Danish Rye Bread Recipe with Seeds (No Sourdough Starter)
*the weight required is a little more than a standard American Measurement so please note that the recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups of rye flour + a Tablespoon and 1 1/2 cups of bread flour plus 2 TBSPS*
My Danish Rye Bread is dense, packed with seeds, and made with regular yeast. That means there’s NO sourdough starter to feed and babysit first! I baked it for my Great British Bake Off Bake-Along during Danish week, adapting a contestants recipe for a rye loaf from the show. I picked it for the challenge because you can make it with the equipment you already have in your kitchen. It isn’t traditional all-rye sourdough rugbrød, and I’m not going to pretend it is. It’s half rye flour and half bread flour, so you get the rye flavor AND enough gluten to hold the loaf together. Use it for smørrebrød, toast it, or eat it as a snack!
Danish Rye Bread for Smørrebrød
Our challenge for the Bake-Along during Danish Week is Smørrebrød, a Danish Open Face Sandwich. In the show, each contestant must make a loaf of Danish Rye and construct two beautiful, and different, open-faced sandwiches.
Is This Traditional Danish Rugbrød?
Nope! And I want to be upfront about that! Rugbrød is the everyday rye bread in Denmark. A traditional loaf rises with a sourdough starter, not packaged yeast. It’s mostly rye flour plus cracked or chopped rye kernels. Lots of versions add sunflower, flax, or pumpkin seeds too. Rye is the star, and wheat flour is a small part of the dough or left out completely. The dough is more like a thick paste than something you knead. It bakes in a long, narrow pan into a heavy, dense loaf.
My version keeps the rye flour and the seeds and takes a shortcut on the rest.
- I use regular yeast, so you don’t need a starter.
- It’s half rye flour and half bread flour because rye flour doesn’t build gluten the way wheat does. Bread flour gives the dough enough structure to knead, rise, and bake like regular bread.
- It bakes in a loaf pan rather than the long thin loaf like traditional loaf
It’s still dense and full of seeds, and it’s still great for smørrebrød!
In the GBBO Episode the loaf AND the sandwiches are both presented to the judges. The other bakes for Danish Week were
Ruby’s Rye Bread but not her Smørrebrød
I chose to try to reproduce Ruby’s Bread for my submission, but not her Smørrebrød. Although I loved her beautiful Smørrebrød, I went with a salmon cream cheese combination. I wanted all of our bakers to have free choice with their toppings, to choose what they like. And I’m only requiring ONE open-faced sandwich and topping for our challenge.
My Smørrebrød
My Smørrebrød is topped with zesty cream cheese, Alaskan smoked salmon, sliced cucumbers, fresh dill, and a few capers. The photo is also my submission for the week.
Yes, I do try to make each bake, I like to expand my baking repertoire too! And we enjoy trying new things too!
About your Danish Rye Bread:
- sift
flour beforemeasuring this recipe calls for rye flour AND bread flour, they work together to provide flavor and the gluten needed (kneaded?) for a good bake (if you’re looking for OTHER multigrain bread recipes check out my post of multigrain breads)- the weight required is a little more than a standard American Measurement so please note that the recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups of rye flour + a Tablespoon and 1 1/2 cups of bread flour plus 2 TBSPS
- if your dough looks a little dry when you’re kneading it you can add a little extra warm water, I used one extra TBSP
- you can change up the seeds to suit your likes-I added pepitas, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, flax meal, and fennel but you could add caraway, dill, flax, poppy seeds, or even try chopped nuts
- instead of dark treacle, I substituted unsulphered molasses-if you HAVE dark treacle, by all means, use it, I don’t have any, and beyond Amazon, I don’t have access to it
Danish Rye Bread
*the weight required is a little more than a standard American Measurement so please note that the recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups of rye flour + a Tablespoon and 1 1/2 cups of bread flour plus 2 TBSPS*
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups Rye Flour plus 1 TBSP, sift before measuring
- 1 1/2 cups Bread Flour plus 2 TBSP, sift before measuring
- 1 1/2 tsp active yeast
- 2 tsp salt
- 3 1/2 Tablespoons raw sunflower seeds
- 2 Tablespoons flax meal
- 3 tsp pepitas
- 3 tsp sesame seeds
- 1 tsp fennel seeds
- 250 ml warm water
- 1 Tablespoon unsulphered molasses
Instructions
- mix flours, yeast, salt and seeds in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook
- mix water and molasses together and add to the flour mix
- stir to combine and then knead on low for 10 minutes until the dough soft, if the dough seems too dry add an extra Tablespoon of warm water
- place in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in size–in my house mid winter in Alaska, this took roughly 90 minutes
- once doubled, remove from the bowl and knead to remove air
- shape into an “oval loaf” and place in a greased 9X5 loaf pan, cover loosely and let it rise until it comes to the top of the pan
- preheat oven to 430˚F once the loaf is ready to bake, remove the plastic wrap and bake 35-40 minutes or until it’s done, it will sound hollow when you thump the bottom of the loaf
- cool and slice, enjoy toasted or make an open faced sandwich
This looks awesome, need to have more lunches like this.
It bothers me that there is no fat in the recipe therefore it won’t keep at all. It will be stale in a day. I had Danish rye in Denmark. I don’t recall it being a dry bread.