German Pumpernickel Bread

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Today learn “How to make German Pumpernickel Bread’.  Pumpernickel is also called” Black Bread” in German or “Schwarzbrot”. It is a very healthy bread and very popular in Germany. In the USA it is available in certain supermarkets from the brand Rubschlager or Dimpflmaier. Today we found a recipe of how to make pumpernickel from scratch, it’s from the region Westphalia (Westfalen). The recipe is from an old baking cook book. Many German recipes ask for a German sour dough starter which is not available in the USA. The recipe we found does not use a starter.

Have you ever asked yourself why it is called Pumpernickel? Here is the origin of the name:
There is an often quoted story of Napoleon who got the dark German rye bread served for his dinner while he was invading Germany. He  explained,  he would not eat it, and said instead, “C‘est pain pour Nicole!” In other words, this bread wasn’t for him but for his horse named Nicole.
“Pain pour Nicole” over time became Pumpernickel. The Straight Dope describes this Napoleon story as implausible because the word “pumpernickel” was in use before Napoleon’s time, this could not have been the word’s origin. So here we are and still don’t know the origin… This recipe is not 100 percent original German.

Ingredients German Pumpernickel Bread

500 g wheat grit (Weizenschrot)
250 g rye grit (Roggenschrot)
200 g sun flower seeds
100 g sesame or  flax seeds
500 g wheat flour (Weizenmehl)
1 liter butter milk
2 packaged dry yeast
150g molasses  (Ruebenkraut)
1 tsp salt

Baking Instructions German Pumpernickel Bread

1. Mix all flours, sunflower, sesame seeds in a large bowl.
2. Warm butter milk very slowly, add, while continuously whisking, the yeast, molasses and salt.
3. Pour the mil yeast mix over the flour mix and mix well.
4. Place into greased bread pan (sprinkled with flour).
5. Bake for 2 3/4 hrs on 130 C or 55 F – after baking time cover with foil  and let sit in turned off oven for 2 hours.