It was love at first bite, like a real summer romance 💚 In summer, when my family and I went on on holiday to Iceland, we fell in love with Rúgbrauð, their local bread, made from the rye flour. Did you know that in Iceland, Rúgbrauð is not baked in an oven, but buried in the ground and left to geothermal energy to do its work for 12 hours or more 😮The bread is quite dense in texture and has a sweetish taste.
When we got back home, I decided to make Rúgbrauð myself. And that's how this post was born. Since I don't have any geothermal hot springs near my home, I baked the bread in a conventional oven 😀.
Recipes for Rúgbrauð vary. I have chosen one that bakes relatively quickly and does not require ingredients that we do not usually have at home. Generally, only rye flour is used, but white wheat flour can also be added. For the wet part, some people use kefir, others buttermilk or plain milk. In some recipes, sugar, honey, molasses or golden syrup can be used as sweeteners. In any case, the preparation of the bread is very simple. The bread does not need to be kneaded and risen, we just mix all the ingredients and bake it.
Before I start baking, here's an interesting fact. Do you know why rye bread is so widespread in Iceland? Iceland was under Danish rule for many years. Since Denmark had established a monopoly on trade with Iceland, they could only get the raw materials that Denmark had at its disposal. And because Denmark is one of the largest producers of rye, they bought their rye from them.
- 4 1/2 cups rye flour
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 cups buttermilk
- 1 cup golden syrup
First of all, let's make ourselves some golden syrup and buttermilk.
Golden syrup
Golden syrup is a sweetener used in Iceland. I didn't have it at home, but I had all the ingredients needed to make it. I did a little research on the Internet and saw how easy it was to make at home, using just three ingredients, plain white sugar, water and a little lemon juice. You will need a little more than an hour to make it.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup water
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
Put the sugar in a small saucepan, add the water and stir. Then bring to the boil over a medium heat, stirring several times in between to melt the sugar completely.
When the mixture has come to the boil, remove it from the heat and add the lemon juice, giving it a final stir.
Place the pan on a very low heat for one hour, during which time you must not stir the liquid. The boiling must be present to such an extent that the slow bubbles that form during the boiling are visible.
After one hour, our Golden Syrup is ready. Don't worry because it is very runny when warm, but when it cools it is just the right thickness! It can be kept at room temperature for up to a year. The quantity of syrup prepared is for our recipe, about 1 cup.
Buttermilk
Buttermilk is even easier to prepare than Golden Syrup. It is the fermented liquid left after the cream has been processed into butter. It has a sour taste and is very low in fat. Just take the required quantity of milk, add a little lemon juice and wait half an hour for the milk to curdle. I used rennet because I had it at home, but the lemon juice will do the job. Just use 1 tablespoon of lemon juice for 1 cup of milk.
Rúgbrauð
First of all, preheat the oven to 160° C. Then place the rye flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda in a mixing bowl and stir everything together.
Add the buttermilk and golden syrup to the dry mixture and mix together to form a homogeneous dough. I must admit that the dough was very sticky, which I did not expect.
I transferred the dough to a silicone baking tray, flattened the dough, and covered it all together with aluminum foil, which helped to keep the liquid from evaporating out of the dough during the baking process. As a result, the bread remained very juicy.
After two hours of baking, turn off the oven, remove the aluminum foil, and leave the bread in the oven for another 15 minutes.
Remove the bread from the oven and the baking tray and allow it to cool. When it is completely cooled, cut it into slices. Well, if you want to, of course.
The bread will keep fresh at room temperature for a few days, but you can freeze it and use it later if necessary.
In Iceland, it is served thinly sliced and goes well with smoked salmon, butter, cheese and dried salami. Icelanders also eat fermented and dried shark meat with it.
Bon Appetite 🍽️ 🍴 😋
Thanks for reading,
feel free to leave a comment, I will be glad to reply to.
Best regards, @miljo76
