My mother sometimes makes this delicious bread. We usually
eat it while it's still hot out of the oven, with butter and cheese.
500 g
flour*
6 tsp.
baking powder
1 1/2 tsp.
sugar
300-350 ml.
milk*
1 1/2 tsp.
salt
milk or egg for brushing
*or 400 g flour and 100 g wholewheat flour. **or water and
milk
Sieve together the dry ingredients, and add most of the
milk. Knead until smooth, adding milk as needed. Form into a loaf and bake
immediately. Make cuts into the loaf and brush it with milk or
beaten egg before baking. Bread should be baked on the lowest rung in the
oven, at 175°-200°C, for about an hour. It will be crusty and tastes
best while warm.
This traditional bread is delicious with
butter and a slice of "hangikjöt" (smoked lamb).
500 g
rye flour
1/2 tsp.
salt
250-300 ml
boiling water
Mix the salt and the rye flour. Add some water
and knead. Dough should be fairly soft. Roll out thin and use a small
plate to cut even sized breads. Prick all over with a fork and bake on
top of the stove at medium to high temperature. For authenticity, do not
use a griddle or skillet, but put the cakes directly onto the cooking
plate. Cook on one side until it begins to look dry, then turn over. The
bread should be slightly burned.
Someone contected me with a couple of tips
for making flat bread:
-If you make the flat bread the traditional way, there will be smoke -
so do it in a well ventilated area.
-To avoid the breads getting hard, dip them quickly in hot water when
you remove them from the pan/hot plate.
Good with slices of cold meat, such as
hangikjöt or ham, and delicious with lamb pâté.
My father's extended family usually gather together at the beginning of
December to make Laufabrauð, spending a whole day kneading, cutting and
frying, before sharing festive meal. There are usually 12-15 of us working together, turning out hundreds of these flat,
decorated breads in one day. The breads get divided evenly between the
families, who take it home and store until Christmas.
These deep-fried, thin wheat breads
are traditionally cut with intricate
decorative patterns, and are mostly eaten at Christmas. The
tradition of making Laufabrauð has its roots in the northern part of
Iceland, but has spread all over the country. Many bakeries now sell
ready-made Laufabrauð, or pre-kneaded and cut dough that only needs
decorating and frying, but nothing beats making it at home from scratch.
Some people make it with whole-wheat flour or rye flour, and others put
caraway seeds in it.
1 kg
wheat flour
30 g
sugar
1 tsp.
baking powder
1 tsp.
salt
5-600 ml
milk, scalded
some
frying fat (preferably sheep's tallow)
1 tblsp.
butter/margarine
Mix together dry ingredients. Heat the milk
to boiling and melt the butter in it. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix well. Knead into a dense dough. Roll into cylinders and
store under a slightly damp cloth (it dries out quickly otherwise). Cut
or pinch off portions and flatten with a rolling pin. These breads are
traditionally very thin - a good way to tell if the dough is thin enough
is to check if you can read the headings (some say the text!) of a
newspaper through it. Cut into circular cakes, using a medium sized
plate as a guide to ensure even size. If you have to store them un-fried, stack
them up with baking paper between the layers, put in a plastic bag and
refrigerate. Decorate by cutting out patterns (see two examples below).
Heat the fat in a deep, wide pot. It's ready
when it starts to smoke. Prick the cakes with a fork to avoid
blistering, and drop into the fat, one at a time, taking care that they
do not fold. The cakes will sink as you drop them into the fat. When
they resurface, pick up with a handy tool (such as a steak fork) and
turn over. They are ready when golden in colour, and it only takes a few
seconds to fry each one. Remove from the fat and put on a piece of
kitchen paper to drain. It's good to press a plate or something similar
on top of the cake as it is put down, to ensure that it will be flat.
Stack up and allow to cool. When cool, stack in a cookie tin. Stored in
a cool, dry place, leaf bread will keep for months - if you can keep you
hands off it!
Serving Suggestions:
- Serve at Christmas/New Year with traditional
hangikjöt (smoked lamb), rjúpa (ptarmigan) or smoked pork.
- Don't bother to re-knead the cuttings -
they dry out very quickly. Fry them and eat as a snack. Some people have
started making snacks out of leaf bread - cut into strips and fried,
they make an excellent change from potato chips/crisps and nachos.
- Try serving the bread with pancake syrup (I
have not tried this, but I'm told it's good)
My special spice bread
with ham and cheese filling
This is my own recipe. It started out as a simple recipe for
pizza crust that I got from a home economics cookery book, and ended up
as something completely different. Enjoy!
300 ml.
flour
1/2 tsp.
coriander
100 ml.
wheat germ (optional)
1 tsp.
garlic powder
2 1/2 tsp.
dry yeast*
2 tsp.
paprika
1/4 tsp.
salt
1 1/2 tblsp.
water, lukewarm
1/2 tsp.
curry powder, mild
1 tblsp.
vegetable oil
*I usually use quick yeast that does not require soaking, but of
course the recipe can be adapted to regular yeast.
Mix together dry ingredients, including yeast and spices. Add oil and
water and mix well. Knead until the dough is well mixed and no cracks
are visible on the surface. Stand in a warm place for 35 minutes to
rise. Knead again and roll out into an oblong shape. Thin the edges.
Filling:
diced ham
cheese (I recommend Gouda)
Cottage cheese (optional)
Mix together ham and cottage cheese and put in the centre of the
dough oblong. Sprinkle grated cheese over the filling. Fold the edges of
the dough over the filling and press edges together. Brush with
vegetable oil and sprinkle with grated cheese. Stand in a warm place for
20-25 minutes, to rise. Bake at 190 deg. C. for 30 minutes. Serve warm
or cold.
-try using caraway seed along with the other spices.
-make a filling with everything you usually put in a
pizza, or use the dough recipe to make a spicy pizza crust
Rúgbrauð or þrumari (thunder-bread) is great with
butter and cheese, or with home-made lamb-pâté. Serve it well-buttered
on the side with soðning (plain boiled fish), or with cold pickled
herring on top. Eat it with sliced ham or spread it with cream
cheese, and if there is anything left, use it to make bread soup (recipe
will be added later). Yummy!
600 gr.
sugar
400 gr.
whole wheat flour
2 kg.
rye flour
t tsp.
salt
50 gr. (1 sachet)
dry yeast
1500 ml.
milk
Mix the ingredients and knead well. Cook in used milk-cartons.
Half-fill each carton, pressing well to avoid air bubbles in the bread.
Stand on the bottom of the oven and bake at 100°C for about 12 hours.
OR press the dough into tins/bread pans and stand in an oven-pan,
half-filled with boiling water. Bake as above, adding extra water
whenever necessary. This method is called seyðing, which
translates as "slow-boiling".
One type of rúgbrauð is called hvera-brauð, or
"hot-spring-bread". This is bread that has been cooked in a
hot spring, or buried in sand/mud at the edge of a hot spring and
allowed to cook there.
Serving suggestions:
-Good with cheese, cold hangikjöt, pickled herring, even potato
salad.
The word "skonsa" (the singular form of
"skonsur") is the same word as "scone" in English. We
Icelanders use the word to refer to a kind of thick pancake. The taste is
similar to American breakfast pancakes, but we serve them differently. We
usually fry them on the same kind of skillet as we use to make the delicious Icelandic
pancakes.
250 g.
bread flour
4 1/2 tsp.
baking powder
1 tsp.
salt
2 tblsp.
sugar
40 g.
margarine, melted
250 ml.
milk
2 ea.
eggs
Mix together the dry ingredients. Add the eggs and melted
margarine, and thin with milk. Stir until smooth. Pour on a greased
skillet and fry on both sides at low temperature. Cakes should be like
thick pancakes.
-serve cold with any kind of topping that is good with
bread: cheese, slices of meat, salads, etc.
-make a sandwich-cake: make a mayonnaise/sour-cream based
salad (shrimp, tuna, egg, salmon, etc.), and layer with whole pancakes. (More
on sandwich-cakes later).
-serve warm like American pancakes, with butter and syrup
Jo's
Icelandic Recipes
