Rye bread

Submitted by: Dane

Without rugbrød, there’s no smørrebrød, and indeed no Danish lunch tradition. So let’s start here, although I should warn you: making rugbrød from scratch is not for those without patience.

First is the sourdough starter. In my recipe I use baking ferment but I’m told you can also use a tiny bit of active yeast.

Sourdough Starter

Dry ingredients:

A: 1 tsp coarse seasalt

B: 250 ml / ~1 cup coarse ground rye flour

C: 100 ml / just under ½ cup graham flour (or whole wheat if you prefer)

D: 1 tsp baking ferment

Add 3 dl / 1 ¼ cup buttermilk, mix it all up into a soft and sticky dough, like this

Put it in a bowl, sprinkle the dough with salt and cover it with plastic wrap. Leave it in a warm (not hot) spot for 6-7 days, at which time the sourdough will be ready to use. There should be clear signs of action – slight bubbles forming as well as a mild, sour smell. Check up on your dough once in a while, if by day 4-5 there’s nothing going on, you probably have a dud. Here’s what mine looked like:

After your week of idleness waiting for the magic of fermentation to happen, it’s time to get to work.

DAY ONE - evening

A: 1 batch of sourdough

B: 1,2 l / 5 cups lukewarm water

C: 1 bottle (330 ml / 11 oz) malt beer (I used a stout here, didn’t have any real malt beer, but it works just as well. The darker your beer, the darker your bread, and the more malty your beer, the maltier your bread). Oh no, my bottle was larger, what ever will I do with the left over beer?

D: 4 tbsp dark malt syrup or honey. For a darker, maltier bread, again, go for the malted syrup. I didn’t have any on hand. I suppose you could use molasses as well.

E: 50g (roughly 4 large tbsp.) coarse salt

F: 1,5 kg / 3,3 lbs rye flour

In a large bowl, mix water and beer and stir in honey, salt and sourdough. Add your rye flour a bit at a time. Mix the dough well, you want the consistency of a thick porridge that sticks to your fingers.

Stir or mix on your machine for another 5 minutes. If you use a machine, use your cake mixer, not the hook – the dough is too wet for that.

This is the time when you grab some sourdough for the next time – take the equivalent of 3 handfuls, put it in a loose-lidded container, sprinkle with salt and leave it in the fridge for your next batch. It needs about a week to recover and should last up to 3 without being fed again. I know some people freeze their sourdoughs but I have never tried it with this type, so I can’t really advise. Cover your dough with plastic film and leave it to rest and rise at room temp for 10-12 hours.

DAY TWO – morning

To your dough, add

• 500 ml luke-warm water and
• 1 kg / ~2 lbs cut rye kernels

and mix well. Some people like flax seeds but I’ve never seen the point – if you want, you can add them here along with whatever other birdseeds you want.

Now pour your dough into bread molds / cake tins. Unless your molds/tins are the soft silicone type, I suggest either paper or grease, even if it says non-stick on them. Trust me, it WILL stick no matter what the label says.

Cover the breads (2-3 depending on size of tins) with plastic wrap and let rise for 6 hours. It will rise quite a bit, so make sure you have room in your tins for the dough to work. It might be tempting to not let the dough get the full 6 hours, but if you do, the rye kernels won’t have had time to soak up enough moisture and you’ll break a few teeth along the way. Take it from someone who’s been there.

Put your breads in a cold oven and bake them for 2 hours 30-45 mins at 175 C / 345 F. Turn the oven off, take the breads out of the tins, brush them with cold water and put them back in the oven for a couple of hours using the leftover heat.

(3 different sized molds, forgot I had lent two of mine to my mother-in-law)

You can eat them now, but rye bread is best when it’s allowed to rest and settle for a few days before eating. Let them cool down completely, cut them in half and wrap them in parchment- or wax paper. Put them in a cool spot for 2-3 days before using. They freeze really well, but again, wait a few days before tossing them in the freezer. You can defrost them in the fridge overnight. If the recipe is too big, you can halve it, still using the same amount of sourdough.

And there’s your bread, with obligatory knife porn. I prefer using a straight as opposed to a serrated blade, as the serrated ones tend to tear at the bread too much. Of course, if you’re a proper Danish housewife, you’ll have one of these at hand at all times…

Rugbrød is amazing in flavour, shelf life, nutrition and versatility. It’s great with the traditional Danish lunchmeats but works just as well with cheese, chorizo, salami, nutella, jam or honey. Toasted (which takes a while longer than stale French-style bread) it’s great for eggs of all kinds; dried slightly, crumbled up and with a tiny bit of sugar it’s a good muesli substitute for yougurt topping, or as the topping of a dessert of apple sauce, whipped cream and rugbrød (in Danish, this is called Bondepige med Slør – Farmgirl with a veil).