Swedish Malt Bread | Vörtbröd | Vegan | Christmas

Happy Friday my lovelies! Welcome to the first week of 5 weeks of Christmas. I wanted to start of this series with making buffet items and to compliment our meatballs and beetroot salad we are making a lovely dark bread full of Christmas flavours which we call Vörtbröd but many of you might know it as malt bread. I wanted them to be more easily accessible on the table by making them in separate mould but you can of course use a regular bread mould. I feel they turned out so beautiful, moist and a nice top crust and they worked wonderful with the beet root salad

What you need for the bread:

1 bottle 33 cl porter

1 dl (0.4 cup) dark syrup

1 dl (0.4 cup) raisins

6 dl (2.4 cups) rye flour

4 dl (1.6 cups) flour

1 dl (0.4 cup) coffee

50g butter

50g yeast

1 bag malt bread spice mix (vörtmix spice mix)

2 tsp salt

Vegan butter for coating moulds

If you can't get hold of the spice mix you can make your own by using the following:

1 tbsp fennel

1 tbsp star anis

1/2 tsp bitter orange peel

1 tsp cloves

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

Ground with a mortar and pestle.

Not gluten free.

Begin with melting the butter in a pot, once melted add syrup and the porter and set aside. Allow it to become finger warm.

I will be using a kitchen machine for this and if you don't have one simply do the following in a large bowl.

Crumble the yeast in the kitchen machine bowl and add the finger warm porter liquid and vörtmix spices and stir until it looks smooth. Now add flour, rye, salt, raisins and add the dough attachment and knead the dough for 10 minutes.

Once the dough looks smooth remove the bowl and place somewhere warm with a towel covering it for 30 minutes or until it has doubled in size.

Coat the inside of 8-10 moulds with butter.

Dust on some flour on a flat surface and pour out the dough and roll out and divide into

8-10 pieces. Roll the pieces in the palm of your hands into balls and place them in the

moulds.

Once more cover them with a towel and allow them to rise for another 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 175°C (345°F)

Remove the towel and now brush the top breads with coffee and then place them in the middle of the oven for 10 minutes and then brush them with coffee once more and then allow them to bake for another 10-15 minutes.