Here is Another Bread that Uses Soaked Old Bread in the new batch, and it is a bread that was developed in an interesting way. Several years ago at the King Arthur Flour Bakery we began making a 100 percent rye pumpernickel (see Vollkornbrot,), and we had quite a following for the bread right away. Because of its great keeping quality, we felt that selling it for five days was acceptable. After a few months, however, we began having some bread left over after the five-day period, and no one in the Bakery felt good about either throwing out the leftover loaves or giving them to a food kitchen. I jotted some percentages on a piece of paper and asked one of the bakers to scale out the jottings. Those percentages were the DNA, so to speak, for the Flaxseed Rye Bread presented here. This formula is a good example of how a baker might simply combine ingredients in different proportions to elicit a certain result; in this case, a very delicious result. The old bread should ideally be a hearty dark bread, which will give a nice “bass note” to the flavor. The old bread also contributes to the excellent keeping quality of the loaves. A last note: this bread enjoys the addition of seeds on the surface. Many blends are possible. In the Bakery we mix together 45 percent flaxseeds, 45 percent sesame seeds, and 10 percent caraway. Shaped loaves are pressed into a damp cloth and then into a tray containing the seed blend. Final proofing takes place with the seed side up in floured bannetons.