Pumpernickle Bread-Or Food As Art!

Last Monday, my 17 year old son Matthew came home from school requesting a donation for a brunch that was to occur on Friday the 10th in his German class. He explained that he had signed up to bring in Pumpernickle Bread and he asked that we try to make some together. Well TWIST MY ARM!!!! He went right to the computer and came back with a recipe. Pumpernickle is not an easy bread to create successfully. Since it requires the use of heavy rye flour, it takes a long time to rise and often results in very heavy dense bread. Then there is the issue of the flavor. I love good pumpernickle but I have never found a recipe that would yield loaves with the right sour zippy yet sweet flavor that true pumpernickle should have. The recipe taht matthew had found had reall promise. It had cocoa powder in it that would give both color and good flavor, it had molasses again for color and sweetness, there was plenty of yeast- to get it to rise and, of course, there were caraway seeds- a pure necessity!!
Above you see the results and the texture was perfect and the taste was really authentic. He was so pleased !! We had a wonderful tiem making the bread together- lucky ME!!! His treacher was in awe of the fact that we had actually made the bread and he even brought home a few leftovers for us to nibble on. I will definately be making this recipe again and adding some raisins and walnuts to one of the loaves next time!