Scandinavian bread

I hope that I can translate this stuff right, there are some words that I don't know and have to trust translator.

Anyway I'm really big fan of great food and I have learned to do all my cookings by myself, after first follow printed instructions, nowdays I consider them to be bit off for my liking at least.

In last three months I have been baking daily, learning more, experimenting a bit and it all has started to come together nicely, so I thought that I share my latest one with you, maybe you can then share your version from country you live in so we can all try something excotic that is common to some other place of world.

This is my white bread, usually I make it to buns, but it should work as big bread too. I'm IT pro and car mechanic, still working with IT tech and my hobby is cars, so some explanations might be bit unusual, I don't understand half of terms they have in chef books, so I just work with what I see and what I do, there are probably fancy names for all stuff, but I doubt those terms have ever made single bread, so I stick with my uneducated terms for now.

Ingredients: Conversions are to US measures and I'm not too sure they would be correct, so better check those before baking.
0.8l of water (0.211 gallons or 27.05oz says converter), must not feel warm to hand, but it can't be cold either, that is about right temperature.
3 (spoon used when eating soup etc) spoons of syrup, I use special bread syrup, that is what it is called in shop.
1 - 1.5 spoons of honey (spoon used when eating soup etc), mine is half solid kind, comes from local farmer
2 small spoons of salt (coffee spoon), you can put more too, I think general guide is 2 for 5dl of water
Wheat flour, medium roughness, use this 80-90% of total amount
Dark wheat flour, use 20-10% of this to give bit of flavour, but not too much to make bread too solid.
120g (4 1/4oz I guess? converter says 4.23oz or 0.264552 pounds) of real butter, you can put more this one too if you consider it getting bit too 'dry'
50g (0.11pounds or 1.76oz is what converter says, I don't know how to make fractions from that) of fresh yeast

I start with adding water, salt, syrup, honey and yeast and as I use machine to mix everything up, I use low setting at first, when there is no visible pieces I put machine to fast speed (only two speeds in my machine from 1980's) then I put wheat flour, maybe it is 0.1-0.2l (3.4 - 6.8oz) at once, idea is to put just enough so that fast mixing starts making bubbles, then wait a while so that there are lot of bubbles and slowly then add more flour. First mixture becomes such that there are a lot of tiny bubbles after that one can't see bubbles, keep adding flours until mixture starts to become thick, then add butter, which must be melted, but not hot, after that I add some amount of dark wheat flour, here I must estimate how much would make that 10-20%, after that I add again wheat flour, it is so that I get it faster mixed up as wheat flour is mixing up better with machine than other flours.
There is enough flour when dough is sticky, but no longer shining, if it is not sticking to hands, it is too hard, too much flour and when you rise the dough there will be only tiny holes, which means bread/buns are not super soft, so leave it sticky and they are super soft.

After dough is ready, I let it rise for around 20 minutes in warm place, it means more than +30C (86F), after that I grab pieces of dough make small balls from it, again important to not squeeze too much, there is air in dough and it should not escape yet, put them on oven tray and let rise again for 40-60 minutes in warm again.
That should result dough to be raised twice to it's original size two times, once in bun form once before that in dough in a bowl form.

After that I bake them at 200-225C (392F to 437F) as long as bottom is no longer soft, with my poor oven it can take up to 20minutes, if doing big bread then max 200C and something around 40minutes in oven.

I don't really measure anything else than water, so there is not quite knowing exact amounts, but it is roughly those I put up, but remember they are bit of estimates.

Goes great with anything spicy meat for example, this is kind of bread that cures that burning that hot pepper left one's mouth for example

Sounds like an interesting recipe. I'm not sure what you mean by bread "syrup"? I'm assuming that dark wheat flour is whole wheat? And usually water for yeast breads is right around 110-115 degrees F; just warm enough to help the yeast to grow and the bread to raise. Would that be correct? The "syrup" is throwing me off, though....what is that? Thanks!

A lot of bread recipes have corn syrup, so maybe that's it? Unless molasses is popular there.

ETA: I guess it's a sugar syrup: http://www.nordicsugar.com/retail-foodservice/syrup/
I wonder if a homemade simple syrup would work.

Winchester said:

Sounds like an interesting recipe. I'm not sure what you mean by bread "syrup"? I'm assuming that dark wheat flour is whole wheat? And usually water for yeast breads is right around 110-115 degrees F; just warm enough to help the yeast to grow and the bread to raise. Would that be correct? The "syrup" is throwing me off, though....what is that? Thanks!

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Maybe this explains it somehow:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrup

It is dark sweet quite thick 'liquid' which is not quite sugar even it is based on sugar, you could use sugar too, but it has not same effect, syrup will give bit deeper falvor for sweet part of taste, if that makes any sense.

Syrup I use does contain also malt, which is why it is called bread syrup in here. There is also maple syrup which might be more common, but I have not used that one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barley_malt_syrup
Here they sell such stuff
Anyway that should give you idea what to hunt from the shop, here it dd not cost much and small bottle has lasted now for at least 3 months, good thing is that it will not spoil for a really really long time. Key is the malt in that syrup, but I guess you can add malt separately too, problem is just how much, that is something I have no idea, so I use syrup with malt in it.

I did found even english page for the product I use, it is the last one on that page:
http://www.dansukker.co.uk/uk/Products/Products/Syrup.aspx

For dark wheat flour translator suggests yeast bread flour, I think full wheat is again different, but surely will not harm it either, might do a good, you can use even Graham flour, to get bit different taste again.

For water temperature, I have learned not to put too much thought to actual temperature, anything that is not warm will work, if it is warm it will kill the yeast, that is at least with my low skill levels, with water bit cool it will just take bit more time to rise dough, but it can actually work to better result I have told. Before this I did try to use hand warm or bit warmer than hand and yeast always did die, but now as I accept that water should not be warm just not cold either I get it right and working every time.
For dry yeast water should be warmer, but that I don't use, I try to do everything traditionally also avoiding everything not from natural sources and without industrial additives.

If you test it, let me know what you liked, always interesting to hear, even if it is not tickling your taste, there is so much variety in the world that there are certainly different things that works for different people, I'm curious of course how our kind of bread works in other side of world

I think this way it is possible to 'travel' without travelling Much easier than travelling with full colony of feral cats for sure

There's an episode of 'good eats' where Alton Brown makes pizza dough with malt syrup. I think he said maltose (the sugar in malt) is preferred by the yeast and yields the best rise and flavor. You can definitely get it at Whole Foods.

aeevr said:

There's an episode of 'good eats' where Alton Brown makes pizza dough with malt syrup. I think he said maltose (the sugar in malt) is preferred by the yeast and yields the best rise and flavor. You can definitely get it at Whole Foods.

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Interesting, I did start using it with pizza but only wanted to test what it does after reading label of bottle, so purely by luck I managed to pick a good choice :lol3:

My ex-fiance is Danish and I learned to cook some of the foods he grew up with. I have an excellent Scandinavian cook book.  I have to admit, while I enjoy trying a variety of different foods, I wasn't fond of most of the things I tried from that cook book.  There was one for crepes that was really good though.

Natalie_ca said:

My ex-fiance is Danish and I learned to cook some of the foods he grew up with. I have an excellent Scandinavian cook book.  I have to admit, while I enjoy trying a variety of different foods, I wasn't fond of most of the things I tried from that cook book.  There was one for crepes that was really good though.

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Some cook books here that rank highly among professionals and semi professionals contain recipes that I would consider awful. I have found that one book has 1 to 3 that I think are ok, but usually those too needs some alterations, so they are not always very good for everyone.

Then there is something I have heard, other cultures might use bit more seasoning, bit more taste in food, our foods are generally quite mild or so I have been told, so one used to for example spicy Mexican cuisine our food can perhaps appear bit tasteless?

OK, what I have in my fridge is called Barley Malt and is from Organic Farms. I use it to make some of my barms when I'm making certain kinds of bread. (You make the "barm" first and let that set for a day or two. Then you use some of the barm to make the bread itself.) It's basically a barley malt syrup. That must be what you're talking about. As for the water temperature, yes, the water must be a wee bit warm, but not overly so, to keep the yeast alive. I've used a cold rise for some of my breads, meaning that the yeast dough rises in the fridge. It takes a longer time, usually overnight for the bread to rise, but it also yields a better-tasting bread and I think that's because of the slower rise.

I use maple syrup in corn bread sometimes...that is delicious, too.

Yes, I'm curious. I'm always curious about interesting breads! Thank you for the recipe! I probably won't get to try it until a weekend later on, but I will try it!

Winchester said:

OK, what I have in my fridge is called Barley Malt and is from Organic Farms. I use it to make some of my barms when I'm making certain kinds of bread. (You make the "barm" first and let that set for a day or two. Then you use some of the barm to make the bread itself.) It's basically a barley malt syrup. That must be what you're talking about. As for the water temperature, yes, the water must be a wee bit warm, but not overly so, to keep the yeast alive. I've used a cold rise for some of my breads, meaning that the yeast dough rises in the fridge. It takes a longer time, usually overnight for the bread to rise, but it also yields a better-tasting bread and I think that's because of the slower rise.



I use maple syrup in corn bread sometimes...that is delicious, too.



Yes, I'm curious. I'm always curious about interesting breads! Thank you for the recipe! I probably won't get to try it until a weekend later on, but I will try it!

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That syrup should work, that is also something I came up with my search of what would be similar, sometimes products can be so different from country to country that it is indeed bit difficult to tell which one is which.

I know barm process (or at least I think that what you mean even word is new to me), that is what I use when I do dark/black rye bread, something that at least this site claims not to be easily possible to do in other countries unfortainely http://www.finlandinsider.com/finnish-food-attraction.html

I really don't know how flour is so different at other countries, one would think that it is same plant so it would make up same flour, but perhaps not then.

Corn means wheat, but was it UK or US where that was true? Corn means Maize is also true but it was again in UK and US that got those bit differently and I have bit difficulties to remember which one was US corn. There are quite bit of such terms that are easy to mix with each other in cooking, or at least I have had bit of difficulties sometimes when studying recipes from other countries.


There is also one other of my favourites that I would like to share, but translation is not so easy, translator says that it is fish pie, but that does sound awful and it is nothing like that at all. Also it is rye based too, so I don't know how well it is possible to replicate, but I need to do translation first from that one. Takes me good part of day to make that food, but translation might take few days. There are nowdays English pages that have recipes of that, but I'm not so sure bout those instructions, I have bit different ones. I made translations to one Australian fellow around 2004 when our food recipes were not around the net yet, but that translation I have lost already. Translating of these are actually really good practise for my English, I learn lot of new words

Anyway this is example of such:
http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/43/Kalakukko67504.shtml

Completely OT, but how have I not noticed we have another Finnish member here?  Niin että hei vaan sinnekin, meitä on näköjään ainakin huimat kaksi täällä.

I work at a bakery where we make everything -no mixes or odd ingredients.  In fact we make a US version of Icelandic Brown Bread which is really popular.

We do use barley malt syrup in some of our recipes.  It is an ancient sweetening agent and less sweet than a sugar syrup. We also unlike most home baking in the US measure all our ingredients in liters, kilos, grams etc....  It is much more consistent and accurate than what we use at home!  Have fun baking-post pictures!

I usually measure my ingredients as well. It's more exact than "1/4 cup of flour". Many of my newer cookbooks also have the ingredients in weights now, too. I'm using ounces though.

I think that, now that I have tested bit more, there could be more yeast in my recipe, with 50 grams and 0.6 litres of water I god much softer bread, so maybe add 25 grams to get total of 75grams?

Today I did make 9 buns and two breads with 0.6 litres of water and 50 grams of yeast, it was as soft as hamburger buns, maybe even too soft for bread, but then again those are really good and soft even tomorrow too.

I did rise bread more than an hour, got quite big holes into them and lot of those normal tiny ones, quite happy to results again as shop bread is not softer and mine has at least as well working taste for me than shop bread, finally. Three keys really, not warm water,leaving dough quite bit sticky and really long rise in warm place, I think those are only ones where I did go wrong years before I ditched instructions and started just experiment a bit.

In winter I bake just about all our bread using the no-knead recipe Mark Bittmann wrote about in the New York Times a few years ago. It is also a slack dough (1 5/8 cups water to 3 cups bread flour) but only 1/4 teaspoon Instant Rise yeast and 1 1/4 teaspoons salt. Give an 18 hour rise, then some turning / resting before baking. The most important thing is that it is baked in a 450 degree Fahrenheit oven in a preheated enameled cast iron pot - 30 minutes with a lid on, then 15 minutes more with the lid removed.

There are dozens of variations - with olives and rosemary, walnut, cinnamon raisin, etc.

Terrific oven spring, great crumb. I'm sure the very hot oven and preheated pot have a lot to do with it and wonder what it would do with other bread recipes. JTbo, would you ever consider baking your bread in this way? I'd love to know how it comes out.

Catapault said:

In winter I bake just about all our bread using the no-knead recipe Mark Bittmann wrote about in the New York Times a few years ago. It is also a slack dough (1 5/8 cups water to 3 cups bread flour) but only 1/4 teaspoon Instant Rise yeast and 1 1/4 teaspoons salt. Give an 18 hour rise, then some turning / resting before baking. The most important thing is that it is baked in a 450 degree Fahrenheit oven in a preheated enameled cast iron pot - 30 minutes with a lid on, then 15 minutes more with the lid removed.



There are dozens of variations - with olives and rosemary, walnut, cinnamon raisin, etc.



Terrific oven spring, great crumb. I'm sure the very hot oven and preheated pot have a lot to do with it and wonder what it would do with other bread recipes. JTbo, would you ever consider baking your bread in this way? I'd love to know how it comes out.

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Hmm, that is interesting.

When I make pizza, I usually make dough for two days, so that I rise it well, use half of it and then put half into fridge and from that I make pizza next day.

What I have found out is that if I put dough that was in fridge, to some warm place, it starts to rise really wildly. I wonder if stones in my oven would do something similar to that pot? I have put stone to bottom of my oven as when making pizza those are quite handy, increases oven heating time, but as those heat up, oven does not get cold so easily, temperature is more even too.

Yesterday's baking should cover next few days, outside temperatures dropped to -35.5C so I can use warehouse and whole property as a freezer now, but next week there is warmer weather coming.

I would need to buy a freezer as I have only small unit in my fridge and that is not quite able to hold much, with freezer I could put lot of my baked bread there and use later as fresh after melting in microwave.

NorthernGlow, we finns tend to be everywhere, even there is so few of us

Have been bit busy, launching two websites, there is quite lot of tinkering to get everything work out way one would like to.

My pizza dough recipe (which is actually from American Pie by Peter Reinhart) is a two-day process. The dough is made one day, put into the fridge overnight to rise and then brought back to room temperature and baked the next day. I like cold-rise doughs because I think the texture of the dough is better. As for pizza stones, I have a large stone that I put into my oven to heat up about an hour before I put the pizza in the oven. I use a pizza peel for the dough and then slide the finished pizza onto the stone. It gives the dough a crispier crust. I'm sure it's doing the same thing as the cast iron pot that Catapault uses.

BTW, Reinhard also wrote The Bread Baker's Apprentice, which is a wonderful book about making ciabattas, bagels, miches, and the like. I spent several months a few years ago, working my way through the recipes in that book. It's a wonderful book and it goes into a lot of detail about kneading doughs and working with the yeast. There's a Roasted Onion and Asiago Miche in the book that was delicious.