Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Swedish Limpa

August 16, 2016 at 3:35 pm | Posted in BWJ, groups, savory things, tuesdays with dorie, yeast breads | 4 Comments
Tags: baking, bread

Baking bread isn’t my typical 90° day activity. I didn’t really have any other choice, though, if I wanted to get Beatrice Ojakangas’s Swedish Limpa made within the first two weeks of this month. Limpa, if you haven’t had it (I hadn’t myself until today), is a rye bread favored with orange zest, fennel, anise and caraway seeds and molasses and brown sugar. It’s often eaten at Christmas time in Sweden…in my house it will be eaten in mid-August.

I don’t have any anise in my spice collection and didn’t really feel like getting any either, since I’m not much of a licorice fan…I just used a bit more caraway and fennel to compensate. The recipe makes two loaves, which is a bit much for us, so I made half. The bread is traditionally baked in round cake pans, but I’ll be putting most of it into the freezer for later. With easy future toasting in mind, I baked my half-recipe in a 9″x5″ loaf pan instead.

This bread is delicious! I’m the one who added the molasses and sugar to the dough, yet somehow I forgot until the first bite that it would be slightly sweet. And the orange zest, seeds and rye–yum! Seriously, heat wave be damned…I’m glad I turned the oven on for this one. The recipe notes say the bread goes well with meat and cheese, and I believe it, but it’s also not bad with just a smear of salty butter.

For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

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the anise seeds were my favorite flavor in there, I skipped the orange zest because I am not a fan. Either way, it’s a keeper!

Comment by alisahuntsman— August 16, 2016 #

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- to each her own–haha! 🙂
  
  Comment by steph (whisk/spoon)— August 16, 2016 #
  
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I have never heard of Limpa before, but it sounds delicious.

Comment by Cakelaw— August 17, 2016 #

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This looks delightful! I am not a huge fan of anise seed either – or used extremely sparingly – but it seems to be quite a fixture in Scandinavian cooking 🙂

Comment by saffronandhoney— August 18, 2016 #

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