Cookbook | Ingredients | Recipes

| Cuisine of Denmark | Breakfast

A type of bread common to Northern Europe in many varieties, but almost unknown in the south. This version is a typical Danish example (Danish: rugbrød). In Denmark, most people eat this type of bread on a daily basis.

Ingredients

• 1500 g rye flour
• 1000 g cracked rye seeds
• 5 teaspoons salt
• about 2L water
• 300 mL sourdough starter

This recipe produces 3 loaves of rye bread. They can keep about a week in a plastic bag. Do not refrigerate.

Procedure

1. Mix the salt with the rye flour in a big bowl.
2. Add 1.8L of water and mix it.
3. Mix in the sourdough starter. The result should be wet enough to flow very slowly.
4. Cover it with a cloth and let it rise for at 12-30 hours as convenient. Then add the cracked rye seeds.
5. If the resulting dough feels dry, add a bit of water. The result should be just dry enough to retain an approximate shape, but no drier.
6. Take out 300mL of dough for the next bread.
7. Butter 3 bread forms and put the dough into it, forcing it into all corners with a spoon. Then using a fork, make deep holes as close as you can all over the bread.
8. Let it rise for 5-10 hours, and then bake it for about 90 minutes at about 180C.
9. Let the bread cool for 15 minutes, and then tip them out to cool further on a table.

Note that the bread is very difficult to cut for 2 hours or so after baking.