You might wonder why I am writing about Swedish bread on my mostly Asian focused website. Well I recently attended a traditional Swedish smörgåsbord dinner organized by a good friend from Bangkok. One of the nice things about living internationally is the exposure to many different people from many different cultures. As a result, I have developed a taste for not only Asian specialty dishes but also several Swedish and German dishes owing to the high concentration of Swedes and Germans I know. While French and Italian dishes seem to be something almost everyone is familiar with, somehow the Swedish and German culinary traditions are less widely known. There is however one Swedish traditional Christmas bread that I want to share with you, my foodie friends – Vörtbröd. Vörtbröd is a Christmas beer bread that will become part of my Christmas tradition for years to come. It is a dense rye bread that is slightly sweet and perfumed with typical Christmas spices like ginger and clove. I enjoyed it as much warm from the oven as I did cold the next day at the breakfast table.
Thanks to Ana for introducing me to such a wonderful recipe…I am sharing Ana’s recipe below and hope you enjoy trying it for yourself.
1 3/4 oz. yeast
1 3/4 oz. butter
2 teaspoons salt
7 cups sifted rye flour
1/2 cup molasses
1 Tablespoon zested orange peel
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
2/3 cup raisins
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3 comments
Julia ghosn says:
Dec 9, 2013
1 3/4 oz how many tsp?
Joanna says:
Dec 13, 2013
http://www.calculateme.com/Volume/Ounces/ToTeaspoons.htm
you might find this link helpful now and in the future
David says:
Nov 23, 2014
I realize this is an old post, but in case someone looks this up for this Christmas season, I wanted to point out a small but important “lost in translation” clarification. The rye flour does not actually need to be sifted, as you would with cake flour in some recipes. In Sweden, if you buy “siktat” rye flour, or “rågsikt”, it is what we would call either medium or light rye flour. The sifting happens at the mill, where just like white flour from wheat, the bran and germ are sifted out from the wholegrain.
Of course you can use whole rye, also called dark rye flour, for this bread, but more authentically you would use a medium rye flour.