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Swedish Rye Bread
2 tablespoonfuls sugar 3 tablespoonfuls Crisco 2 teaspoonfuls salt 1 yeast cake 3 cupfuls rye flour 1 cupful white flour 4 cupfuls boiling water In evening add Crisco, sugar, and salt to boiling water; cool, add yeast cake mixed with a little tepid water or sugar, rye flour and white flour. Allow to rise and in morning add more white flour, a little at a time, to make a stiff dough. Let rise, knead again and bake in Criscoed pie tins or cake tins as it will rise better than if baked in bread tins. Bake in hot oven half hour. When taken out of oven brush crust with a little melted Crisco. Sufficient for four loaves.
An overnight sponge bread with a very wet start; the quantity of flour added in the morning is left to the cook, which is the only real difficulty here.
- Yeast cakeOne cake meant about 0.6 oz of compressed fresh yeast. Substitute 2 1/4 teaspoons (one packet) of active dry yeast, softened in a few tablespoons of tepid water.
- CriscoStill sold, and the recipe is one of a series written to promote it. Any neutral solid shortening, or an equal amount of butter or oil, does the same job.
- Cool the water fullyThe boiling water is there to scald the rye and melt the fat, not to feed the yeast. Let it come down to lukewarm, around 100F, before the yeast goes in; much hotter and the yeast will be killed.
- The unstated flourFour cups of liquid to four cups of flour makes a batter, not a dough. Expect to work in roughly 4 to 5 more cups of white flour in the morning to reach a stiff, kneadable dough. Add it gradually; rye doughs stay tacky and over-flouring makes them dense.
- Hot ovenRead that as 400 to 425F. Half an hour suits the shallow round tins the recipe calls for; check for an internal temperature near 200F, since rye holds moisture and can look done while the centre is still gummy.
- Pie tins, not loaf tinsThe instruction is deliberate. A slack rye dough spreads and climbs better in a shallow round pan than in a deep bread tin, giving four flattish loaves rather than four squat bricks.
- Brushing the crustMelted fat on the hot crust softens it as the loaf cools. Skip it if you want a crisp shell.
- YieldFour round loaves, each generous for a family meal.
This comes from one of the cookery booklets Procter & Gamble commissioned after introducing Crisco in 1911, in which every recipe calls for the new hydrogenated shortening in place of butter, suet or lard; the household advice is genuine, but the ingredient list is advertising. The bread itself belongs to the Scandinavian immigrant kitchens of the upper Midwest, where rye remained a staple grain long after wheat had taken over elsewhere in America. Swedish rye breads are often sweetened, with molasses or syrup, and baked as flat rounds rather than in tins, though this loaf takes only a little sugar and the recipe gives a better rise as its own reason for the pie plates.