Scandinavian Christmas: Day 11

Welcome to Day 12! I can't believe the series is already wrapping up! It's been so much fun to hear from everyone - a huge thank you to all who participated either in preparing a guest post or came to read! 

Today we will be hearing from my Dad! He will be sharing his delicious Swedish Rye Bread recipe! I love this stuff. I can eat an entire loaf by myself - and I'm not even exaggerating. I have such great memories of eating this bread at Christmas, and loving it when we had leftovers (this rarely happens now that there are so many of us!) and could use it to make sandwiches for our school lunches with it the next week. So good! 

Hi I'm Kathryn's dad, Mark. I will be demonstrating a recipe for Swedish Rye bread that was passed down from my Grandmother to my Mother and now from myself to Kathryn and her sisters.  This will be my third contribution to Kathryn's Scandinavian Christmas. This bread was a favorite of Kathryn and her sisters when they were little.  They would always want to help with kneading the dough.  The recipe is as follows:

   Swedish Rye Bread

            

1 quart of milk                                             1/4 cup warm water

1 cup shortening (butter)                           grate the skin of 3 oranges

1/4 cup of molasses                                   1 Tbsp anise seed

1/2 cup of dark Karo syrup                        2 cups of medium rye flour

1 Tbsp salt                                                    about 12 cups of white flour

3 cakes of yeast

1 cup of brown sugar

Scald the milk, butter, molasses, brown sugar, Karo syrup and salt.  Let this cool to room temperature so that the yeast is not inactivated when added.

Activate the yeast in a 1/4 cup of luke warm water with a pinch of sugar on top to get it started.  Add the yeast, grated orange peels, anise seed and rye flour to the milk mixture and let that rise for 1/2 hour.  

Then add enough white flour and knead to make a stiff dough, about 12 cups. 

Take this ball of dough and set aside in a large bowl and let rise until doubled, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. 

Take this dough and roll out and divide into 5 loaves and place in bread pans and set aside to rise again. 

  Bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes.  Thump with finger and if it sounds hollow, its done. 

Remove from pans and place on rack to cool and immediately take a stick of butter and rub all over the crust, (top, bottom and sides) to keep the crust nicely soft.  

I hope all of you will enjoy trying this for your holiday season and thank you Kathryn for another opportunity to participate in your Scandinavian Christmas.  It is so much fun to see your passion for all things Swedish.  

Thanks again to everyone who participated! I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year!