For those wishing to dabble in truly traditional Finnish bread recipes, look no further than this Finnish 100% rye bread recipe. The Finnish style of rye generally doesn’t include extra seasonings other than flour, salt, and water. It doesn’t require any special equipment either! If you’re unused to baking with rye flour, spend some time in the “Tips & FAQ’s” section below, and make sure you read through the recipe first to get a handle on the timing!
I’ve included two different approaches to 100% rye in this post: one that uses an active, maintained sourdough starter (this is what you’ll get if you “jump to recipe”) and one that requires you to build a brand new starter from rye flour specifically to put into this recipe. This is arguably the more traditional approach, but it also takes quite a long time from start to finish.
If you like a milder rye bread I do have another sourdough rye recipe also in a similar style, but with 50% rye and 50% white flour- check it out here.
Tips & FAQs for this Finnish 100% Rye Bread Recipe
-You’ll notice a lack of “stretch and folds”, which you may be used to using in other sourdough recipes. Due to differences in the proteins between rye flour and white flour, 100% rye dough doesn’t benefit from stretch and folds.
-Let your rye bread sit for a full day after you take it out of the oven before you slice into it- challenging for sure, but it’s important to let the bread set and soften.
-I do not maintain a special rye sourdough starter and built my levain for the sourdough version using my regular ol’ starter. Does this technically make the bread more like 97% rye sourdough bread? Yes, I suppose it does- I am personally perfectly fine with that. If you do maintain a separate rye starter, by all means use it! This post also gives instructions for making this bread without maintaining a starter at all.
-For best results when slicing, use a sharp, serrated knife.
How Should I Serve & Store Finnish 100% Rye Bread?
This rye bread will keep on the counter at room temperature, wrapped in a clean kitchen towel, for a week. In the past loaves were often dried out to last even longer between baking days. If you don’t want to eat all your bread within the first week, I’d recommend freezing it.
My personal favorite way to serve 100% rye bread is thinly sliced as open-faced sandwiches- layer the bread with butter, cheese, lunch meats, and cucumbers or tomatoes.
What Kind of Rye Flour Should I Use?
For the most traditional approach, use a whole rye flour like this one.
My personal go-to is King Arthur Medium Rye. Other dark rye flours work too!
Tools & Equipment for Finnish 100% Rye Bread Recipe
- Medium mixing bowl for the levain & separate large bowl for mixing dough
- Dough whisk (optional)
- Baking sheets
- Bowl scraper
- Kitchen scale
Ingredients for Finnish 100% Rye Bread Recipe
- Ripe, active sourdough starter (for sourdough starter version)
- Rye flour: see notes above on options for types of rye flour! This one is my go-to.
- Water
- Kosher salt or fine sea salt
- Optional: active dry yeast
The process: 100% Rye Bread with sourdough starter
Build your levain
Add active sourdough starter, 200g rye flour and 200 g water to a medium mixing bowl and whisk until well mixed. Lightly cover and leave on the counter for about 12 hours.
In the morning, check your levain for readiness: The top may not appear bubbly but should appear risen and may feel spongy & springy to the touch. The top may also have a cracked appearance, and if you’re using a glass bowl, the sides and bottom should show lots of small bubbles throughout.
If these signs aren’t present leave the levain to ferment another hour and check again.
Mix your dough
To a large bowl add the remaining 500 g rye flour and 400 g water, the salt, and the entire ripe levain. Mix very thoroughly, cover and leave to sit at a warm room temperature for 1.5-2 hours.
At the end of bulk fermentation your dough will be moderately risen in the bowl with a cracked appearance on top. It should have lots of little bubbles scattered throughout the bottom and sides of the bowl.
Shape your dough
You have options in terms of loaf size. If you want a few smaller loaves, this recipe can be split into five small loaves or approximately 250g each, or two large loaves of approximately 650 g each. Either way, line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper, and flour a clean work surface.
This dough is quite sticky, and I highly recommend handling it with wet hands! Wet your hands with a little water and scrape your dough onto your work surface. Gently shape your loaves into your desired shape and size. Some classic shapes include long rectangles, flattish rounds or “O” shapes- rounds with a hole in the center. This shape is traditional in some parts of Finland, where many loaves would be baked on the same day, then strung up by the hole in the center of the loaf to dry for later.
Once your loaves are shaped and transferred to the prepared baking sheets, lightly dust the top of the dough with a little more rye flour. This step is optional, but your plastic wrap is basically guaranteed to stick to the top of your loaves during the second dough rise if you don’t.
Cover the loaves with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise for 1.5-2 hours, until the loaves look moderately puffy and risen. The flour on top of the dough will have a cracked appearance.
Bake
Toward the end of this final proof, preheat your oven to 450 degrees Farenheit. Prick your loaves a few times with a fork before baking them.
Bake the loaves at 450 degrees for 10 minutes, then decrease the oven temp to 400 degrees for the remainder of the cooking time. Total cook time will vary based on the size of your loaves but will be approximately 45-60 minutes. When the loaves are done, they will sound hollow when tapped, but since it’s hard to tell when 100% sourdough rye bread is done by appearance alone, I recommend double checking the internal temperature of the bread- it is done when it reaches 205 degrees Farenheit.
Allow the loaves to cool to about room temperature. Wrap them in a clean kitchen towel and leave them on the counter for 24 hours before slicing.
This waiting period is a bit painful, but it will allow the loaves to soften and crumb to set fully, so for best results definitely employ some patience and let that bread sit!
The process: 100% rye bread without a sourdough starter
If you’ve been around any sourdough enthusiasts lately you’ve probably heard someone mention that this is how our ancestors made bread- with wild yeasts from sourdough starter. And while I absolutely love my sourdough, a lot of our ancestors definitely did not maintain a starter in the way we’re all accustomed to doing it now. Generally speaking, a more traditional approach to bread making is to make a new starter for a new batch of bread dough! In at least some areas of Finland, bread baking was not a daily or maybe even weekly process- bread was made in giant batches then allowed to dry to make it last longer.
I will admit that I really like the predictability of using my sourdough starter to make great rye bread, but this method is a great option for those who don’t maintain a starter. Please note that this method does take days!
Build your rye starter
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together 60 g of rye flour and 100 g of filtered warm water. It will make a smooth paste. At this point you have the option to sprinkle in a pinch of active dry yeast. This is optional, but will speed up the process somewhat, especially if you don’t routinely make sourdough bread and may therefore not have a lot of wild yeasts floating around in your kitchen.
It’s good to leave this bowl uncovered for some time so that good bacteria and wild yeasts from the air can get in, but if it’s uncovered all night, it will develop a crust, so I recommend covering it before you go to bed.
In the morning, briskly stir the mixture and feed it with 60g more of rye flour and 100g warm water. Let it sit for about 12 hours again, periodically stirring it (a few times over the course of the day is enough).
You should start seeing the occasional bubble in the mixture, especially if you added yeast.
In the evening before bed, do a third feeding of 60 g rye flour and 100g water. Stir well and let it sit overnight again.
Depending on your kitchen and your climate, your starter may be ready to use in the morning after these three feedings. If it is, it will look quite bubbly and spongy in the bowl. In colder climates, one more feeding may be needed (I found this to be the case). I did a fourth feeding of 30g rye flour and 50 g water.
Mix your dough
Once your starter looks active and bubbly, you can mix the dough:
Depending on how many feedings you needed to give your starter, add rye flour to a total of 700g and filtered warm water to a total of 600g, plus the entire starter and 12g of kosher salt. Stir very well, making sure to incorporate all the dry bits! If you had your starter open to air for a lot of the building process, you may need to add an extra splash of water due to evaporation from the starter. Only do this if you’re having a really hard time getting the dough to mix.
Lightly cover the dough and leave it in a warm place on the counter for the bulk proofing stage. The time on this first rise is a little unpredictable, depending on how active and bubbly your “starter” got before being used, as well as on the temperature of your kitchen. Start checking it after about 1.5 hours- with an active starter and warmish kitchen it may only take this long. The dough should be moderately risen in the container, feel spongy and springy to the touch, and have some bubbles visible on the bottom and sides of the container.
Shape your dough
Flour a clean work surface and wet hands with a little bit of water before shaping your loaves. You can basically make as many or as few loaves as you want- some examples, this recipe makes two loaves of approximately 650 grams or five approximately 250 g loaves. You can divide it according to your preference. Note that the size of your loaves will impact your cooking time.
Use damp hands and a bench scraper to gently shape the loaves. This is a fairly sticky dough.
Some classic shapes include long rectangles, flattish rounds or “O” shapes- rounds with a hole in the center. This shape is traditional in some parts of Finland, where many loaves would be baked on the same day, then strung up by the hole in the center of the loaf to dry for later.
Once your loaves are shaped and transferred to the prepared baking sheets, lightly dust the top of the dough with a little more rye flour. This step is optional, but your plastic wrap is basically guaranteed to stick to the top of your loaves during the second dough rise if you don’t.
Cover the loaves with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise until the loaves look moderately puffy and risen. As before, the rise time will vary- keep an eye on them and check after about 1.5 hours or so. The flour on top of the dough will have a cracked appearance.
Toward the end of this final proof, preheat your oven to 450 degrees Farenheit. Prick your loaves a few times with a fork before baking them.
Bake your loaves
Bake the loaves at 450 degrees for 10 minutes, then decrease the oven temp to 400 degrees for the remainder of the cooking time. Total cook time will vary based on the size of your loaves but will be approximately 45-60 minutes. When the loaves are done, they will sound hollow when tapped. However, since it’s hard to tell when 100% sourdough rye bread is done by appearance alone, I recommend double checking the internal temperature of the bread- it is done when it reaches 205 degrees Farenheit.
Allow the loaves to cool to about room temperature. Wrap them in a clean kitchen towel and leave them on the counter for 24 hours before slicing.
Finnish 100% Rye Bread (Ruisleipä)
Flavorful, chewy 100% rye bread- this recipe uses a sourdough starter. See the rest of the blog post for instructions on making this bread without maintaining a starter.
Ingredients
- For the levain:
- 30-50 g ripe, active sourdough starter
- 200 g rye flour
- 200 g filtered water
- For the dough:
- 500 g rye flour
- 400 g lukewarm filtered water
- 12 g kosher salt or fine sea salt
Instructions
- Build your levain: Add active sourdough starter, 200g rye flour and 200 g water to a medium mixing bowl and whisk until well mixed. Lightly cover and leave on the counter for about 12 hours.
- Check your levain for readiness: The top may not appear bubbly but should appear risen and may feel spongy & springy to the touch. The top may also have a cracked appearance, and if you're using a glass bowl, the sides and bottom should show lots of small bubbles throughout.
- If these signs aren't present leave the levain to ferment another hour and check again.
- To a large bowl add the remaining 500 g rye flour and 400 g water, the salt, and the entire ripe levain. Mix very thoroughly, cover and leave to sit at a warm room temperature for 1.5-2 hours.
- At the end of bulk fermentation your dough will be moderately risen in the bowl with a cracked appearance on top and lots of little bubbles scattered throughout the bottom and sides of the bowl.
- Shape your dough: You have options in terms of loaf size. If you want a few smaller loaves, this recipe can be split into five small loaves or approximately 250g each, or two large loaves of approximately 650 g each.
- Either way, line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper, and flour a clean work surface. This dough is quite sticky, and I highly recommend handling it with wet hands!
- Wet your hands with a little water and scrape your dough onto your work surface. Gently shape your loaves into your desired shape and size. Some classic shapes include long rectangles, flattish rounds or "O" shapes- rounds with a hole in the center. This shape is traditional in some parts of Finland, where many loaves would be baked on the same day, then strung up by the hole in the center of the loaf to dry for later.
- Once your loaves are shaped and transferred to the prepared baking sheets, lightly dust the top of the dough with a little more rye flour- this step is optional, but your plastic wrap is basically guaranteed to stick to the top of your loaves during the second dough rise if you don't.
- Cover the loaves with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise for 1.5-2 hours, until the loaves look moderately puffy and risen. The flour on top of the dough will have a cracked appearance.
- Toward the end of this final proof, preheat your oven to 450 degrees Farenheit. Prick your loaves a few times with a fork before baking them.
- Bake the loaves at 450 degrees for 10 minutes, then decrease the oven temp to 400 degrees for the remainder of the cooking time. Total cook time will vary based on the size of your loaves but will be approximately 45-60 minutes.
- When the loaves are done, they will sound hollow when tapped, but since it's hard to tell when 100% sourdough rye bread is done by appearance alone, I recommend double checking the internal temperature of the bread- it is done when it reaches 205 degrees Farenheit.
- Allow the loaves to cool to about room temperature, then wrap them in a clean kitchen towel and leave them on the counter for 24 hours before slicing. This waiting period is a bit painful, but it will allow the loaves to soften and crumb to set fully, so for best results definitely employ some patience and let that bread sit!
Notes
The range in sourdough starter amount is to account for warmer or colder temperatures- use the smaller amount in the summer, larger in the winter.
Pin for later:
What Should I Make Next?
More rye recipes:
Did you make this recipe? Let me know how it went in the comments! If you share on Instagram, please tag me at @sisuhomemaker. And I always love to hear from you- send questions, comments, concerns, etc to carol@sisuhomemaker.com!
Leave a Reply