World Bread Day 07 Rye-Wheat Cakes

Today is World Bread Day, a blogging event hosted by Kochtopf! I decided to make something that I feel is very Swedish: rågsiktskakor. However, I could not for my life think of a good translation! So, Rye-Wheat cakes will have to do. They are baked with rågsikt, which is a special flour mixture that you can buy everywhere here, but I think it's almost exlusive to Sweden. No fears, you can make your own, very easily. What it is is sifted rye flour, and sifted wheat flour, all sifted together. Not in equal proportions - it should be about 60% wheat flour, and 40% rye flour.

This is a fairly sweet bread, as are many breads in Sweden. My husband loves this for breakfast, with butter and some sharp cheese. It must be eaten fairly fresh, or it will be very crumbly. They freeze well, so you can just defrost what you need for a day, and thus always have fresh bread. Perfect.

Rye-Wheat Cakes
Makes 4

50 g butter
500 ml swedish filmjolk, buttermilk works fine
50 g fresh yeast
3 tbsp dark syrup (molasses)
2 tsp salt
2 tsp aniseed, ground
2 tsp fennel seeds, ground
750 g rågsikt

Melt the butter. Add the filmjolk or buttermilk, and heat until about finger-warm, 37°C.

Crumble the yeast into a bowl, and stir with some of the liquid until dissolved. Add the rest of the liquid, the syrup, salt, fennel and aniseed. Add most of the flour, work well and add some more. Work well until the dough is elastic.

You might need some extra flour if the dough is very sticky.

Leave to rise, covered, until doubled in size. Roll out round cakes, 2-3 cm thick, and place on baking sheets. Prick them carefully with a fork, all over.

Leave to rise again, covered, for 30 minutes. Bake at 225°C for 10 minutes. Remove and brush with warm water, at once. Leave to cool covered with a tea towel.

Recipe in Swedish:
Rågsiktskakor