100% Swedish Rye Bread & Poor Man’s Charcuterie
Wow, it has been over two months since I posted a bread recipe. Right before leaving for France (and again last weekend) I made this Swedish rye bread. I had been wanting to try a 100% rye loaf for some time and this was a simple quick bread that could be made in under an hour. There are more complex ones in the book that I’d like to try at some point but this was certainly a great starting place.
This bread is relatively small due in particular to the low levels of gluten in rye flour. This makes it difficult to build a full sandwich out of, but perfect for charcuterie! Except we didn’t really have anything that you’d normally put on a charcuterie (that’s just a fun word) board, so we improvised with delicious results.
We had some banana peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, cucumber, cheese, olives, , and honey mustard. Not very fancy, but very tasty! The bread slices thinly and holds its shape well which made it perfect for this. There is a small amount of cumin in it which went well with the other items. My main concern was that it would be too dry, and it might have been without things like the mustard or cucumber. But this isn’t the type of thing you’d expect to be moist like a banana bread.
One thing to note in the recipe is the yogurt. Who would have thought it would be so hard to find single serving packages of plain (not vanilla) non Greek yogurt? I couldn’t, just the bigger tubs. I ended up buying Greek yogurt and if you do too make sure to add extra water to the dough to make up for the water drained from the Greek yogurt. For one loaf I used about 1/3 cup of water.
Whatever you might decide to put on this, enjoy!
- 2.5 C (11.25 oz) rye flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- ¾ tsp cumin seeds, ground
- 1 C plain yogurt (full fat if possible), add ⅓ C water if using Greek yogurt
- ¼ C milk
- 2 Tbsp honey
- Preheat oven to 400 F and butter and flour an 8x4 inch (or 9x5) loaf pan. In the bowl of a stand mixer combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cumin.
- In a separate bowl combine yogurt (and extra water if needed), milk, and honey. Stir well, then pour into bowl of stand mixer and mix on medium speed for 3-5 minutes, until there are no dry bits of flour. This can also be done by hand. The dough will be stiff and wet, sort of like a thick paste.
- Spoon the dough into the loaf pan; press the dough into the corners and smooth the top with a spatula.
- Place pan in the oven and lower the temperature to 385 F. Bake for 30 minutes, then lower the heat to 350 F and bake another 20 minutes.
- The bread is finished when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool for at least 2 hours, overnight if possible, before serving.
