57. Dried More Than Baked

Vera: Last time we baked the dark rye loaf and made Ugo wait a whole day before he could cut it. Tonight's rye is kinder. Thin, crisp, and ready the moment it cools.

Anton: The same grain, a different journey. The loaf keeps its water; this crispbread gives every drop away.

The High Stool by the Spice Shelf

Vera: Yelena, perched on the high stool by the spice shelf, has been shaking the seed jars like rattles. She wants to know if crispbread is just a biscuit.

Anton: It is one of the oldest breads there is. In the cold north, bakers once baked rye only twice a year, in thin rounds with a hole in the middle, and hung them on poles under the roof. Dry bread does not go mouldy. It waits all winter, like seeds in frozen ground.

Vera: Ours has no yeast at all?

Anton: None. Rye flour, seeds, oil, salt and boiling water, spread thin as a leaf and dried slowly. It is dried more than baked.

Vera: So the hole in those old rounds was for the pole?

Anton: Yes. A string of rounds hanging near the warm roof stayed dry all winter, and a family could see at a glance how much bread was left until spring.

At the Work Table

For about twenty-four pieces, one tray: 100 g whole rye flour (scant 1 cup), 40 g sunflower seeds (1/3 cup), 40 g pumpkin seeds (1/3 cup), 30 g sesame seeds (1/4 cup), 30 g flaxseed (1/4 cup), 5 g salt (1 teaspoon), 40 ml oil (3 tablespoons) and 200 ml boiling water (3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon).

A tray about 30 by 40 cm (12 by 16 inches), lined with baking paper. Oven: 150°C (300°F).

Vera: This one has sesame and other seeds. Anyone with an allergy should check the ingredients first; a missing seed can be replaced with more of another that is safe.

Anton: A child mixes the flour, seeds and salt in a bowl and pours in the oil.

Vera: A grown-up pours in the boiling water and stirs with a spoon, not with hands, into a thick, porridge-like batter. Leave it five minutes to thicken.

Anton: Tip it onto the paper and spread it as thinly and evenly as you can, about 3 mm (1/8 inch), with a wet spatula. A child can sprinkle a pinch of flaky salt on top.

Vera: A grown-up bakes it for fifteen minutes, takes it out with oven gloves and cuts it into rectangles with a knife or pizza wheel, then puts it back.

Anton: Bake forty-five minutes more, until dry, crisp and lightly golden. Turn off the oven and leave the tray inside, door ajar, for fifteen minutes.

Vera: Let it cool, then a child snaps it along the lines. It keeps for a week in a tin. If any pieces are still soft in the middle, return them to a low oven for ten minutes.

A Hut at the Top of the Pass

Vera: The winter I was twenty-five, I walked over the mountains with two friends and we were caught by snow. We reached a hut at the top of the pass, kept by Rasmus, where the drifts came up to the windowsills and a sledge leaned by the door.

Vera: Above his stove hung a pole threaded with round crispbreads, each with a hole in the middle. He lifted one down for each of us, spread it with butter, and laid on a slice of cheese, and we ate it by the fire while the wind shook the shutters like a dog at a door.

Vera: We stayed three nights. On the last morning, he tied a crispbread to each of our packs with string. For the road, he said. I kept that string in a drawer for years.

Late, the Oven Door Ajar

Question: Yelena asks why the oven is so low tonight.

Answer: Crispbread must dry right through. In a hot oven the seeds would burn before the middle was dry. A low oven draws the water out slowly, the way the summer sun dries a riverbed, until every piece snaps.

Three quick questions. One: Does this crispbread use yeast? Two: When do you cut the rectangles? Three: What happens after the baking time ends?

Answers. One: No. Two: After the first fifteen minutes in the oven. Three: The oven is turned off and the tray dries inside, door ajar, for fifteen minutes.

Vera: Hear that? Yelena has snapped the first piece. It cracks like a dry twig underfoot.

Anton: That is the sound you want. If it bends, it needs more time in the oven.

Vera: And to drink, nearly bedtime now, a cup of linden-flower tea, pale gold and smelling of summer meadows. Rasmus brewed it from blossoms he had dried himself, and it sent us all to sleep in our boots.

58. Nobody Slams a Door While It Bakes

Anton: What makes a bread a festival bread, do you think? The butter? The fruit? The height? Or only that you bake it once a year, and the whole house waits for it?

Vera: All of those. And the waiting most of all.

The Window Seat

Vera: Tarek, on the window seat with the jar of candied peel in his lap, has been allowed one piece. He has taken three, very small, and thinks I have not noticed.

Anton: Tonight's bread is tall, rich and full of fruit, baked in a deep tin with a paper collar so it can climb. In the lands of the east and south, families bake breads like this for their spring and winter festivals, each with its own shape: a tower, a dome, a crown.

Vera: The dough is like the butter buns we made in the afternoon?

Anton: Richer, and slower. So much butter and egg makes the yeast tired, the way deep snow tires a walker. Give it time and a warm corner, and it will get there.

Vera: And the paper collar?

Anton: The dough rises far above the tin, and the paper holds it up the way a fence holds a climbing bean. Without it, the top would spill over and slump.

At the Work Table

For one tall loaf, about sixteen slices: 350 g bread flour (2 3/4 cups), 7 g instant yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons), 70 g sugar (1/3 cup), 4 g salt (3/4 teaspoon), 120 ml warm milk (1/2 cup), 2 eggs and 1 yolk and 90 g soft butter (6 tablespoons).

For flavour: the grated peel of 1 orange and 1 lemon, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 120 g raisins (3/4 cup) and 50 g candied peel (1/3 cup).

A deep round tin 18 cm (7 inches) across and about 10 cm (4 inches) deep, lined with baking paper that stands 10 cm (4 inches) above the rim. Oven: 180°C (350°F).

Vera: A child mixes the flour, yeast, sugar and salt, then adds the milk, eggs, yolk, vanilla and grated peel. Knead for ten minutes, until smooth and stretchy.

Anton: Add the butter a spoonful at a time, kneading until each one disappears. It takes another ten minutes. Cover and let the dough rise somewhere warm for about two hours, until doubled.

Vera: Knead in the raisins and peel gently, shape a tight ball and drop it into the tin. Cover and let it rise for one and a half to two hours, until it nearly reaches the rim.

Anton: A grown-up bakes it on a low shelf for forty-five to fifty-five minutes, laying foil over the top after twenty minutes if it browns fast. A thin skewer pushed into the middle should come out clean.

Vera: With oven gloves, a grown-up lifts it out, lets it rest ten minutes, eases it from the tin, and lays it on its side on a folded towel. Turn it now and then until cold.

Anton: When it is cold, a child stirs 100 g icing sugar (3/4 cup) with 1 to 2 tablespoons lemon juice and spoons it over the top, so it runs down the sides like snow sliding off a roof.

A Wooden Town on a Wide River

Anton: I learned this bread from Yeva, who lived in a wooden town on a wide, slow river in the east, in a kitchen with a tiled stove as big as a wardrobe. The night before the spring festival, she baked tall breads in tins of every size, from teacups to buckets.

Anton: While they baked, the house had to be silent. Nobody shouted. Nobody ran. Nobody slams a door while it bakes, she told me, or the bread falls and the year goes badly. Her grandsons tiptoed past the kitchen in their socks until the last tin came out.

Anton: Then she laid every bread on its side on her best pillows, and we all laughed as loudly as we liked. A bread that has been listened to so carefully, she said, deserves a soft bed.

Close to Midnight

Question: Tarek asks why the bread lies on its side to cool.

Answer: A tall, butter-rich loaf is soft and weak while it is hot. Standing up, its heavy top can press down and sink. Lying on its side on something soft, its weight is spread out until the crumb sets.

Three quick questions. One: How is the butter added? Two: How high does the paper collar stand above the rim? Three: How do you know the bread is baked?

Answers. One: A spoonful at a time, kneaded in. Two: 10 cm (4 inches). Three: A skewer pushed into the middle comes out clean.

Vera: The oven is on, and Tarek is walking past it on tiptoe. Nobody told him to.

Anton: Yeva would have liked him. Children understand that some things are only half bread and half wish. Tomorrow we cut it in rounds from the top, like the rings of a tree.