‘Tis the Season for Christmas Bread – Swedish Vörtbröd Recipe

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.