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Our Sourdough Version
We posted our original Danish rye bread recipe (check it out here) over a month ago, and we’re back for more! This time, it’s more of a complicated process, involving sourdough starter and lots of proofing. But the final product is a beautiful seeded rye loaf with lots of delicious flavor, so it’s definitely worth it.
A Short History of Rugbrød
In case you aren’t familiar with rugbrød, here’s a brief introduction! Historically, it has been a staple of Danish cuisine since the Viking Age. Most Danes still eat it on a daily basis. It’s very healthy, as it contains little to no fat or sugar, and the seeds provide lots of fiber and whole grains. In Denmark, we also use this bread to make smørrebrød (open-faced sandwiches), topped with all kinds of things. Our favorite classic smørrebrød include spegepølse med remoulade og ristede løg, karrysild med løg, makrel i tomat med agurk, and leverpostej med rødbeder. Translation: salami with remoulade and crispy onions, curried herring with onion, mackerel in tomato sauce with cucumber, and liver pate with pickled beets. But honestly, the beauty of it is that you can top the bread with anything and call it smørrebrød!
Tips & Tricks
We should put a bit of a disclaimer here – this recipe is for slightly more advanced bread bakers who have previously dealt with sourdough starter. It requires you to be at least slightly familiar with your own personal starter and how it behaves. But if you’re a less experienced bread baker, do not despair! Check out this guide to making sourdough starter. And if you still want to make rugbrød but don’t want to go to the trouble of making a starter, check out our other recipe here (it uses yeast!).
To be honest, this is one of those recipes that isn’t too specific in the instructions. That’s mainly because everyone’s sourdough starter behaves slightly differently. The levain in this recipe is just your regular sourdough starter fed at a 1:2:2 ratio, and it should yield the perfect amount for the dough. If you’ve made sourdough before, you’ll probably know approximately how long it takes your starter to double in size. Unfortunately, we can’t predict exactly how long that will be, as there are so many factors! But once it’s doubled, you’ll mix the dough. That will have to proof for quite a long time, as this is a dense, heavy, and wet dough. No need for any stretch and folds or kneading – just leave it to rise. Then you just stuff it into a loaf pan (and yes, the technical terminology is to “stuff it,” thank you very much), give it another hour or two to proof, and then bake! Let us know below if you have any questions or comments, and be sure to leave us a rating if you try our recipe!
Sourdough Rugbrød (Rye Bread)
A delicious, hearty seeded rye bread that is perfect for sandwiches, whether they're traditional Danish smørrebrød or not. If you're an avid sourdough baker, give this loaf a try!
Ingredients
LEVAIN
- 60 grams sourdough starter
- 120 grams (about 1 cup) flour (this can be all-purpose, bread flour, or whatever you usually use to feed your starter)
- 120 ml (1/2 cup) water
SEEDS
- 80 grams (1/2 cup) cracked rye
- 80 grams (1/2 cup) cracked wheat
- 70 grams (1/2 cup) sunflower seeds
- 80 grams (1/2 cup) flax seeds
- 400 ml (2 cups) water
DOUGH
- 200 grams levain (5-8 hours after mixing – once doubled in size)
- Soaked seeds
- 100 grams (3/4 cup) bread flour (or all-purpose)
- 100 grams (a little over 3/4 cup) rye flour
- 1/2 tbsp salt
Instructions
- Mix your levain. Let rise at room temperature for 5-8 hours or until doubled in size.
- Mix the seeds and water and let them soak for 8 hours.
- Once your levain is ready, it's time to mix your dough. Combine 200g of your ripe levain, the soaked seeds, bread flour, rye flour, and salt. Mix with a wooden spoon. Cover with a damp dishtowel or cling film and let rise at room temperature for 8-12 hours, or overnight.
- Press dough into a bread tin/loaf pan that you have lined with parchment paper. Press down quite firmly so there are no gaps in the bread. Cover this and let rise for another 2 hours.
- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F (190 C).
- Bake the bread on the bottom rack of the oven for 60-65 minutes. Let it cool for at least an hour, then slice and use for sandwiches! It will be even better and easier to slice the day after baking.
I love the look of this beead! In your recipe, do you drain the water from the seeds and add the drained seeds to the mixture? Or do you add the water and seeds together with the flour? The dough seems to be very cake like.
Hi! The seeds will soak up the water so you’ll be adding both, but there shouldn’t be much water left. And yes, the dough is almost more of a batter! But it’s very dense and heavy too, so really a very unique bread dough. Hope you give the recipe a try!
I am optimistcally posting a 5 star rating in advance of baking your bread. I visited Denmark for a couple of weeks this summer past and really enjoyed the rugbrod. I have been researching recipes and there are a lot of differences between them in the ratios (and types) of seeds to levain to flour. The average seems to be about 30% seeds and 30% levain. I have only looked at 100% rye flour recipes until now, and I imagine that wheat flour makes the loaf less dense? The overall weights of the ingredients I have seen vary from 1080g to 2070g. Yours comes in the middle around 1410g. What size of loaf pan are you using? I need to activate my dehydrated sourdough starter so I should be ready to bake in about a week or two. I want to get it to a 50/50 wheat/rye composition before I get started. I’m not sure if you guys are as active as before on social media, but I’d love to hear any advice you have. I love your videos and have tried a few of your recipes quite successfully. Looking forward to this one.
Hello! Happy to hear you’ve had such a good experience with our recipes in the past, so much so that you’re back for another one 🤩 Yes, correct, we add the bread flour to make the loaf slightly less dense, and this is definitely a lighter loaf, in both color and texture, than you’d typically get in Denmark. But the taste is really good and on par with what you’d get from a Danish bakery. This is baked in a large 2 lb loaf pan. As for advice, I’d say the proofing time is the hardest thing about this recipe, since it varies so much depending on your starter, the temp of your dough, and the room temp, but rye bread is also pretty forgivable because it’s supposed to be dense. Oh, and one more tip is to temperature check the middle of the loaf if you can – it should reach 96-98 degrees Celsius when fully baked – because you never know if it might need longer in the oven and rye bread that’s raw in the middle is suchhhh a disappointment 😆