This simple overnight spelt rye bread is made with just 5 ingredients, including water and salt. It’s a basic bread with an excellent flavour thanks to a long fermentation time and no need for a sourdough starter. Skip to the recipe →
Overnight bread is a staple in my house and has been for years now. This version is a simplified recipe based off one of my most popular recipes, an overnight dark rye bread that’s common here in northern Europe.
Instead of including oats and cocoa powder to make it darker and denser, I’ve kept the ingredients list very short – just whole spelt flour, rye flour, water, salt, and yeast. Equal parts of spelt and rye give a great flavour without being overwhelming.
I killed my sourdough starter early on in the summer by leaving it in the sun and haven’t started a new one yet. We’re currently house hunting in the Netherlands and I don’t want to move it around too much, so for now, overnight bread is the best option. And it’s a good one, too.
Baking the bread in a heavy pot creates steam and results in a crusty loaf reminiscent of what you’ll see in just about every bakery here, especially when you use hearty flours like spelt and rye.
Most long ferment bread recipes will tell you that you need a Dutch oven or another heavy covered pot to make the breads, and you do if you want a crusty, bakery style bread like this one. But in general, you don’t.
In fact, this overnight spelt rye bread is great for sandwiches (see this post for instructions on how to do an overnight bread in a loaf pan). I’ve been making it in a normal bread pan since moving to Germany because I don’t have a heavy enamel pot here and it’s great. You don’t get the same crust necessarily but it still has a great flavour and it’s even easier.
Using parchment paper in the pot makes the process easier in a few ways. You don’t need to worry about catching a hand on the very hot inner edge as you drop the bread in, or sticking if your pot is old, not enamelled, or you’re just a little worried about it.
You also don’t need to flour a kitchen towel, which invariably sticks to the dough and refuses to wash out. If you have a banneton it’s great to let the dough rise in there, then place it on the paper before dropping that into the pot. Otherwise I usually put the paper in a bowl, then scoop the dough out onto that, then drop it into the hot Dutch oven.
I also have a no knead honey & oat sourdough recipe if you’re looking to branch out a bit. If you’re looking for a whole grain, healthier option to a standard no-knead bread, this easy overnight spelt rye bread is it. I’ve shared several bread recipes over the years and you guys always seem to like them (are there not so many alternative bread recipes out there?) so I hope you like this one just as much!
And wish us luck – we’re meeting with a realtor in Groningen tomorrow! Fingers crossed we find a house very soon.
Let’s connect! Tag me on instagram @occasionallyeggs and #occasionallyeggs so I can see what you’re making, and stay in touch via facebook, pinterest, and bloglovin.
Easy Overnight Spelt Rye Bread
This simple overnight spelt rye bread is made with just 5 ingredients, including water and salt. It's a basic bread with an excellent flavour thanks to a long fermentation time and no need for a sourdough starter.
Ingredients
- 300 grams / 2 cups spelt flour*
- 270 grams / 2 cups whole grain rye flour
- 2 teaspoons sea salt
- 1/4 teaspoon dry yeast
- 500 ml / 2 cups room temperature water
Instructions
- Combine the flours, salt, and yeast in a large bowl. Stir in the water until a shaggy looking dough forms. Cover with a plate or beeswax wrap and set on the counter to rest for 12-16 hours.
- Once the dough has rested, it should have risen significantly and be quite bubbly. It will be soft. Use a spatula or your hands to stretch and fold it a few times in the bowl before placing onto a large square of parchment paper or in a well floured banneton. Sprinkle flour over it and cover with a towel.
- Let the dough rise for another 30-60 minutes. Place a Dutch oven or other high-heat safe covered dish (e.g. pyrex) into the oven and heat to 230C / 450F. Once the oven is hot, remove the dish and place the dough carefully into the hot pot.
- Bake the bread, covered, for 30 minutes. Uncover and reduce the heat to 200C / 400F and bake for an additional 15-25 minutes, or until the crust is golden. A darker crust will have a deeper flavour, so go by your personal preference.
- Let the bread cool completely on a wire rack before cutting. Slicing it while it's still hot will result in an unpleasant gummy texture. Store in a sealed container or tea towel for 3-5 days at room temperature.
Notes
• Storing the bread wrapped in a tea towel will keep the crust from softening after a day. This bread does keep longer than normal yeasted bread before becoming stale but will quickly go bad if left in a warm, humid environment.
* You can use either light or whole grain spelt flour, both work well.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
16Serving Size:
1 sliceAmount Per Serving: Calories: 108 Total Fat: 1g Sodium: 267mg Carbohydrates: 23g Fiber: 4g Sugar: 1g Protein: 4g
I love It! It looks amazing and I can’t wait to try it thanks for all the amazing recipes Alexandra, every time I open your website I get excited when I see a new recipe.
Good luck with your house hunt in Groningen! The Netherlands are a great place to live once you actually find a place yo stay!
Thank you, that makes me so happy to hear! And thank you for your good wishes 🙂
I cannot wait to try this! I was just thinking of starting up a sourdough starter but it just seemed like too much commitment at the moment. Thank you!
I totally get that! You’re so welcome, I hope you love it 🙂
So the hardest part of this recipe turned out to be waiting for the bread to be cooled down so we could try it 🙂
It’s so amazing how a not very attractive blob of sticky dough turns into such a beautiful and tasty loaf of bread! Mine looked almost exactly the same as yours. I didn’t have a fancy Dutch oven, so I baked it in a pie dish and just covered it with a baking sheet. Maybe the crust could be a bit more crunchy, but it was already really good. I’ll definitely be making this again!
Also, good luck with your house hunt in Groningen! I’m a Dutchie, currently living in Belgium and I know how hard it can be to find a nice and affordable house in the Netherlands. It should be easier up north, but I guess Groningen is quite a popular city, even though it is so far away from everything (or that’s how we perceive it ;).
All the best from Belgium!
Daphne
Hi Alexandra, this bread looks delicious. I was wondering, since I am very fond of the taste of sourdough, if I could use sourdough in this recipe. I guess in order to do that I would have combine it to the water before stirring with the flours. But then would you change the resting time or anything else?
Thanks, I love your web site and recipes.
(I hope the comment is not too confusing since english is not my first langage).
Hi Simon, thanks for your note – I would recommend following the amounts and instructions in a similar recipe I have for this overnight dark rye bread if you’d like to try this as a sourdough. I’m afraid I killed my starter a little while back and can’t try it myself but I think it would work well. Thank you so much and I hope you love the bread!
Thanks! I’ll try it today!
Looks so yummy!
Can I use this recipe in bread machine/maker?
Hi Maria – this recipe won’t work in a bread machine. As you don’t have to knead it, and it has alternate steps to a normal bread, it’ll only work mixed in a regular bowl and baked in the oven. Hope that helps!
Just made this beautiful loaf of bread! It is absolutely delicious. I baked mine with a few pumpkin seeds on top and drizzled some wild honey over the top when I took it out of the oven. Thank you for the wonderful recipe!
Hi! Just checking that it’s really only only 1/4 teaspoon of active dry yeast as opposed to the normal 2 1/4, packet sized measurement? (And I’m really wondering why that little? ☺️)
It’s correct, don’t worry! That’s a standard amount for an overnight bread as it has such a long proofing time.
Thank you for this recipe! My wife lived in Germany for nearly a decade, and loves the kind of bread she used to get there. A German friend sent her some boxes of pre-mixed dry “dinkelbrot mit roggen”, but I wanted to see if I could make it completely on my own. I modified your recipe by adding some syrup and nonfat dry milk powder, and baked it in a 10×5″ loaf pan with some advice from the King Arthur flour site. Results: my wife said “that’s good German bread!” One thing I’ll do next time is maybe not fold it so much after the overnight rise so the loaf is a little bit taller.
Hi,
Just wondering if I could make it with all whole spelt? I don’t have rye flour. I’m in Manitoba and it’s currently very humid. My winter spelt bread recipe has been giving me much grief! I’m looking for another recipe to try!
Hi Dawn! I made this recipe all last summer when I was back home in Manitoba visiting my family and it worked great even in the typical hot humid weather. All whole spelt will work really well. You might just want to add an extra couple tablespoons of flour to help balance out the humidity. Hope it works well for you!
Hi Alexandra, this is john from NZ. i followed the instructions and am trying to bake the bread now in pyrex casserole.
i left the mixture for about 12-14 hours and it was a very wet sludge. after i did the second part and put it in the banneton – it just sludged around and didnt rise much. i had to almost pour it into the casserole and then spend a long time washing the banneton to get rid of runny wet mixrure stuck everywhere.
1/4 tsp of yeast seems like quite a small amount of yeast – but i have never made bread like this before.
should the mix be drier and able to be handled like normal dough or is it supposed to be so wet?
also how much should it rise -mine seems to have hardly risen at all? also should it rise while being baked? otherwise i fear i am going to have a very thick heavy wet dense bread.
thanks for any advice
john
Hi John – it sounds to me like either we have some big flour differences or there’s a chance your yeast wasn’t very active. I’ve made this bread both in Canada and in Europe for many years, though, and have never had problems as you’ve described. The dough should be wetter than normal yeasted dough, but it should rise significantly during the first rise. It should rise a lot again while being baked (which is why I’m thinking maybe a yeast problem?). The reason it uses so little yeast is due to the long rise time and is a standard amount for an overnight bread. If you’re not getting an approximately doubled dough with lots of bubbles after the overnight rise, I think the problem is likely due to a dead or under active yeast. Do you keep your yeast refrigerated? It can spoil quite quickly in warm and humid weather.
Looks delicious. Two questions before I try it. 1. Can I replace whole wheat flour instead of spelt. 2. Can I bake in regular oven as I don’t have Dutch oven.
TIA
Hi there! Yes, you can sub whole wheat flour. A Dutch oven is a covered cast iron baking dish, not an oven – but you can bake the bread in a regular loaf tin (see instructions for that here).
Hi Alexandra. Do you think this method would work with the following ingredients, but with a quarter of the yeast? This recipe is an adaptation of Nigella’s Norwegian Mountain Bread, and our daily staple (until discovering your website of course!):
250 ml water
250 ml unsweetened almond milk
2 tsp easy bake yeast (1 x 7g sachet)
200g wholemeal flour
100g rye flour
50g spelt flour
75g other flour (or more rye/spelt)
50g porridge oats
6 tablespoons mixed seeds: e.g. sunflower, pumpkin, flax
1 tablespoon salt
Would love to hear your thoughts!
I think that would work very well indeed. I often take regular breads and simply reduce the yeast to use this method, it’s worked for me every time without fail. And I often make a loaf similar to that one as part of my weekly rotation, but as an overnight rise, and it’s great.
I’d just like to say a huge thank you for this delicious bread. My husband was searching for a spelt and rye bread recipe and this is, head and shoulders, far above anything else we found! We’ve been making bread for many years and this is such an easy and delicious loaf, it had quickly become a family favourite.
I am so happy to hear that, Maeve, that’s wonderful that you’re enjoying it so much! Thank you for your kind comment : )
Looking forward to trying this overnight bread!
I have adapted a recipe using different gluten free flours. I wondered if you have tried using this recipe but with gluten free flour. (I usually have to use an egg for GF bread) Thank you!
Hi Fiona, I’m so happy to hear that! I haven’t tried to make this gluten free, but I recommend this recipe if you’re going for a GF loaf. It does use a starter but it might be possible to make it with yeast as an overnight bread.