Schüttelbrot South Tyrolean Style

1. Mix the sourdough and honey in warm water. Stir in the two types of rye flour and the crushed caraway seeds. The result is a mushy, aromatic smelling dough. Put in a container with a lid and let ferment for 12 hours at room temperature.
2. The next day, first toast the coriander and after a while also the fenugreek in a pan without fat and then grind it in a mortar. The star anise does not need to be roasted and is first roughly ground. If you mortar the remaining spices together with the salt, it goes a little faster. Leave.
3. Add the rest of the water, the yeast and the wheat flour. Now add the spice mixture with the salt. Mix with a mixing spoon or a food processor. Let rise for three hours at room temperature. The dough is reminiscent of spaetzle dough – it is so runny. He needs these 3 hours to get some structure. Nevertheless, it has a liquid consistency, so that it is something for advanced users or for the very brave. The dough has to be so “wet” that it can be shaken.
4. Cut out the tangerine-sized portions with a floured dough card and place in a lot of flour and turn once. Press lightly flat with a floured hand and cover and let relax for 30 minutes. I got 7 flat cakes together.
5. For the difficult part you need a round board or a tray, regardless of the plate – the main thing is round. It should be significantly larger than the bread roll. If necessary, it can also be rectangular, then it is a little more difficult to turn.

The hard part

1. Flour the board or whatever – the original recipe calls for the use of wheat bran. For me the flour was sufficient. Place one of the dough cakes in the middle of the board and hold the board slightly inclined forwards and now let the cakes bounce by “shaking” the board so that it wanders a bit towards the edge. But now turn the board and give the bouncing flatbread in a different direction. Ideally, it will be round afterwards. I’ll say it right away: my first copies would have more resemblance to a Wiener Schnitzel than to a Schüttelbrot. The last ones got better. The quality mark for hand-shaken bread is a wavy structure and a thinner dough texture in the middle – the heart. The “schnitzel” should then be reasonably round and about 5 mm thick.
2. Now slide the flatbread onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper. I always got 2 pieces on a sheet. If you bake without baking paper, you use wheat bran again and no fat. Preheat the oven to 210 ° C top / bottom heat and bake the flatbreads for 25 – 30 minutes. Take out and put the next ones in the oven. At the end of the baking process, put the flatbreads on the wire shelf back into the slowly cooling oven and use the residual heat to dry. If it comes to that, the pieces taste “really good” even when they are warm and still slightly soft.
3. I’ve wanted to make Schüttelbrot for a long time. Now it’s done. What scared me was the shaking. All in all, it was still feasible and the result is impressive. My variant is very dark, which is due to the types of flour used. But I believe that I am closer to the original from a time when there was only rye cultivation in South Tyrol and wheat was reserved for the rich. It also tastes very “sourdough” – but I definitely wanted it. While researching I found recipes that only work with yeast. I am of the opinion that sourdough is essential for larger quantities of rye flour. I hope you enjoy copying. After shaking the kitchen, it will be a little more dusty than usual.