I used a whole sachet of dry yeast because that’s what the instructions suggested, but I do think that even half the amount would have sufficed with a slightly longer proofing time. Sadly I haven’t seen dried sourdough starter sold in Finland, but I think I’ll ask if our organic store’d be willing to add it to their selection. Sure, homemade sourdough starter is great especially as its flavor develops over time, but sometimes it’s rather satisfying to take the easy way out and have a fresh loaf of sourdough in just a few hours!

Here’s what I used:

• 1 sachet dried sourdough starter (30 grams), Lecker’s
• 7 and 1/2 dl water, lukewarm (37 Celsius)
• 6 dl whole rye flour (plus 1 dl for shaping)
• 6 dl white wheat flour
• 2-3 teaspoons salt, to taste
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 sachet dry yeast (11 grams)

First I mixed the starter with water and let it sit for about 5 minutes to wake it up. Then I briskly whisked in 1 dl of rye and 1 dl of wheat flours, covered the bowl loosely, and let it brew for half an hour. I mixed the rest of the flour, salt, and dry yeast in another bowl and mixed that in the starter liquid. I kneaded the dough for about 5 to 7 minutes, until it wasn’t quite as sticky anymore but still pretty wet. Now I set the oven temperature to 200 degrees Celsius and let the dough rise for one hour, until it had more than doubled.

I poured 1 dl of rye flour on my working surface and scooped the dough out of the bowl. Then I cut the dough in half, shaped each half into a loaf, and placed them on a floured baking sheet. I let the loaves rise for half an hour, then slit them with a sharp knife, and baked for 45 minutes until they sounded hollow when tapped on the underside. I also placed a small ramekin filled with water in the oven during baking. After baking I wrapped the loaves in kitchen towels and placed them in a plastic bag to soften the crust a bit, and after about two hours they were easy to cut into.

Dried sourdough starter and its package.

There’s great regional variation in Finnish rye breads, and big emotions are involved when people start to explain why the baking should be done in a certain way. No one in my family used to bake rye bread, so this recipe is a combination of many I found online and in cookbooks – mainly one great little book called Suomen maakuntaleivät (Finnish Regional Breads) by a Finnish celebrity cook from the eighties, Jaakko Kolmonen. I checked it out form the library, but he also now has his own website, where you can buy copies of all his cookbooks that are still in print. The banner picture with him smiling and hugging a cute little piglet does creep me out a little bit, but his bread book is quite amazing – it’s filled with a variety of regional recipes, and the author has travelled around the country, interviewing and observing bakers in their own homes.

The Rye Sourdough Starter:

• 3 slices of good Finnish rye bread
• 10 dl luke warm water
• about 500 grams or 8 dl rye flour (medium)

I cut the crust off the bread, and crumbled the insides into the water. Then I let them dilute, added the flour, and stirred it in. I covered the bowl with some plastic wrap and poked a few air vents in the plastic.

Now I let the starter sit in a warm place, in room temperature, for about 22 hours. I whisked it briskly every now and then, maybe about five times all and all, and covered again after each time. It was all bubbly and foamy when it was ready, and smelled a bit sour and sweet.

The starter can be developed further for up to another 24 hours, which would most likely make it even more sour. The traditional way is to leave some dough on the sides of the wooden mixing bowl, let it dry, and just add the water and flour in the bowl to wake up the starter when needed. Some food scientists say only freshly milled flour works in a sourdough starter, but I just used what we had in the cupboard and it worked fine. Now if Finnish rye bread isn’t available, I don’t see why any kind of sourdough starter wouldn’t do just as well.

The Bread:

• about 1 kg or 16 dl rye flour (medium)
• 1 tablespoon sea salt
• 1 dl warm water
• the rye sourdough starter

When the starter was ready I mixed it with the salt and the warm water, and then kneaded in the flour a little by little. I kneaded until the dough was still soft but seemed workable. Rye flour isn’t very glutinous and the dough is bound to remain sticky, but that’s how it should be – the coarser the flour, the softer the dough, as Onerva Niilola explained in Kolmonen’s book. I reserved a piece of the dough about the size of my fist and froze it to be used as a starter the next time I bake rye bread.

Now I let the dough rise in a warm place for 4 hours, in two separate bowls that were covered with clean kitchen towels, until it had just about doubled in size. Then I divided the dough in three equal portions and lightly kneaded them a few times with floured hands until slightly firmer to the touch. I shaped the pieces into three round loaves with well floured hands on a well floured working surface and let them rise, covered with kitchen towels, for about 2 hours more until the surface started to crack. These round loaves are called limppu in Finnish.

Before baking the breads I made a few slits on the surface of the bread, but this isn’t traditional – the breads are usually just poked with the spikes of a fork here and there. I just think the slits are pretty, and I like how they offer a peek inside the bread.

I baked one bread at a time, in 200 degrees Celsius for 50 to 60 minutes, until the crust had browned and the bread sounded hollow when tapped on the bottom. Then I wrapped them tightly in kitchen towels and let the crusts soften overnight. The bread should be moist but well baked in the center, and it’s at its best a few days after baking. We store our rye bread in paper bags – with time it dries a bit and is easier to slice thinly.

This is a very simple method for bread baking – no need to worry too much about kneading or shaping. This bread keeps well for a few days, stored in a paper bag that is wrapped in a kitchen towel.

This is what we used:

• 3 dl wheat bran
• 1 1/2 dl spelt flour
• 2 dl white wheat flour
• 3 dl whole wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon caraway seeds, crushed
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 dl water, warmed to about 37 °C
• 2 tablespoons muscovado sugar
• 25 g fresh yeast
• for decoration: about 2 teaspoons caraway seeds

I started by mixing the bran, the flours, salt, and the crushed caraway seeds in a bowl. Then I mixed the sugar with the water, and stirred with a fork until the sugar was diluted. Now I diluted the yeast into the water, crumbling it first with my fingers and then stirring with a fork. I poured the liquid into the bowl with the dry ingredients, and mixed it quickly into a dough. We spread the dough on a baking parchment placed on a baking sheet, and flattened with our hands until it was an evenly-shaped square, about 30cm x 30cm. Then we let it raise for 40 minutes.

The oven was set to 225 degrees Celsius. Before putting the bread in the oven, I sprayed it with some water and sprinkled caraway seeds over the top. I baked the bread for 15 minutes on the middle rack of our oven. Now the bread had browned just a little bit on the top, and I removed it from the oven and put it on a wooden rack to cool. Once it had cooled enough that I could touch it, I cut it into squares. We immediately enjoyed it with some soup.

Focaccia is one of my favorite homemade breads, mainly because I lack the patience of a true bread maker and it’s so simple! I used to always make it with white wheat flour, which results in lusciously soft and fluffy bread. Nothing wrong with that, but baking with whole spelt flour does add nice texture and makes the bread a lot more satisfying as a part of a meal, even if it doesn’t make a focaccia quite as tender and airy.

I always add onions in my focaccia, but olives, rosemary, red bell pepper, and eggplant are very nice as well. Frying the onions with balsamic vinegar makes them all caramelized and lovely, but when I don’t feel like any extra work, I just spread the raw onions over the bread and bake it a little longer to make sure they cook in the oven.

The Dough:

• 4 dl (300 grams) whole spelt flour
• 2 tablespoons gluten flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 sleeve (12 grams) dry yeast
• 2 and 1/2 dl warm water (approximately 42 degrees Celsius)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

First I stirred together the flour, gluten flour, salt, sugar, and dry yeast. Then I made a well in the center of the dry ingredients and poured in the water and the olive oil, and mixed with a wooden spoon until the dough came together. It ends up still a little sticky.

Now I let the dough rise in a warm place, covered with a plastic wrap, for about half an hour – or until doubled in size.

The Topping:

• 4 small onions, sliced
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• pinch of sugar and salt
• (a few kalamata olives)
• more olive oil
• sea salt and black pepper

I fried the onions in the olive oil until they started to soften, and then added the balsamic vinegar, sugar and salt to the pan. Now, I continued to fry them on medium-low heat for about 15 to 20 minutes, until the onions were very soft and dark brown from the balsamico. Then I spread the onions on a wide plate to cool down a bit.

When the dough was well risen, I covered a baking sheet with baking parchment, and sprayed the parchment with olive oil (brushing is fine too). Then I formed the dough into an oval shaped log and placed it on the baking sheet, and flattened it until about 1 and 1/2 centimeters thick. Then I poked it with my finger to make wells, sprinkled with sea salt and black pepper, pressed a few kalamata olives here and there in the dough, and spread the onions over it all. Now I sprayed some more olive oil over the bread and let it rise in a warm place for about a half an hour more.

I set the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. When the bread had risen, I sprayed it with some more olive oil, sprinkled with some more sea salt, and baked it for 20 minutes on the lower rack of the oven. I took the bread out of the oven and sprayed it once more with olive oil, and let it cool down a little before enjoying with a bowl of soup.

This recipe makes a large loaf of bread, because my bread tin just happens to be a little larger than most I guess – it’s 12 X 26 cm. This bread does keep quite well, and we didn’t have any problems finishing it in a couple of days just between the two of us.

The Dough:

• 6 dl water
• 1/2 dl olive oil
• 2 tablespoons syrup
• 10 dl whole wheat flour
• 3 dl wheat flour
• 1 dl oat bran
• 3 tablespoons gluten flour
• 3 teaspoons salt
• 15 g dry yeast (or check the package for the right amount)
• 1 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed
• 1 teaspoon green peppercorns, crushed

I followed Celine’s instructions pretty closely, so here’s what I did:

First, I mixed the dry ingredients (whole wheat flour through green peppercorns) together in a large mixing bowl, but I left out about half of the whole wheat flour to be added later. Then I warmed the water to 42 degrees Celsius (a little warmer than my hand), added the olive oil and the syrup in the water bowl, and started mixing in the flour mixture. Using my hands, I added about 1-2 dl dry mix at a time, and then started adding the remaining whole wheat flour until the dough was quite elastic and didn’t stick to the sides of the bowl.

Then, I placed it on the kitchen counter, and kneaded for about 5 minutes, adding a little bit of flour when it started sticking, and didn’t stop until it was completely smooth and springy. Now, I placed the dough back in the bowl, added a teaspoon or so of olive oil, swirled it around to cover the dough, and let it rise, covered with plastic wrap, for 2 hours.

When the dough had risen nicely (and maybe doubled in size), I greased my bread tin with some more olive oil, kneaded the dough a little more to break the bubbles, formed it into a loaf, and placed in the pan. I covered it again with the same piece of plastic wrap and let it rise for another hour as per Celine’s instructions. I set the oven to 175 degrees Celsius half an hour before baking, and when the dough was ready for the oven, I cut three crosses on the surface of the bread with scissors. Then I baked my bread for 35 minutes, until it was all browned over the top, and made a nice hollow sound when I tapped it with my knuckles.

This is how high the bread had risen before it went to the oven.

For a little shine, I brushed my bread rolls with a soy yogurt-based mixture. Most of the ingredients were organic – the flour, carrots, soy yogurt, rice syrup, and tarragon. The flavor of this bread is quite simple, but the sweet carrot somehow balances the earthy whole wheat, and the result is very nice and substantial.

The Dough (makes about 16 bread rolls):

• 8 dl whole wheat flour
• 1/2 dl gluten flour
• 1/2 dl crushed flaxseed
• 1 bag (11 g) dry yeast
• 3 dl finely shredded carrots
• 3 dl water
• 2 dl plain soy yogurt
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric (for color)
• 1 tablespoon brown rice (or other light) syrup
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1-2 teaspoons dried tarragon (or other herb)

First, I mixed the soy yogurt, water, and shredded carrots, and heated them up until the mixture was a little bit warmer than my hand. Then I mixed in the salt, syrup, oil, turmeric, and tarragon.

I mixed together the yeast, gluten flour, ground flaxseed, and 2 dl of the wheat flour, and stirred this in the wet mixture. Then I added the rest of the flour a little by little, mixing the dough with my hand, and kneading it for a few minutes in the end. The dough ended up pretty sticky and moist. Then I let it rise, covered, in a kitchen sink filled with warm water, for about 35 minutes.

I used regular wheat flour for shaping the buns, since it gives a smoother finish. I took half of the dough, and rolled it into a log, and then cut the log in eight pieces. The I rolled each piece into an oval shaped bun, placed the bun on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper, and sliced the surface gently with a sharp knife to make three diagonal cuts about 1 cm deep. I repeated with the rest of the dough, covered the bread rolls with a kitchen towel, and let them rise on top of the oven for about 25 minutes.

Topping:

• 2 tablespoons soy yogurt, in room temperature
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 tablespoon syrup
• pinch of salt
• water

I mixed all the ingredients and let them come to room temperature while I was rolling the bread. I used enough water to make a liquid solution that is easy to brush, and right before baking the rolls, I brushed them with the topping.

Then I baked the rolls in 220 degrees Celsius for about 14 minutes, in the middle rack of the oven, until just a little browned over the tops.

I’m increasing the amount of spelt flour in this recipe little by little, maybe I’ll use a half and half ratio next time. This bread is such a favorite and I don’t want to change it too much!

The Bread:

• 2 dl oat milk
• 2 dl water
• 11 g dry yeast
• 7 dl wheat flour
• 2 dl spelt flour
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon dark syrup
• 1 dl sun-dried tomatoes in oil, rinsed and chopped
• 1 dl walnuts, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 dl sunflower seeds
• 1 tablespoon dried basil
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

I made the bread exactly like the Olive Tomato Bread, only using the above ingredients. We only had 2 dl oat milk left so I used some water to make up for the rest of the fluid, and we had walnuts instead of cashew nuts. I also added sunflower seeds to the dough, and used a little more flour since part of it was spelt. I also chopped the tomatoes only coarsely, not as finely as I did the last time. This didn’t give the bread the nice orange color that very finely chopped tomatoes do, but bigger tomato pieces mean more flavor when they’re bitten into!

This dough is not stiff at all, so I kept my hands and the working surface floured at all times to avoid sticking, and kneaded the dough carefully to get the gluten to develop.

The Topping:

• 2 tablespoons soy yogurt
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons sunflower seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

I just mixed all the topping ingredients and brushed it over the bread before baking. The yogurt really keeps the seeds on the bread, even when it’s cut!

Here’s what I used:

• 4 dl oat milk
• 11 g dry yeast
• 7-8 dl wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon dark syrup
• 1 dl toasted cashew nuts, chopped
• 1 dl sun-dried tomatoes in oil, chopped
• 1/2 dl olives, chopped
• handful of fresh basil, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• a few tablespoons sunflower seeds
• coarse sea salt

First, I warmed the oat milk to 42 degrees Celsius, a little warmer than my hand. I mixed the syrup and salt with the oat milk. Then, I mixed the dry yeast with 4 dl flour in a big bowl, and then poured the milk mixture in the bowl too. Now, I stirred this with a spoon for a few minutes, until the dough was very gooey.

Now, I added 2 dl more flour, and kneaded the dough with my hands for a few minutes. Then, I added cashews, tomatoes, olives, and basil to the dough, and kneaded until they were thoroughly mixed in. Now, the dough seemed a bit too sticky, so I added 1-2 dl more flour, and kneaded until the dough didn’t stick to the sides of the bowl anymore.

Then I wrapped the bowl in plastic wrap, and placed it in the kitchen sink I had filled with warm water. I went for a walk, and when I came back after 35 minutes, the dough had tripled in size:

Now, I poured some flour on the table and took the dough out of the bowl. Then I patted it with my hands to get rid of most of the air inside. I folded the dough a few times and then patted it again, and then molded it in a rectangular shape to fit my 28 cm long and 14 cm wide bread pan. I greased the pan with a little olive oil, and placed the dough in it. I then repeated the rising process (put the pan in warm water covered with plastic wrap), and in about 15 minutes it had doubled in size:

Now, I brushed the bread with some olive oil, sprinkled the sunflower seeds and some sea salt over it, and baked it in 200 degrees Celsius for 27 minutes. Then I removed the bread from the pan, and let it cool for a while. Most of the sunflower seeds fell off when I took the bread out of the pan – I should have been more careful.

This bread keeps well, we stored it in a paper bag and two days after baking it was still delicious. It didn’t get crumbly like some home-baked (as well as store-bought) breads do, and could be very thinly sliced.

This amount of dough makes just one bread.

Bread dough:

• 6 g dry yeast
• 2,5 dl water
• 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 4 dl bread flour
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

For the Yellow dough:

• 1 carrot (about 80 g), finely grated
• pinch of turmeric
• 1 dl spelt flour
• 1/2 dl wheat flour

For the green dough:

• 2 dl arugula, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons leftover pesto sauce (or chopped basil leaves)
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 dl spelt flour
• 1/2 dl wheat flour

Topping:

• 2 teaspoons soy yogurt
• 2 teaspoons dark syrup
• sesame seeds

First, I mixed the dry yeast in some of the flour, and dissolved it in a big mixing bowl in 2,5 dl water a little warmer than my hand, and stirred this for a minute with a wooden spoon. I added salt, and then flour, 1 dl at a time, blending well to form a runny dough. In the end, I added olive oil, and blended it in.

Then I divided the dough in two equal parts, placed these in two bowls, and added the rest of the ingredients to each dough, the yellow and the green one. First, I added spices and veggies, second, spelt flour, and third, the rest of the flour. I added as much flour as was needed to form a relatively stiff dough, and then kneaded the doughs for a few minutes each.

Now the doughs needed to rise. I placed the two bowls in the washbasin of the kitchen sink, filled halfway with warm water. Then I covered the bowls with plastic wrap to make sure that any draft kept away. I let the doughs rise for about half an hour, because I was impatient – for them to actually double their size, I should have let them be for an hour or so.

Then, I preheated the oven to 200 degrees Celsius, and greased a rectangular bread tin. I patted the green dough on the bottom of the tin. I then braided the orange dough on top of it: I divided the dough in four parts, and then formed a long strip of each part, and then twirled each set of two around each other. (Another option would be to just flatten the yellow dough on top of the green one.)

Now, I let the bread rise again for half an hour. Then I mixed the soy yogurt and syrup for the topping, brushed the bread with this, and sprinkled with sesame seeds. Now, I baked the bread for about 35 minutes in the middle section of the oven, until it was brown on top, and the crust was crunchy.