Perfecting the Sour Cream Rye recipe

My intention was to try the simplified two-step process with the sour cream rye recipe that I made a few weeks ago.  This was also going to be my first weekday sourdough loaf.  Yes, I have a day job.  I set my starter to refresh overnight and prepared the rest of the ingredients in the bread pan with the intention of preparing the sponge the next morning and adding it to the top of the other ingredients.  Then, I would set the delay timer to create a finished product in about 12 hours. 

The next morning, however, I figured, "WTH?  I'll be home from work in time to start the bread machine on a normal cycle and be there to monitor the progress if I need to add water." So, I just prepared the sponge as usual and combined it with the rest of the recipe after it had grown for 8 hours.  In the end, there was enough water in the recipe so that my two-step process would have worked.

What I didn't have enough of, though, was rye flour.  The recipe calls for 2 cups, and I only had about 1½ cups.  I made up for the shortage with white flour.  My whole recipe, then, was

Sour Cream Rye Bread, Take 2
Remove 4 oz. of starter.  Add 4 oz. of white flour and 4 oz. of water.  Set in a warm place for about 6 hours until it doubles in size.  Then, add
Sour Cream	½ Cup
Vegetable Oil	2 Tbl
Sugar	2 Tbl
Salt	1 tsp
Caraway seeds	1 Tbl
Vital gluten	1 Tbl
Rye flour	1½  Cups
White bread flour	2  Cups
Water as needed	5 oz.

Since I was home for the mixing cycle, I peeked inside.  The dough formed a nice ball

It hadn't picked up every last bit from the corners, but there was still plenty of time left in the mixing cycle.  The dough ball looked good, so in retrospect, I could use this recipe in a two-step processes.

The loaf rose better than I was anticipating for a recipe that has so much rye flour in it.

It had that break-away pompadour look that I am coming to expect from rye bread.  It is also quite heavy.  As before, it tastes great.

Next, white sourdough.