Rúgbrauð

Icelandic dark, dense, sweet rye bread steamed for hours in a lidded tin, sliced and thickly buttered with smoked trout

Origin: Reykjavík & Iceland

From the journey of Rye.

Rúgbrauð is Icelandic rye bread, and it is unlike the rye breads of Scandinavia. It uses no sourdough and no yeast. Rye flour, a little wholemeal wheat, buttermilk, syrup, and bicarbonate of soda are stirred to a batter, sealed into a tin, and baked at a very low temperature for eight to twelve hours, until the bread is dark brown, dense, moist, and distinctly sweet, closer in texture to a steamed pudding than to a loaf. It is eaten thickly buttered with smoked lamb, hangikjöt, with pickled herring, with smoked trout, and alongside plokkfiskur, the Icelandic fish-and-potato stew. Iceland could not grow rye. Barley was sown in the medieval period, but grain growing was never extensive and had all but ceased by the end of the Middle Ages, so every grain of rye in Icelandic bread came from overseas. From 1602 until 1787 all of Iceland's trade was a monopoly of the Danish crown, and rye meal from Denmark was among the staple imports on which the country depended. Icelandic bakers took a Danish grain and made something entirely their own from it. The most famous rúgbrauð is not baked in an oven at all. At Laugarvatn and in other geothermal areas, the batter is sealed in lidded pots and buried in the hot black sand beside the springs, where the ground holds a temperature close to 100 °C, and left for around twenty-four hours before being dug up. The result is called hverabrauð, hot-spring bread, and visitors can still watch the pots being lifted out. The low, even, moist heat is what both methods have in common, and it is what makes the bread: over the long bake, the sugars in the batter and the rye itself darken slowly, and the crumb stays soft for a week.

Ingredients

Batter

  • 500 g rye flour
  • 150 g wholemeal wheat flour
  • 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 1.5 tsp salt
  • 250 g golden syrup
  • 750 ml buttermilk
  • 1 tbsp butter, for the tin

To Serve

  • 60 g salted butter, for serving
  • 200 g smoked trout or smoked lamb, thinly sliced

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 100 °C. Butter a 2 litre loaf tin or ovenproof pot with a lid, or two 1 litre tins.
  2. Whisk together the rye flour, wholemeal flour, bicarbonate of soda, and salt in a large bowl.
  3. Warm the syrup gently until it runs freely, stir it into the buttermilk, and pour the mixture into the flour. Stir until evenly combined into a thick batter.
  4. Pour the batter into the tin to fill it by no more than two-thirds. Cover it tightly with its lid, or with a double layer of buttered foil tied or crimped firmly around the rim.
  5. Bake for 8 to 10 hours, until the bread is dark brown throughout and a skewer pushed into the centre comes out clean.
  6. Leave to cool in the tin, then turn out, wrap in a cloth, and rest overnight before slicing.
  7. Slice thickly and serve with plenty of butter and the smoked trout or lamb.

Notes

Icelandic home bakers often use cleaned one-litre milk cartons, sealed with foil and set upright in the oven, as moulds; the round tins of a steamed pudding work just as well. The bread keeps for a week wrapped in a cloth in a cool place, and freezes well in slices. In Iceland it is eaten with butter and smoked lamb at Christmas, with pickled herring, and with plokkfiskur, and a slice with butter and a strong cheese is an everyday snack.

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Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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