Upplandskubb bread

Upplandskubb

Upplandskubb is a traditional bread from the Swedish east region of Uppland. It is made of local rye and wheat flour. The unique characteristic of this bread is that it is boiled instead of baked in an oven. The tradition of boiling bread is unknown elsewhere in Sweden. The dough is placed in a cylindrical container in which it is allowed to rise before the container is closed and placed in boiling water for several hours. The cylindrical bread is then cut into four, thus receiving its very characteristic shape. This bread is brown and juicy and keeps very well. It was traditionally baked at the farms of the region and was enjoyed during Christmas and other special occasions. Some slight variations in recipes exist, that concern the relationship between the ingredients. The oldest formal recipe traced by the Uppland museum is from the mid nineteenth century, from the Älgesta farm in the parish of Husby-Ärlinghundra. The name of the bread, upplandskubb, was invented fairly recently. Elisabet Langenberg in Stockholm came by a recipe of this unusual boiled bread in the mid 1920´s. She took an interest in it and started to bake it for sale. Because the recipe was from the region of Uppland and had the shape of a chopping-block (in Swedish ‘huggkubbe’) the name upplandskubb was born along with the small bread baking business Upplandskubben AB, which made the boiled bread known nationwide. Upplandskubben is very hard to find on the market, because of the labour and time required to bake a very little amount of bread, as opposed to the logic of today’s fast and larger scale bakeries. Today, there remains only one farm bakery that supplies upplandskubb, and only by order.