CUISINE

Swedish Boiled Bread

I would like to share with you one of my favorite recipes for bread. Having grown up on the countryside in southern Sweden, and being used to the dark, often spicy bread, moving to southern California meant either having to buy imported German bread, which is much denser than the one I grew up on, or starting to bake myself, which became my choice.

This bread is very easy to make, sounds very weird, but is a true delight in my own opinion.

Swedish Boiled Bread

Mix the following ingredients well:

0.6 oz dry yeast (or one 50g cake fresh yeast)

3-1/2 cup rye flour (0.9 liters)

0.6 cup dark corn syrup (0.15 liters)

1 tsp salt (5 ml)

1-1/2 cup lukewarm water (0.4 liters)

3-1/4 cup wheat flour (0.8 liters)

Knead the dough. Rub a thin layer of fat on the inside of a stainless steel bowl, powder the inside with flour and put the ball-shaped dough in the bowl. Now, put a lid on top of the bowl, which shall be large enough so that the lid will not touch the dough. Put the bowl in a pot, fill up with water to 2/3 of the height of the bowl, and boil for 4 hours. Fill up with water to 2/3 every now and then, but be careful never to get any water into the bowl. If possible, keep a lid on the pot while boiling. The bread will rise while being boiled, but will be a rather compact bread.

Eat the bread warm with butter and cheese. Enjoy!

- Markus Jakobsson, markus@cs.ucsd.edu