What Was Used To Make Pumpernickel Dark Before People Had Chocolate Or Caramel Color?
January 10th, 2010 by Rexx
This is a food history question I always wondered about. I know “black bread” has been around for hundreds of years in Europe, but all modern recipes call for chocolate, coffee powder, caramel color, or some other darkener. What made it dark before people had these — charcoal? something gross? something no longer avaialable? Or was it simply called “black bread” because the crust was dark and the dark interior came later?
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1 Comment »
January 10th, 2010 at 10:46 pm
MOLASSES!!
Pumpernickel is a type of sourdough bread from Germany that is made with a combination of rye flour and rye meal (more coarsely ground than flour) and is very dark in color (even when compared to breads made with flour that includes bran). It tastes very similar to rye bread, but differs in that pumpernickel recipes often call for molasses, helping to give pumpernickel its dark color. Pumpernickel is about three times as dense as wheat bread.
A slice of pumpernickelTraditional German pumpernickel contains no coloring agents (such as molasses), instead relying on the Maillard reaction to produce the characteristic deep brown color, sweet dark chocolate coffee flavor, and earthy aroma. Loaves produced in this manner require 16 to 24 hours of baking in a low temperature (about 250°F or 120°C) steam-filled oven. They tend to have a much more intense flavor than the approximations provided by adding molasses, coffee, cocoa powder, or other darkening agents employed by many bakeries. Other than in a few traditional German bakeries, most bakers eschew the long baking time for obvious economic reasons and, in addition to coloring and flavor agents, often add wheat flour (to provide gluten structure and increase rising) and commercial yeast (to quicken the rise compared to a traditional sourdough). The result is a loaf that resembles commercial rye bread with darker coloring. Many bakers also add a significant amount of caraway seeds, providing an alternate flavor that is now characteristic of many commercial pumpernickel (and light rye) breads.