Lithuanian Christmas Bread—Kaledu Pyragas

I wanted to make a special bread for Christmas and the Lithuanian Christmas Bread from Stanley Ginsberg’s The Rye Baker fit the bill. The bread is 100% rye and has a whopping 45% fruit added (prunes, apricots, and raisins). The recipe specifies 76% white rye and 24% medium rye. I don’t have any white rye flour so I made it with all medium rye (King Arthur) and increased the hydration from 70% to 75% to compensate.

The recipe starts with a two-stage sponge: the first stage is at 83% hydration and the second brings the hydration up to 100% overall. The final dough has honey, the fruit, and a small amount (2%) of red rye malt added. I opted to use fermented rye malt instead because that seems to be a more traditional additive in Baltic region breads.

The dough is placed directly in the loaf pan and the bulk/proof is conducted warmer than usual. Ginsberg’s instructions are to preheat the oven to 38 °C (100 °F) and turn off. My proof was slow so I occasionally, and carefully, applied heat to the oven and kept the oven light on to keep it warm. I let the dough rise for 4.75 h but it still hadn’t reached the rim of the pan. It’s probably the combination of all medium rye and a weaker than optimum rye sour culture. There may also be a slight inhibitory effect from the apricots. I did not have unsulfured apricots as required and the sulfite may have had a negative effect on the yeast.

I baked the loaf 10 min longer because some of the rye breads I’ve made have been a little sticky. I think maybe an extra 5 min would have been enough as the crust got a little darker than intended.

After waiting ≈18 h, the bread was cut for Christmas Eve. The crumb is firm and almost cake-like. All the flavors of the rye, fruit, and malt blend beautifully in this bread. A non-rye fan was converted—a Christmas miracle!

Merry Christmas everyone!