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Swedish Rye Bread
Swedish rye bread as it is known in this country is composed mostly of rye flour, clear flour, water, salt, yeast and cane sugar syrup. Generally the sponge method is used in making this bread.
Formula Rye flour, 12½ lbs.
Clear flour, 37½ lbs.
Water, 28 lbs. (variable).
Salt, 14 ozs.
Sugar-syrup, 13/4 to 2½ lbs.
Yeast, 2 lb.
Method Dissolve the yeast in 2 qts. of water and place to one side. Put 11 lbs. of water, 25 lbs. of clear flour and the yeast solution into the mixing vessel and mix until the sponge is smooth. This sponge should have a temperature of about 80 degrees when mixed.
Fermentation Allow the sponge to ferment until it comes to the second rising, when it will be ready for the doughing. Put the balance of the water, the salt, and syrup into the sponge and stir to break up the sponge and dissolve the sugar and syrup. Now add the balance of the clear flour and the rye flour and mix until the dough is smooth. The dough is usually mixed to a rather stiff consistency. Ferment the dough until it comes to one rising. Cut it over and allow it to rest 10 minutes, when it can be divided and moulded. The dough is generally moulded and allowed to rest from 15 to 20 minutes, when it is again moulded, flattened and again placed into boxes for proofing. After the dough has received sufficient fermentation it is put on the hearth of the oven in such a way that the loaves will touch each other in four different places, so that if one were to draw a line from each point where they touch a cross would be produced.
This is a trade formula from a baking journal, written for a shop mixing 50 lbs of flour at a time and baking on a hearth. Everything scales cleanly, but several of the ingredients and terms belong to the commercial mill and bakehouse rather than the home pantry.
- Scale it down firstThe formula uses 50 lbs of total flour and yields roughly 83 lbs of dough — about forty 2-lb loaves. Divide by 25 for a home batch: 8 oz rye flour, 24 oz clear flour, about 18 oz water, a scant 0.6 oz salt, 1 to 1.6 oz syrup, 1.3 oz fresh yeast.
- Clear flourClear is the lower-grade, higher-protein stream left after the patent flour is drawn off in milling. It is darker and stronger than all-purpose. High-gluten bread flour is the closest modern stand-in; a spoonful of whole wheat per pound approximates the colour and ash.
- The yeast quantity2 lbs of yeast on 50 lbs of flour is 4 percent, which reads as enormous; it is high even by the standards of the period's compressed yeast, and suits a short sponge-and-dough cycle. If you substitute instant dry yeast, use roughly a third of the weight and expect to watch the timing rather than trust it.
- Sugar-syrupCane syrup, not white sugar dissolved in water. Golden syrup or a light molasses gives the colour and faint bitterness the formula assumes; dark molasses at the top of the range (2½ lbs) will dominate.
- "Second rising" and "cut it over"A sponge at second rising has risen, begun to fall, and risen again — it will be domed, webbed and just about to drop. "Cut it over" means a punch-down and fold, not dividing.
- Dough temperatureThe 80F figure for the sponge is the one number the formula pins down; adjust the water temperature to reach it. The stages that follow are judged by the state of the sponge and dough rather than by the clock, so the starting temperature is what governs the timing.
- No oven temperature is givenTrade formulas assumed the baker knew his hearth. The book gives no figure; as a modern starting point, lean rye loaves of this weight are usually baked hot, in the region of 425 to 450F with steam at the start, for 35 to 45 minutes depending on scaling size.
- The cross of four contact pointsThe loaves are set close so each touches its neighbours at four places, leaving soft pale sides; the recipe describes the contacts as falling so that lines drawn from each point of touching would produce a cross. On a home baking stone or sheet, set rounds about half an inch apart and they will join as they spring.
This entry reads as a trade formula for commercial bakers: it opens by defining Swedish rye "as it is known in this country," which suggests the American bakeshop version had drifted from what was sold in Sweden. The Swedish original, generally called limpa, is typically sweetened with syrup or molasses and scented with orange peel, anise or fennel; the shop formula here keeps the syrup and drops the spice, and leans on high-protein clear wheat flour so the dough will handle and machine reliably. Rye at a quarter of the total flour makes a loaf that reads as rye to the customer while behaving like a wheat dough for the baker. Bread of this kind was sold in Scandinavian immigrant neighbourhoods in the upper Midwest and the industrial Northeast, and it survived on bakery shelves after many of the households that first asked for it had stopped baking their own.