Hi Barbara, While I like to think of myself as a pretty good cook, I am certainly a novice baker. Growing up in southeastern Massachusetts, we enjoyed Sissel (sp?) bread, which was a Polish seeded rye with a fantastic thick and chewy crust. My mother, who grew up in Brooklyn, tells me that when we were babies, they would give us the heel of the loaf to chew while we were teething. It was also something we looked forward to during the holiday season. The bakery that made that bread has long been closed and we never found a truly comparable substitute in the local area. before Christmas, I set out on a quest to find a recipe that would closely replicate the sissel that we all loved. I started experimenting with a regular white sourdough recipe and after a couple of loaves, tried my first rye. The recipe contained milk and molasses. It was very good, but it wasn't sissel. I baked about 4 loaves of that leading up to Christmas, tweaking the recipe a bit each time and everyone loved them all, but we all agreed that they were not "it". The week before Christmas, I found this recipe and decided to give it a try. I baked two loaves of the molasses and milk recipe and one of yours just to try. I baked it in a dutch oven and it came out beautifully. When my family tried this one, they were almost speechless. All my mother could say was "That's it!" with a huge smile on her face. Since that first loaf, I have baked about 10 more. I sent two loaves home with family traveling from California and I even shipped one to a cousin in Chicago who wasn't able to come home for Christmas. I will continue to bake them and learn from each one. Right now, I am trying to learn how to keep the loaf from cracking in the oven and to make the crust as thick and chewy as possible. They look perfect when I take the cover of the dutch oven, but then some time after, they crack. Not a big deal, they still taste great, but I tend to be a perfectionist and want them to look as good as they taste. Thank you for the detailed recipe and blog! This loaf is fantastic and really brought back great memories.

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