Swedish Limpa Sourdough by Reinhart Whole Grain Breads (Modified)

This is a modification of the recipe originally published in Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads - (Bread Calculator / Recipe)

This week it was time to try another whole grain bread. The spiced Swedish Limpa bread looked like a winner. I was a bit hesitant given the use of fennel and anise seeds along with cardamom and cumin. More on this later.

I decided to modify the recipe to a more traditional 3 day bread and dropped the use of commercial yeast. Opting instead for a 100% rye starter for any leavening. With this change the bread is actually 50% rye and 50% whole wheat. This is a heavy and dense bread without a lot of gluten development. In fact, bringing this bread together reminded me a lot of doing a 100% whole grain rye. The lack of gluten means working the dough a bit and just trying to get it to come together. I added a little bit more water when the dough first came together because it felt quite dry. That addition made the dough a bit too sticky…but it’s fine…like a 100% rye we are not going to get a nice smooth dough and taught skin.

I measured and lightly ground the spices in a motor and pestle. Wow! What an amazing smell. I was super pleased with the anise and fennel combination. I was afraid it would be too much like licorice but it was fine. They really complement one another and stand up as a subtle flavor against the strength of the rye.

The bulk went fine and I did see a 50% growth as I wanted in a reasonable amount of time which also let me know that the refresh of my starter a few weeks back has worked just fine. After a very rough shaping of the dough and a healthy amount of rice flower on the banneton liner it was into the fridge for the night. The next morning the bake went fine and as expected there was not much rise to the bread. This one is quite flat, which is exactly what I expected given the rye content. The outer loaf isn’t super pretty because of how I brushed off the rice flour…but the inside…oh my! This is the kind of moist dark complex rye that I love. I need to try to slice it super thin and toast it till it snaps like a cracker. 

Sensei's Report Card

Tasting Notes: This has a strong sourdough tang from the high percentage of rye flour. The smell is amazing and complex with all of the spices. I love cumin in most things, and was careful to dial the amount in this bread back as warned in the text from the book. That said the bites that do have cumin in them the cumin is quite forward and gives a more savory note which does not go as well with all of the other flavors. If I do this bread again I would drop the cumin and increase the anise to 3g. Every bite of this bread is an adventure in the best way.

Time/Effort: Not a lot of effort for this other than dealing with a difficult to work with low gluten dough. If this isn’t your thing you could easily drop the whole wheat in favor of a strong bread flour and likely be just fine.  

Would I make it again: For sure! The flavors are great. In fact I could see using the seed mix in just a normal sourdough, or even using these in a whole rye instead of caraway (which is also a great flavor for rye bread). I’m pretty sure that there is a recipe for this style of bread in the Bread Bakers Appetence as well that might be worth looking at.