Vörtbröd-Swedish Beer Bread

Might not look so good right now, but it smells delicious.

Today my kitchen smells delicious, I'm attempting to make Vörtbröd.  For those of you that are not Swedish, Vörtbröd is a traditional dark rye bread that we eat mostly around Christmas in Sweden, it is commonly dipped in the broth you are left with once the ham has been boiled and and consists of beer and a special spice mix made out of malt extract, cloves, bitter orange peel, anise, fennel and cardamom.

I came across this "Vörtbröd Mix" in a scandinavian online shop and thought I'd give it a go. Of course you can make the spice mix yourself, but this just seamed a lot easier.

Not far away

Fresh yeast is not available to buy here in NZ (as far as I know anyway) so I have put the ingredients in the bread-maker on the dough making mode (I hate the hole you get in the bread if you complete the loaf in the machine).

Now I'm just waiting for the dough to rise before I can bake the loaf, looking forward to see how it turns out.