Greetings to all Icelandic redditors! I recently visited Iceland and had geysir bread in a restaurant called “kaffi Borgir” near the Dimmuborgir lava fields. I really loved this bread and wanted to try making it at home (in the US) without the baking it underground part. Following is a recipe I found. Is this accurate? Do you have better recipes? If so can you suggest it? Thanks! 🙏🏽
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/icelandic-rye-bread-rugbraud-recipe
4 comments
[Max miller’s tasting history youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UolBvOIodEg&ab_channel=TastingHistorywithMaxMiller) goes into more details and his recipe is closer to what we’re used to. There are some slight changes from the king arthur recipe to the one I’ve used but I think that the king arthur recipe takes into consideration what ingredients you can get your hands on.
Icelandic rye bread has a lot longer baking time. 9-12 hours. We use golden syrup because molasses is hard to find.
Google translate this recipe.
https://loly.is/rugbraud-seytt/
750gr rye flour
400gr whole wheat flour
4tsp baking powder
1tsp baking soda
2tsp salt
250gr golden syrup
400ml buttermilk
Milk as needed
Preheat oven to 100°C. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Stir in the syrup and buttermilk, and add milk as needed to form a fairly soft but kneadable dough. Butter a suitable container (with a lid) generously and place the dough in it. The container should not be more than just over half filled. Close the container tightly (remember to butter the lid too). Place in the oven and bake for 9-12 hours, depending on the size of the container and your own patience. The bread may be ready after 9 hours but many feel it gets better if you bake it longer. The bread freezes well. Yhd bread can also be baked at 170°C for 3-4 hours if you don’t have time for the longer version.
This is suspect, it takes a lot longer for good rye bread. The goal is to bake it slow and low for hours upon hours in order for the rye to start breaking down and caramelising into sugar.
There are two recipes I use depending on mood:
this recipe takes 12 hours:
https://evalaufeykjaran.is/bakau-itt-eigi-rugbrau-fyrir-jolin/
and this one six
https://ragna.betra.is/?page_id=1371
Both are in Icelandic but Google Translate should get you the gist. Sour milk can usually be replaced with buttermilk, and we use Lyes Golden Syrup as a first choice but anything resembling inverted sugar syrup or light treacle should do fine.