This is Quarkbrot by Jeffery Hamelman (Bread, 2nd and 3rd eds.). I'll add final bake pics to this post tomorrow. A baking friend made this loaf last week and absolutely raved about it.
The recipe is made with quark cheese (think the consistency of ricotta with the tang of Greek yogurt), an overnight rye sponge and an overnight soaker of cracked rye berries (what Hamelman calls "rye chops"). The base hydration of the recipe is only 48%. Even with the additional water present in the soaker and in the quark, I had to increase the base hydration to 60% for my flour mix (I used Sam's Club Bread and Pizza flour and Bob's Red Mill Dark Rye flour). After 10 minutes of mixing in the Ank, the dough was gorgeous.
I did a series of 3 stretches and folds to further strengthen the dough, each followed by a 30 minute rest. Bulk fermentation was 90 minutes at 69F (~50% increase). After final shaping, I allowed the dough to counter proof in the banneton for 30 minutes at 69F. I then wrapped the banneton in a plastic bag and placed it in the fridge for an overnight cold retard. I'll bake it first thing in the morning.
Added pics of the final loaf and crumb below. Apart from my scoring experiment gone awry, the crust is wonderfully crisp and the crumb is tight, uniform and soft. The quark cheese imparts a wonderful tang to the bread. This is an especially amazing loaf for the toaster - and I have no doubt it will make some amazing grilled cheese sandwiches. Give this one a try! If you can't find quark cheese, Hamelman recommends creme fraiche, fromage blanc (a French cultured cheese similar to sour cream), or yogurt. I will definitely bake this one again.
