Day 21: Sweet Christmas Bread, Finnish Style

You remember I wrote in my previous post about one almost never coming to think of recipes that wouldn't already exist? The following is the exception justifying the use of almost; at least I couldn't find anything similar with a quick Google research.

The first bread I ever baked from scratch was a Finnish Christmas loaf, and, if my memory is to be trusted, it turned out perfect. It was the classical recipe from the best-known traditional Finnish cookbook, Kotiruoka, or Home Cooking. It's baked with molasses, fennel, bitter orange peel, and caraway seeds - and lots of yeast. Which is the reason why I wanted to modify the recipe, to be baked with sourdough starter instead of yeast.

The result was the most delicious and moist loaf ever! (If you happen to like sweet bread and anise taste, that is. I'm the only one in my family who does! More bread for me......!)

This is what you need for two loaves:

• 200g sourdough starter (on the stiffer side)


• 400g buttermilk


• 200g rye flour


• 200g spelt flour


• 200g all-purpose flour


• 12g salt


• 100ml molasses, divided


• 1tsp aniseed or fennel seeds (I couldn't FIND my fennel seeds, so I used aniseed instead)


• 1tsp bitter orange peel


• 1tsp caraway seeds


• plus some more fennel and caraway seeds for the topping

Combine starter, all three flours, and buttermilk in a baking bowl. Stir so that the flour gets moist and let stand about 20 minutes. In the meantime, combine 60ml of the molasses, the orange peel and slightly crushed fennel (or aniseed) and caraway seeds in a small saucepan. Bring to the boil and remove from heat.

Now, add salt and the molasses mixture into the baking bowl. Knead about 10 minutes or until you have an elastic, smooth dough. I had to add some water because my flour was very thirsty (whole-grain rye and spelt flour tend to be...).

Cover the dough with a damp kitchen towel and let ferment overnight, or about 8 hours.

After the fermentation, beat the dough about 2 minutes and divide it into two parts. Proof each loaf in a proofing basket about 1 hour.

Transfer the loaves on a baking tray and brush with the rest of the molasses (add about 1 Tbsp water to make it liquid enough for brushing) and sprinkle with some seeds.

Bake in 225C for about 15 minutes, then turn the heat down to about 180C and bake until thoroughly cooked, about 45 more minutes. This bread burns easily, so check every once in a while. If necessary, cover the loaves with a wet parchment paper.

Let cool and enjoy with lots of butter!

P.S. I baked this bread now twice with sourdough starter, and the oven spring with the first batch was incredible: first, the loaves didn't seem to rise at all, but suddenly they had turned into small "volcanoes"! The second batch didn't turn out that pretty - but just as delicious ;)

P.P.S. I baked these loaves yesterday but didn't have time to write the post. Today, I'm going to bake Linzer Schnitten - among my favourite Plätzchen! And then - two more days to go!!