Rye Bread – Swedish Limpa

Limpa is probably one of the most known Swedish Breads.  Growing up I remember limpa as every day bread.   I think today you can find all kinds of recipes for this bread, with anise, orange peel, syrup, molasses etc.  But I like it to have it as my regular bread and not sweet.  It is a really solid bread and very simple to make.  I don’t think you can mess this bread up.  But it is delicious, easy to freeze, and holds fresh for days if you keep it in foil or plastic.  This recipe makes 3 loafs, I usually freeze two of them.  Also I do not use a bread pan for this only a cookie sheet.

For the picture above I only used whole wheat flour and all purpose flour, but the original recipe calls for whole wheat and rye flour mixture.  I have done it both ways and both ways are great.  It just usually depends what i have available.

Rye Bread “Swedish Limpa”

Yields: 3 loafs | Prep Time: 3 ½ hours | Bakes: 1 hour

4 cups water
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tbsp caraway seeds
2 tsp fennel seeds
2 tbsp margarine
2 tsp grated orange rind
2 packages of quick dry yeast (4 tsp)
6 cups all purpose flour
4 cups whole wheat and rye flour mixture (60% whole wheat 40% rye flour)
2 tsp salt (to be added after 1st rising)

In a saucepan boil water, sugar, caraway, fennel, butter, orange rind for about 3 minutes.  Then let cool until lukewarm.  Once that is lukewarm add the yeast and stir thoroughly.

In a separate bowl mix the all purpose flour and the whole wheat flour.  Using a mixer add 6 cups of the flour into the mixer and then pour in the yeast mixture.  It becomes a soft dough.  Once that mixture in well mixed place it in a buttered bowl and let it rise until double in size, about 1 ½ hours.

After it has doubled in size punch down on the dough and work in the rest of the flour and salt either using your hands or a stand mixer.

Once that is mixed in well enough put it back into a buttered bowl and let it rise again until it doubles in size.

After that on a powdered kitchen counter start kneading the dough until smooth, and form into 3 loaves that you can place on a cookie sheet with parchment/wax paper underneath.  It is fine if they are all next to each other.  These will not fit very well in a bread pan unless you make them into smaller sizes.

Let them rise again for about 30-45 minutes.  They will be touching each other at this point but that is ok.

Bake at 350 F for about 1 hour, you may have to cover them with foil for the last 15 min if they do get too dark.

Enjoy!