Marble Rye Bread
This Marble Rye Bread recipe creates a striking swirl of light and dark rye bread dough that makes even an ordinary sandwich feel special. You can flavor your homemade rye bread with the classic caraway seeds or leave them out, pile it high with corned beef for a Reuben or slather your marble rye with butter.
Read on to learn all the tips and tricks for making a swirled or marbled bread dough and move on to make a rainbow bread next. Or just grab your rye flour, hit that Jump to Recipe button, and let’s start with a classic marbled rye!
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Ingredients
Rye flour
Rye flour is a strongly-flavored flour that comes in light, medium, or dark rye, depending on the amount of bran and germ retained in the milling process. Pumpernickel is just a rye flour made from the whole grain. I use a light rye in this marbled rye bread.
Other marble rye ingredients
Using wheat flour improves the rye bread’s rise and texture while keeping the distinctive flavor from rye flour.
Caraway seeds and fennel seeds add to the flavor of a classic Jewish rye bread. You can skip the seeds, of course, if you hate them.
To color the dark dough, use cocoa, instant espresso powder, or black cocoa, or a combination. The example in this recipe used only espresso powder. The color in this sweet brown bread is from cocoa and espresso powder. Black cocoa gives you a quite dark rye dough, which you can see in my Russian rye bread recipe.
Please see the recipe card below for complete information on ingredients and quantities.
Variations and substitutions
- Seeded Rye: Brush the top with egg white and sprinkle on even more caraway seeds before baking.
- Sourdough Marble Rye: Substitute active sourdough starter for water, flour, and commercial yeast, or simple sub in sourdough discard in place of flour and water for just that extra tang.
- Sweeter Marble Rye: Add a tablespoon of honey or brown sugar to the dough.
Recipe tips and tricks
Breads made with just flour, water, and salt need lots of time for flavor development. Enriched and flavored breads like my raisin challah, pretzel bread, or chocolate chip brioche can use larger amounts of yeast and be made relatively quickly.
This marble rye bread recipe is somewhere in between. It starts, like my honey wheat bread and many of my other sandwich bread recipes, with a sponge. Let the sponge sit at room temperature for an hour or two or three until it is starting to bubble through.
At that point, start to mix the dough just until it comes together and then split the dough in half. The hardest part about making a swirled or marbled bread is getting the two or more colors at about the same moisture and consistency so that they rise together and don’t form gaps.
Start with the uncolored half of dough and knead by hand or with a mixer until it is smooth and elastic. You may need to add a tablespoon or so of flour – it should be tacky but not sticky.
Then repeat with the second half, adding the cocoa or espresso powder and kneading that bread dough until the color is even throughout and the dough is again smooth and elastic. Shape the dough into bread balls and let them rise in an oiled bowl covered with plastic wrap in a warm spot until doubled in size, about 2 hours.
Note: even though my pictures show it, I wouldn’t recommend having them rise in the same bowl, as they may stick together!
Punch down the dough balls and divide them in half if you like. Use a rolling pin to flatten the balls, stack them on top of each other, and then roll them up into a bread loaf.
If you start with the dark loaf on the bottom, your loaf will have a darker top. Totally your choice.
Put the rolled up loaf of marble rye bread seam side down in a greased 9 by 5 inch loaf pan and let rise again until it rises about an inch above the side of the pan.
Bake in a 375 degree Fahrenheit oven for about 30 minutes until the internal temperature of the marbled rye loaf is 190 degrees and it sounds hollow when thumped on the bottom. Let cool for at least one hour before cutting.
Recipe FAQs
Keep all sandwich bread in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, or you can also freeze your rye bread for longer storage. Never put bread in the refrigerator, or it will dry out.
Absolutely! If you’re not a fan of caraway, just leave them out. You’ll still get delicious rye flavor from the flour itself.
Related bread recipes
Check out other breads for sandwiches and yeast bread recipes from the Ugly Duckling Bakery archives, like:
Love this recipe? Please leave a 5-heart 💜💜💜💜💜 rating in the recipe card below. Let me know how much you loved it, or any problems you had, in the comments section further down.
Recipe
Marble Rye Bread
Equipment
- 9 inch by 5 inch loaf pan
Ingredients
Sponge
- 1 cup (120 grams) light rye flour
- ½ teaspoon instant yeast
- 1 cup (240 milliliters) lukewarm water plus more as necessary
Rye bread dough
- 2½ cups (300 grams) bread flour plus more as needed
- 1 teaspoon caraway seeds
- ½ teaspoon fennel seeds
- ½ teaspoon instant yeast
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa or instant espresso powder
Instructions
- Make the sponge by whisking together the rye flour yeast, and water in the bowl of a stand mixer or a medium to large sized mixing bowl.1 cup (120 grams) light rye flour, ½ teaspoon instant yeast, 1 cup (240 milliliters) lukewarm water
- On top of the sponge, add the bread flour, caraway and fennel seeds, and additional yeast.2½ cups (300 grams) bread flour, 1 teaspoon caraway seeds, ½ teaspoon instant yeast, ½ teaspoon fennel seeds
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it set at warm room temperature until the sponge is bubbling through, about 1 to 3 hours.
- Mix the sponge and flours together, then add the salt. Mix until the dough starts to come together, adding more bread flour or water as necessary to get a slightly sticky dough. Switch to the dough hook in your mixer once the dough comes together.1 teaspoon salt
- Divide the dough roughly in half.
- Knead the light colored dough for 5 to 6 minutes until the dough is soft and stretchable.
- Form the dough into a boule, place it in a small oiled bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it rise at warm room temperature until it has doubled in size, about 2 to 3 hours again.
- Now add the cocoa or instant espresso powder to the second half of the dough and knead it until it also is soft and pliable and the color is evenly throughout. Shape like the first half into a boule and let rise until doubled.1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa or instant espresso powder
- To create the marbled rye, punch down the two doughs, divide them in half if you like and use a rolling pin to gently roll them into a rectangle. Place the doughs on top of each other and roll them together gently to help them stick together.
- Roll the stacked doughs into a log, starting from the short edge.
- Grease a 9 inch by 5 inch loaf pan, shape your dough into a loaf, and place the marbled rye bread dough seam side down into the pan. Let it rise at warm room temperature until it has risen to about one inch about the sides of the loaf pan, about another 2 hours
- Meanwhile heat your oven to 375°F.
- Bake for about 30 minutes, until the internal temperature of the bread is 190 to 195°F.
- Unmold immediately and let cool on a baking rack for at least one hour before slicing.
Notes
Nutrition
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