Add the sugar and yeast to the lukewarm water and let it sit for 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes, the water will be bubbly and frothy. (In parallel sieve the dough as mentioned below)
After 10 minutes, mix it nicely.
The yeast mixture is ready.
Preparing the dough
While the yeast is doing its magic, in a wide mixing bowl sieve the rye flour, all-purpose flour, and salt.
To this mixture, add the honey, melted butter, and caraway seeds.
Add the yeast mixture and mix the dough gently.
Now slowly add water (2 tbsps. at a time) and start mixing the dough to form a ball. If the dough is sticky, add more flour or if it’s too dry add more water.
Knead the dough for about 5 minutes.
Grease a wide vessel with sufficient room for the dough to rise with oil.
Spread some oil on top of the dough too. Keep this dough in the greased vessel and wrap it with cling film and set aside.
I kept it inside my oven. It took me 3 hours this for the dough rise.
Kneading
Once the dough has raised, remove the cling film and punch it down.
Knead it on lightly floured surface for 5 minutes to build the gluten content and to remove all the air pockets.
Baking
Shape the kneaded dough into an oval, place them on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet, and let rise for about 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, Preheat the oven to 375°F.
Bake the bread for about 45 minutes, or until the crust is dark brown
Let it cool and serve with jam or fruit spread or with soup.
Notes
After the double rise, you can knead the dough and let it rise again before pressing out the dough for baking.
Temperature plays a significant role in dough rise so wait patiently but during warm weather check the dough after an hour.
If you are using instant yeast, no proofing is required. You can directly add it to the flour. In that case, add more water.
Double the measure for two loaves.
The original recipe calls for barley malt syrup. I replaced it with nectar. You use either nectar or honey or the malt syrup.