One of the curses and blessings of living abroad is that you have to make all the specialities from your own country by yourself. I’ve been craving Swedish bread now for awhile and decided to test baking my own Hönökaka today.

Hönökaka is a traditional bread from the West coast of Sweden (named after an island outside of Gothenburg) baked by fishermen and farmers families in the West coast archipelago. It’s really popular today as well and in every supermarket across the entire country you can buy it. But of course not in the Netherlands, so this is where this recipe from Lindas Bakskola comes in (in Swedish).

Here’s my English translation with my substitutes for certain ingredients

Hönökaka, 4 big rounds

• 2 teaspoons dry yeast
• 3 dl milk, room temperature
• 50 grams butter, room temperature
• 0.5 dl golden syrup (I brought a bottle from Sweden a couple of years ago)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 dl “rågsikt”, which is 60% rye flour, 40% flour: 1.2 dl flour, 1.8 dl rye flour (roggemeel in Dutch)
• 4-6 dl flour

Mix the dry yeast with the rågsikt and flour  – I started with 4 dl flour, add more if the dough is too wet, butter, golden syrup and salt. Mix in the milk. Mix until a smooth non-sticky dough is achieved. Knead a few minutes vigourosly. Let it rise for about 50-60 min under a kitchen towel. Divide into 4 parts. Roll it out with a bread pin to rounds of 27 cm in diameter. Go over the surface with a fork to achieve superficial holes. Lay the rounds on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Rise for 25-30 min under a kitchen towel. Put the oven on 250 degrees C. Bake the bread in the middle of the oven for about 6-8 min.    Check them so they don’t get too much color. Let the rounds cool down on top of each other underneath a kitchen towel.

Enjoy with butter!