cooker recipes in slow cooker programs. Madhur Jaffrey has recipes for lamb (and goat) including a lamb pilaf using Instant Pot slow cooker progam setting in her Instantly Indian Cookbook. Melissa Clark has Instant Pot slow cooker versions of every recipe Dinner in an Instant. Cooks Illustrated/ATK’s Multicooker Perfection did too.
A limitations on pressure multi-cookers: size and working space. An 8 quart model is as bulky as a 6 quart ceramic slow cook. Pressure cookers are bigger than other cooking vessels because the user has to leave them partly unfilled for dishes that expand as they absorb water. Another limitation is that the engineers have not allowed users to use these devices manually. There are preset temperatures and times, and programmed cooking programs. A pressure multi-cooker as a simple cookpot when a cook wants to cook a thin broth or sauce down, or cook for a few more minute when the dish is not cooked enough. The multi-cooker has to be set again to a setting that will boil or simmer. The sauté setting will bring the pot to a boil but may burn the food and fire the heat warning, which will turn off the device. Can the cooking pot can removed and put on the stove; is there an element available? This is not hard, if you know what to do when the time comes!
It is vulnerable to animal pests and microorganisms including mould. Animal pests may contaminate the bread with body parts, eggs, larva, bodily fluids and micro-organisms. Mould is a colony of microorganisms that chemically alters the bread – it can effectively poison the bread.
Constraints
Pan Size
Bread machines identity the size (volume) of the pans by reference to the capacity of the pan to hold a baked loave. 1.5 lb. machines were common. Large is a common size; XL machines are 2.5 or 3 lb. The size of the pan is an upper limit on the size of the loaf. Pans are expected to hold the dough and allow the dough to expand outward and upward as the dough flows and rises and to expand upward when the loaf “springs” when the dough is heated. Dough can be cut and shaped for a normal baking pan, but differently for a longer narrow pan to bake a Pullman loaf. Oven pans walls may be lower than the top of the loaf. Pan size sets a limit on baking – a minimum amount of dough is required to fill the pan and expand. The pan influences the loaf – some shapes are hard to handle, store and slice.
There are 1 lb. bread machines, including Zojirushi and Panasonic models. These not necessarily available in USA or Canada, or reasonably priced. They are not really practical, in my opinion.
Bread machine loaves, comparing to the baking pans manufactured and marketed to home bakers for baking loaves in ovens:
Flour
Bread Machine Size
e.g.
Area, space/ volume
Oven Pan
Oven Pan Area, space US (Imperial)/Metric Volume (Metric)
The size of the bread machine pan, in the sense of capacity, does not necessarily determine the shape of the loaf:
A large horizontal bread machine pan is nearly as long as large oven pan, and slightly wider. It can bake a loaf that closely resembles a loaf baked in a large pan in an oven. Large loaves in other machines will shape up differently.
Some large and extra large machines have control settings (programs or “courses”) and/or recipes for medium loaves.
A medium loaf baked in a horizontal pan resembles a loaf baked in a 2 pound oven pan- but not as “tall”. In another bread machine pan that loaf will be shorter, wider and higher.
Dough Ball
The ingredients, mixed and kneaded, form a ball. Dough has to be elastic to hold up as the dough ferments and rises. Bread machine bake programs can’t produce the shapes and crust of country/artisan loaves. The dough for a loaf is shaped into a dough ball shorter and narrower than the pan. In a bread machine, the dough ball must remain in contact with the paddle or paddles, and the bottom and sides of the pan to be kneaded, in the same way that the dough in a stand mixer contacts the kneading hook or arm and the mixing bowl.
A bread machine needs a minimum amount of flour, and the proportionate amount of water to mix and form a dough ball that will be kneaded in that machine. The dough ball kneaded by a bread machine is usuallyattached to the paddle (a paddle if the machine has two) at the end of kneading.
The dough flows as it rises; the dough ball slumps horizontally. The dough for medium and small loaves will reach the side walls, but not necessarily the ends by the end of the rise. The loaf will flow and rise or spring for the first 20 – 30 minutes of baking. Workable bread machine recipes should make the dough viscous and extensible enough to flow in the bottom of the pan and rise and spring reasonably uniformly. The size and weight of the dough ball is a factor. A medium dough ball weights over 650 grams, about 75% of the size and weight of a “large” (800 gram) ball usually can flow and rise in a large pan and bake into a reasonable medium loaf. The surface area of the bottom of the dough ball will adhere to the bottom of the pan; the side of the ball will touch and adhere to the sides most of the time. The kneading motion stretches the dough. The machine applies force to the paddle. The force on the paddle stretchs the dough ball adhering to the pan. The motion develops gluten, which will trap carbon dioxide when the yeast ferment starch or the leavening agent reacts to the wet dough, and inflate or “rise” the dough.
The dough for a medium loaf will only overflow a large pan by expanding upward too much. This happens if dough ball is too large or the dough is overleavened. (Too much yeast for the dough, which depends on the machine, salt, and the amounts of flour and water, or too much chemical leavening agent.)
When a dough ball at one end of the pan fails to flow enough, the loaf rises more at that end and bakes into a sloping loaf in a bake program in a bread machine. It leads to loaves that slope along the top in a medium loaf. This effect occurs in machines with rectangular and horizontal pans.
Medium loaves
Baking
A large or 2.5 lb. XL machine will mix, knead, and bake a medium (1.5 lb.) loaf in the normal baking programs.
A medium loaf baked in a machine with a large pan may slope when the dough ball was located at one end of the pan after the kneading phases, or the knockdowns during the rise/fermentation phase. A long horizontal pan with two paddles (e.g. Zojirushi) may bake a medium loaf that slopes or has one regular end and one end with with irregular corners. But, a small dough may not flow into all corners of a large or extra-large pan
Scaling
Adjusting a recipe for a large loaf to a medium loaf is mathematically simple. Use ¾ of each ingredient. There are some qualifications. This works if the source recipe lists the ingredients needed for bread machine loaf and is clear about ingredient amounts, kneading and time. A recipe for a hand kneaded loaf or a stand mixer loaf may need some extra water or flour, and will be affected by how fast the flour has been hydrated and how long the dough is kneaded.
Flour, water, yeast and salt have to be reduced in same proportion; other ingredients should be reduced proportionately too. There is rule of thumb to balance salt and yeast. It is necessary also to adjust yeast for the brand and model of bread machine.
A simple way is to scale by reference to total flour; by recipe size (volume). The ingredients for a 1.5 lb. loaf produce 75% of the dough in a 2 lb. recipe. A large (2 lb.) loaf recipe can be scaled to medium (1.5 lb.) and baked in 2 lb. machine. I have done this with two machines with large pans:
Doughs that flow across the bottom of the pan and rise will bake into loaves as long and wide as the pan – a large pan is made to bake shapely large loaves. The medium doughs that flowed best were hydrated at over 65%, enriched with sugar and fat, and had gluten. Bread flour has enough gluten, but a lean loaf will be compact. Adding vital wheat gluten to whole wheat flour helps to give the loaf structure, but makes the dough elastic. In a multigrain loaf, moderate amounts of gluten are effective.
Some doughs produce symmetrical but short loaves that do reach one or both ends of the pan. These doughs are too small or dry to flow the length of the pan, or the dough ball settles but will not flow into all corners of the pan.
Where a medium recipe produces funny loaves in a large pan, it is possible to alter the medium recipe to get a dough that will flow to fill the pan. I considered increasing flour, but concentrated on adding tiny amounts of yeast, water and sugar to relax the dough and increase fermentation.
My Machines
This are my large machines:
Panasonic SD-YD250:
owned and used 2016-2020
2.5 lb. “extra” large pan
tall vertical rectangle pan, single paddle dead centre, bottom of pan;
550 watt motor that runs for 50-60% of the time in a 25 minute +/- mixing phase on a medium loaf setting;
550 watt element, about 1 cm below the bottom of the pan. A small loaf develops hot spots around the base of the pan but is not burned;
266 square cm. pan: 19 cm (7.5 inches) by 14 cm (5.5 inches);
1 paddle, central:
6 cm long, radially;
2.6 cm high, rising to a fin 5 cm tall;
The paddle is deep in the loaf, but a small loaf rises and springs to a height of 7.5 cm or more, and clears the paddle;
Control settings (programs), and recipes for medium, large and extra-large
No custom programs;
No Pause button; Power interrupt by unplugging – 10 minutes to resume cycle.
Zojirushi BB-PAC20 Virtuoso:
Owned and used 2020>
2 lb. large pan (similar to other Zojirushi 2 lb. machines – Virtuoso Plus, Home Bakery Supreme)
horizontal pan, dual paddles on the long axis,
100 watt motor;
286 square cm. pan: 22 cm (9 inches) by 13 cm (5 inches);
2 paddles 11 cm apart. Each is 5.5 cm off centre along the long axis, down the centre. Each paddle is:
6 cm. long,
1.2 cm high – 2.9 cm high at a fin;
Two elements:
600 watt main element, about 1 cm below the bottom of the pan;
40 watt lid heater;
No control settings (programs) for medium or small loaves. The manuals have a few recipes for medium loaves to be baked using the programs for large loaves;
No Pause button. Pause knead by raising lid.
In both machines, it was better to try for a medium recipe. The medium loaf baked in the Panasonic could not be stored in a 10″ x 14″ plastic storage bag. It was too fat. The longer Zojirushi loaf fits into such a bag without jamming and tearing the bag.
Smaller Loaves
For the large (i.e. 2 pound loaf) horizontal pan in the Zojirushi, I find that a medium (1.5 lb.) recipe produces a loaf that fills the pan from side to side. In that machine with the horizontal pan, the simple goal is a medium loaf. Scaling to smaller loaves involves some calculation and experiments with salt, yeast and water.
Conversion
Almost all home baking recipes list all ingredients by volume. Many bread machine recipes do too.
The most precise way to scale is by weight. I weigh flour and water in a bowl or measuring cup; I reset the scale to zero after putting the empty measuring vessel on the scale. A scale that goes to 1 gram is precise enough for flour and water. The volume measurements of salt and yeast for small loaves are fractions of a teaspoon. I use a scale that reliably goes to 0.1 grams. Converting a recipe from volume to weight and scaling from volume is possible, with careful calculation.
For yeast, I refer to my own conversion chart, which compares the volume of active dry yeast and instant yeast and converts either to weight in grams:
Some medium loaves begin to look funny. These problems increase when a user attempts to make loaves smaller than medium in large or extra large pan machines. Scaling down to a 1 lb. does not work well with large pan machines. A 1 lb. dough ball is too small to fill the base of a large or extra large pan. A true “small” loaf recipe (half of a 4 cup/2 lb./large loaf recipe or 2/3 of a 3 cup/1.5 lb. medium recipe) baked in large pan will be edible and palatable, but it will bake in odd shapes.
I have been writing recipes with 50%. Salt affects the strength, rise and flow of the dough, the texture of the bread, and flavour. A 50% reduction is noticeable but the bread is still bread; it is workable and palatable.
Recipes almost always refer to ordinary table salt, which is 5.7 grams per teaspoon. I refer to my own conversions or use a calculator.
Seeds and herbs should be adjusted in proportion to the flour. I don’t measured down to the gram. Oils, sugar and and sweet fluids should be adjusted too, without trying to weigh them. It is worth being aware of water in milk, eggs, honey, maple syrup, molasses, and other syrup of sugar and other ingredients dissolved or suspended in water. Conversion factors are not always easy to find; and sources may disagree or only apply to some varieties of an ingredient, or to a brand of a commodity. I have a list, as discussed in the post Measuring & Conversion.
Bread was made with rye flour in parts of Eurasia where rye grew and wheat did not, including the parts of Northern Europe, including the lands around the Baltic Sea. Rye has some protein, but does not produce enough gluten to rise like a leavened wheat bread.
Pumpernickel may refer to bread made from 100% rye flour, according to medieval recipes. These loaves are a specialty product. Many grocery stores sell commercially baked pumpernickel. It is flat, compact, usually brown or black. American rye bread recipes usually involve a blend of rye flour with wheat flour. Some recipes that are made with a blend of rye and wheat flour, (i.e. light rye bread), will make the crumb dark by including cocoa or coffee. This style may be called pumpernickel in any given recipe
There are some American recipes for a rustic style made with a large amount of rye flour, e.g. King Arthur Classic Pumpernickel baked in an oven. 100% rye flour bread is not made with bread machines Some recipes made with a large amount of rye flour may suggest that dough can be mixed and kneaded in a bread machine.
There are industrial formulas and home recipes for light rye bread, baked in an oven. Most commercial and home made rye bread is light rye, made with wheat flour with rye flour or rye meal. Light rye breads are soft breads, with fairly close crumb and a distinct dark crust – chewy but not crunchy. There are rustic rye and rye sourdough styles. There are deli styles and reconstructions of local bakery styles. Some light tye recipes will produce torpedo shaped loave rather than pan loaves. There is a Winnipeg style, a bread flour loaf with a small amount of rye flour and/or rye meal or chopped rye berries. The Winnipeg Free Press had recipes based on the rye bread baked by Winnipeg’s City Bread. There is a bread machine version that I have not tried.
Rye Flour
Rye flour has:
less of the proteins that build gluten than wheat flour, and
has pentosans.
Peter Reinhart notes in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice at p. 185 that rye flour has different protein profile than wheat flour, and forms gluten differently, it uses glutelin to form gluten (wheat flour has glutenin). Reinhart also notes that rye flour has pentosans, which absorb water differently and make the dough gummy. According to Daniel DiMuzio’s Bread Baking, An Arisan’s Perspective:
(p. 51) pentosans absorb water with very little mixing and are fragile, breaking down and releasing water after as little as 3-4 minutes of intensive mixing;
(p. 51) bakers using mixing machines use a short period of slow mixing for dough with significant amounts of rye flour, and little intensive mixing;
(p. 216) dough for deli-style light rye (70% white/30% rye) would be hydrated at 68% and mixed slowly: in a stand mixer, 3 minutes slow to blend ingredients and 3 minutes on second speed.
Measurement and Ingredients
Some recipes call for light or medium rye flour which is produced from rye endorsperm (i.e. not whole grain rye) with more screenings. Dark Rye flour uses more whole grain. Some bread machine recipes specifically call for it or treat it as an alternative.
There is a range of conversion weights, for different kinds of rye flour; there are variations of methodology of measuring a cup to weigh:
Online Conversion’s converter and Aqua-Calc converter – 1 cup of dark rye flour = 4.5 oz. = 128 g.
Bakery Network conversion chart – 1 cup “rye flour” = 4 oz. = 113 g.
Aqua-Calc converter light rye flour (or medium rye flour) – 1 cup = 102 g = 3.6 oz.
The Traditional Oven’s converter – 1 cup = 102 g. = 3.6 oz. light rye?
Anita’s Organic Mill Organic Rye Flour is available in 1 kg. bags in some local stores and online. This may be a better quantity to buy for flour used in 1 to 1.5 cup quantities than Rogers Dark Rye Flour, in 2.5 kg. bags. For both of those rye flours, the Canadian Nutrition Facts label indicates 1 cup = 120 grams = 4.2 oz. Nutrition Facts labels use values based on food data bases based on the measurement standards of their methology. Anita’s is about 120 grams a cup if settled and scooped to pack the cup. Rogers Foods Dark Rye Flour is available locally in 2.5 kg. bags, and priced as a staple. Its Nutrition Facts label says ¼ cup weighs 30 g. Online Conversion’s converter and Aqua-Calc converter dark rye flour said 1 cup of dark rye flour = 4.5 oz. = 128 g. This is the mean or average for dark rye flour surveyed in USDA data base. Rogers Dark Rye may be about 124 grams a cup, settled and scooped.
Rye bread often contains caraway seeds; consumers associate the flavour with rye bread. Caraway is related to cumin, fennel, anise, carrots, celery and parsley. Some varieties are known as Persian cumin. It has been used as a cooking herb or spice since the time of the Roman Empire. It is a major spice in Central European cooking and in the nations beside the Baltic. It was adopted in Germany, the Nordic countries, the “Low” countries and England. Caraway seeds were/are used to make flavoured breads with white flour in Central European recipes. Cumin and caraway are the spice in spiced DutchKamijnekaas – Leiden Kaas and spiced Gouda. Other flavouring agents in light rye: fennel and anise seeds, chopped onion, dried orange peel, orange zest and orange oil. There are dark or sour light rye styles with bread flour, rye flour and:
an agent (molasses, cocoa or ground coffee for home bakers) for dark colour,
vinegar or sour cream for acidity, and
corn meal, oatmeal or sunflower seeds for texture.
Bread Machine Recipes
Published
Many formulas and recipes for oven baked light rye are based on north European (German and Scandinavian) light rye bread recipes, with white flour and some rye flour or meal. Russians, Ukranians and East Europeans also made light rye bread with a blend of white flour, whole wheat flour and rye flour
No bread machine manufacturers have programmed a light rye program. Several discourage baking with rye flour. Panasonic’s manual says rye flour leads to dense bread when used to replace other (wheat) flour in their recipes and warns that using rye flour might overload the motor. This might be a problem if someone tried to make pumpernickel.
Overloading the motor, suggested in some manufacturers’ manuals, is not really why manufacturers don’t like to address rye. Baking with rye flour is simply different. Unless the mixing time is kept short, the rye flour will absorb and then release water and mix a dough that will not bake without issues. Modern bread machines don’t really work with rye flour, perhaps because of kneading action and the length of the mix/knead programs in modern machines.
The bread machine recipes for light rye bread in Beth Hensperger’s ambitious baking books, Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (at pp. 133-143, 313), and the Bread Bible use the basic bake or bake whole wheat programs for light rye. I have tried Swedish Rye Bread, a limpa style, from BLBMC, Scandinavian Light Rye, fand Narsai’s Rye Bread. The latter is a bread machine recipes in Beth Hensperger’s Bread Bible. It gets a brown colour from molasses.
Those recipes use 1 cup or more rye flour and 1¼ cups of water in medium recipes with 2 cups of bread flour. The rye flour is over 30% of the total flour and the hydration is 70%. Those recipes worked in older machines.
When I baked light rye with BLBMC recipes in the Panasonic and Zojirushi, the machine mixed a dough that looked reasonable in the first 10 minutes of kneading, but was wet by the end of knead time. It rises; when it falls at the knockdowns, it leaves a wet dough residue clinging to the pan which bakes as cracker or flat bread against the edge of pan. This result is produced by a combination of kneading, and over-generous hydration.
Preset and Custom
No bread machines have or have had light rye cycles or programs.
Modern machines have almost dropped rye from the manuals – The are a few recipes, tending to modest amounts of rye flour. There is a bread machine recipe for Bread with Caraway and Onions in the Panasonic SD-YD250 manual for a medium loaf (1.5 lb.) – 1/8 cup of rye flour, 3 cups of bread flour, and caraway seeds, with nearly identical to Panasonic’s Basic White Bread. Zorjirushi has a recipe in the BB-PAC20 manual with 2/3 cup of rye flour and 4 cups of bread flour to make a large loaf.
Hydration is tricky because of the way the pentosans in rye flour release water. A dough with too much water may throw off some wet dough sheets that bake as crackers or as a thick crunchy crust.
The basic bake and whole wheat programs for bread machine baking are not adjustable. Modern machine programs mix and knead dough for about 20 minute, to work the dough and build gluten for yeasted bread made with wheat flour. The dough progam will be close to 20 minutes. The gluten-free program and the “cake” program (for unyeasted baking) also mix for about 20 minutes. The kneading action in all programs for the Zojirushi machine seems to be equally intense and fast.
Some bread machines can be programmed with custom cycles. I used the Zojirushi BB-PAC20, in a custom program with a short “knead” phase. The Zojirushi (“home-made”) programs cannot be set to knead for less than 5 minutes. This will mix a light rye that is 30% rye flour by weight. The homemade programs allow adding to the rise time, which allows more fermentation and rise. It is difficult to bake a light rye loaf smaller than a bread machine “medium” loaf in a Zojirishi horizontal pan machine.
A short mix makes a dent in the problem, but will leave or make other problems.
Crater Bread
This is an issue described by Beth Hensperger in The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook at p. 39:
Sunken top: known as crater bread, this happens when there is too much liquid in the recipe …
The BLBMC describes the problem as too much water, but does not suggest reducing water in this recipe? Perhaps the author thought this was too difficult to be feasible for home bakers who measure fluid by volume? The solutions in the BLBMC are contradictory.
A solution using a custom program appears to be:
adjust hydration – to reduce water and water based fluid ingredients – to get hydration under 70%. A reduction of 15 to 30 grams (1-2 Tablespoons) changes the dough.
Adding vital wheat gluten.
This avoids a crater, but makes the loaf lopsided – a minor cosmetic flaw.
Recipes in progress
Country French, from BLBMC. Beth Hensperger’s recipe “Chuck Williams Country French Bread” is a lean French loaf made of bread flour with some whole wheat flour. Beth Hensperger adapted a recipe by Chuck Williams (of Williams-Sonoma) for the La Cloche device. It is similar to a hearth bread she calls Pain de Campagne in her Bread Bible (2000), which is made with a starter and sponge made with whole wheat flour. It is in the style of the French Pain de campagne, as made in French bakeries in the 19th century. It may work rith rye flour instead of whole wheat flour, with adjustments for quantity.
Multigrain means a blend of bread flour and whole wheat, or another flour. These recipes involve 15% -50 % whole wheat flour by weight.
The basic bake program works in most machines for these recipes. When bread flour is less than 50% of total flour, recipes may suggest a whole wheat program, or a machine’s multigrain program.
Recipes
Adaptions – records, methods, tables
I adapted recipes, mainly from the Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (“BLBMC”). I wrote the recipes as tables using the WordPress TablePress plugin. I made the tables available online by putting the tables into posts. This was not a good way to record information that was mainly of interest to me, and subject to many internet connections. I changed my use of tables. I kept recipe tables for my own use as worksheets in a few spreadsheets that I use when I load my bread machine. I use the worksheets to calculate adjustments of recipes. I focussed on salt measurement and yeast measurement, and reformulated recipes to reduce my consumption of sodium. I considered how much yeast is necessary to ferment a few cups of a multigrain flour blend, to get a loaf that rises and bakes into a palatable bread. I had to find the correct amount of instant yeast, by weight, for recipes for medium (1½ lb.) loaves in a Zojirushi machine with a horizontal pan that is capable of baking a large (2 lb.) loaf.
Notes
I started with the BLBMC numbers for the ratio of flour. Increasing the whole wheat flour in these recipes would require adjustments to hydration and fermentation. I use some vital wheat gluten, but often less than BLBMC suggests. These loaves get gluten from blending high protein bread flour with whole wheat flour. Some added vital wheat gluten helps to enhance elasticity but too much affects pan flow and rise.
Some regular baking, with some observations
Buttermilk Whole Wheat. BLBMC p. 108. A sandwich loaf; 50% Whole Wheat with buttermilk and maple syrup;
33% Whole Wheat. BLBMC p. 105. The source recipe uses skim milk. I did the math and found an equivalent amount of dry milk powder and water;
3 Seed Bread 50% Whole Wheat, Brown Sugar, Seeds. BLBMC p. 116;
Pembina Bread. Flavour and texture in a white bread. Half a cup of whole wheat, bulgur and seeds, based in BLBMC Dakota Bread (p. 119). Named for Pembina, North Dakota, the gateway to Fargo and Grand Forks; the site of KCND, the first American TV network affiliate transmitter that reached antennas in Winnipeg (later purchased by Canadian owners and moved north of the border to the southern edge of Winnipeg as CKND).
Cornell Bread. A brown bread. 50% whole wheat. A touch less than 50% bread flour Slightly sweet, and rich. BLBMC recipe p. 161, based on Cornell bread. The BLBMC bread machine version has been emulated and published on the Web e.g. here.
The recipe for Cornell bread was first published in 1955 in The Cornell Bread Book by Clive McCay of Cornell University. This bread uses an egg, milk powder, and soy flour for protein, and wheat germ for fiber. Dr. McCay is reported to have believed that this bread, with butter, was a sufficient healthy and nutrious diet. A nearly vegetarian scientific health food, 30 years before the vegetarian prescriptions of Diet for a Small Planet. Dr. McCay, a scientist in animal nutrition, experimented on mice to prove that bread made with bleached white flour was not as healthy as bread made with unbleached flour. The 1980 edition of the Cornell Bread Book is still available.
The recipe is presented in recipes and articles on prepper and counterculture sites. The recipe was developed during the Great Depression. Food security was recognized as an issue in America more clearly then than now. Eleanor Roosevelt’s Kitchen, a 2010 article in the New Yorker, looked back at the campaigns by home economists at Cornell to promote economical recipes for American kitchens in hard times. Americans were persuaded that hard times ended by 1945, and food writers began to treat the austerity diet (e.g. recipes for Bulldog Gravy or Depression Cake in M.F.K. Fisher‘s How to Cook a Wolf) as as a memory.
A lesson about hydration. On my first attempt at the medium loaf. I missed a digit in entering the water in the calculator. I used 1.25 cups x 237 g. = 297 g. The correct amount was 1.125 cups x 237 g. = 267 g. The dough was sloppy. I shook some white flour in (not measured, 3 or 3 tbsp) with about 10 minute of mixing time left to get a dough that held up. Too late and too little. The loaf had an open crumb and cratered.
Flax Seed Multigrain. The BLBMC (p. 118) calls this Flax Seed Whole Wheat and makes it a multigrain with 33% whole wheat flour. Also see a formula on the web, also called Flax Seed Whole Wheat Bread.
I used the web version, with a shift to a little whole wheat flour.
The BLBMC said 1.125 (1 ⅛) cups water. This is slightly high for a dough with 2 cups of bread flour. The dough finds a couple of teaspoons of water in 3 tablespoons of honey. It is a tad low for 2 cups of WW and 1 cup of bread flour. It has a firm crust and a dense crumb that holds up for firm sandwich slices.
A lean bread is flour, water, yeast and salt. Technically, a lean bread is made with flour, water, salt and yeast, without fat: butter, oil, or vegetable shortening. Fat mixed and kneaded shortens gluten strands, making the bread softer.
Salt interacts with amino acids in the flour as the protein bind to make up the gluten proteins. Salt affects the elasticity of dough. Less salt means a less elastic and tenacious dough. Salt also inhibits the yeast and the fermentation. The latter effect is addressed by the rule of thumb1A rule of thumb that may have to be adjusted. of proportional reduction by weight.
French Bread made with white bread flour is lean – even when made with some recipes with 1 or 2 Tbsp. butter for a bit of butterfat. There are wet doughs (hydration over 70%) for some loaves e.g. baguettes; and drier doughs (under 60% hydration).
Some baking recipe books are aimed at readers who want to make a specific type of bread, or have sections of recipes for artisinal baking, rustic bread, hearth or country bread. Many “country”, “rustic” or “hearth” loaves are lean. Most “country”, “rustic” or “hearth” loaves are attempts to create a historical style with modern ingredients. Pure wheat white flour started to be milled when agricultural and technical innovations during the industrialization of Europe made it possible. One change – rye or other grain growing with wheat was not harvested or sorted out and not milled.
Sandwich bread is not lean. It is enriched with fat or milk, and sugar. Milk has fats and sugars, in solution. Sugar makes the dough more extensible, which helps the dough to flow and rise. Sugar or milk change the crust and crumb.
Industrial Baking
Industrial scale baking does not dedicate time to rise dough and shape individual loaves. Industrial baking was challenged to mass produce rustic breads. Storebought “rustic” bread is available, but usually inferior to an artisan baked loaf or a home baked loaf.
Bread Machines
Bread machine manufacturers’ writers and recipe writers have tried to overcome the challenges of making lean and rustic bread:
shaped distinctively,
baked on a deck (hot surface) rather than in pans, or
scored to control the way the crust ruptures as the loaf continues to spring in the oven;
using the bread machine in a dough program to make dough, or starters or sponges;
enriched recipes for a basic baking program or a “French” or “European” program. Panasonic had sugar in its recipe for French Bread in the Panasonic manual. The BLBMC has sugar in the Peasant Bread recipe;
recipes for custom programs
Scoring a loaf is not a bread machine practice. It is a manual operation at a specific time at the end of “bench rest” before baking. It is possible but less common with loavea baked in baking pans. In a bread machine bake programs some rupture of the crust may be expected unless the user has intervened.
Bread machine recipes have to be customized for machines. I adapt “standard” recipes, mainly from the Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (“BLBMC“) and from the bread machine chapter of Beth Hensperger’s Bread Bible. I worked out my approach to yeast and low sodium in baking in a Panasonic SD-YD250 for medium (1.5 lb.) loaves June, July and August, 2018.
I adjusted yeast for BLBMC recipes baked in a Panasonic SD-YD250 machine when I realized that BLBMC recipes did not work in that machine. The BLBMC recipes worked in the Panasonic with the salt proportional change, and an additional the adaptation to yeast quantity for the Panasonic. When I started to bake in a Zojirushi BB-PAC20, I changed my method of writing recipes in tables or worksheets.
I use a Zojirushi custom progam for lean white bread. The differences between basic bake, French/European, and the custom program. Times in minutes. Baking temp. not tested or published by manufacturers.
Machine
Program
Inirial Rest
Mix/ knead
Rise (total)
Rise 1
Rise 2
Rise 3
Bake
Panasonic SD-YD250
Basic
30
15
110
50
Zorjirushi BB-PAC20
Regular Basic
31
19
95
35
20
40
60
Panasonic SD-YD250
French
40
10
175
55
Zorjirushi BB-PAC20
Custom French/Euro
22
18
85
35
50
70
Lean breads that work in a bread machine:
Zojirushi’s recipe for Crusty French Bread, baked with a custom programworks as medium loaf in a large pan and as a small loaf.
BLBMC Peasant Bread is mildly enriched country/rustic white bread.
BLBMC Chuck Williams’s Country French has 33% whole wheat. Beth Hensperger adapted a recipe by Chuck Williams (of Williams-Sonoma) for the La Cloche device. It is similar to a hearth bread she calls Pain de Campagne in her Bread Bible (2000), which is made with a starter and sponge made with whole wheat flour. It is in the style of Pain de campagne, but with whole wheat (not rye) flour. The whole wheat version loaf has a firm crust and a reasonably open crumb. It flows enough to work as a medium loaf in a large pan. (but getting the yeast right took some experiments.)
One main difference between using the basic bake program and a special French/Euro/lean program is yeast. My experience with low salt(4.3 g., instead of 8.6 g. salt) medium lean loaves in a Zojirushi is that these loaves work in Regular basic with 2.1-2.3 g. instant yeast, and in the Home-made (custom) Euro program works with 3.1 g. instant yeast.
