Table Of ContentJAN HEDH
SWEDISH BREADS AND
PASTRIES
Copyright © 2010 by Jan Hedh
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Page
Foreword
bread a human right
dough preparation
bread
pastries
appetizers entrees desserts
INDEX
FOREWORD
Freshly baked bread for breakfast, lunch, and dinner ought to be a basic human
right, but today we don’t have bakeries on every corner like I did growing up in
Malmö. Now most people buy their bread in supermarkets, where they heat up
par-baked doughs for loaves, buns, and pastries. This is all done by staff with no
training in the subject or knowledge of how the bread should taste, nor whether
it should be baked dark or light. Their Danish pastries (Wienerbröd/Viennoiserie)
are usually fermented in baking cabinets so hot that half of the margarine runs
out of the pastries instead of staying inside of them. French rolls are simply
thrown in boxes, inflated by various baking products and always lack the crispy
crust, beautiful crackle on the surface, and airy middle that they should have.
When I was an apprentice, we used to compete to see who could make rolls and
buns that would crackle the most. The buns were so round at the bottom that
they would almost spin when you pulled them out of the oven with a baking rod.
At Olof Viktor’s Bakery in Glemminge, the bakers are praised for their Danish
pastries, which are made with real butter and vanilla cream from actual vanilla
beans, not the cold-stirred muck full of modified starch, vanilla-flavored sugars,
and other hocus-pocus ingredients that have nothing to do with properly cooked
custard. However, one naturally cannot spend too much time only making
French rolls when also trying to keep the cost down to a nickel apiece. When
something is that cheap, there is almost always something wrong with it.
Back in the day, we used to have several good pastry shops and bakeries in
Sweden. In Gothenburg there was Bräutigam’s Pastry Shop on
Kungsportsavenyn, famous for its nice pralines and marzipan. Bråst was also an
excellent pastry shop, I remember. Oscar Berg’s Hovkonditori and Filips
Hovkonditori in Regeringsgatan were the finest pastry shops in Stockholm, and
OGO on Kungsgatan was known across the country as well. There were many
famous pastry shops outside of the big cities, too. Fahlman’s in Helsingborg is
still there, to my great delight. Back then, they also had a branch in Lund.
Lennart’s in Eksjö, Spencer’s in Borås, Holmgren’s in Kalmar, Juhlin’s in
Skövde, Zander Kellerman’s in Ystad, Berg’s in Värnamo, Börje’s in Växjö,
Lundagård’s Hovkonditori and Tage Håkansson’s in Lund, Danielsson’s in
Örebro, Dackås in Hudiksvall and Palm’s in Sundsvall—there are countless
classic pastry shops, but I couldn’t very well list them all here.
In Malmö, Swedberg’s Bakery and Sundets Bröd were the best bread bakers in
town, at least according to my parents. Swedberg’s was famous for its six-part
braided French bread and its Laputa bread. We would buy crumpets and water
rolls (water-based French rolls) from one of the home bakeries, which were often
run by women. We would get the dark rye bread, kavring, at Mellbybagaren’s, a
master at making hårdkavring—a dark, dense rye bread from Skåne—who also
held a diploma from the Gastronomic Academy.
When I was in school, we used to have coffee at Kronprinsen and sometimes
at Prinsen and Gondolen. Each had their specialties: almond cookies, cream
buns, pastries and cakes, ice cream, frozen pudding, meringue sundaes . . . My
mother used to get pralines and chocolate-dipped preserved orange peels at
Gunnar’s Konditori. At Fridhemskonditoriet we would get Parisian waffles and
Kirschbollar (brandy truffles), wreath-shaped pastries for special occasions and
toffee rolls filled with chocolate butter cream. At Hollandia there were always
Napoleon pastries, Zola pastries, crispy freshly baked Danishes (Wienerbröd),
and apple pastries made with butter dough in their café. We would also have
coffee at Residens Schweizerei, where Kurt Andersson was head pastry chef,
and their pastries were always of the finest quality. Kurt was a specialist at
presenting, and his Christmas decorations, including beautiful cocoa paintings
and marzipan figures, were greatly admired when I was a boy.
At Blekingsborg’s Konditori, where I was an apprentice, we primarily made
French bread, Brioche buns, Berliner doughnuts, wheat dough, Karlsbader
dough, Danish dough, butter dough, scalded Skåne bread (skånska skållade
bröd), and hålkakor (hole-cakes—a round loaf with a hole in the middle). This
pastry shop’s specialty was cream puffs (skumbullar ), which we made several
times a week. We would always dip them in tempered dark chocolate and then
roll them in grated coconut.
When I started as an apprentice, 45 years ago, the bakeries made bread,
whereas a pastry chef (aside from making pastries) rarely baked any bread in his
shop other than French rolls. These days, the trades of bread baking and pastry
making have bled into one another: the pastry shops are now baking bread, while
most bakeries have disappeared altogether and been replaced by generic stores
selling bread full of preservatives and additives.
It has now been 7 years since we started Olof Viktor’s Bakery in Glemminge,
and there is a neverending stream of customers who wish to buy real brick-oven
baked bread that tastes like it did in the old days. Save us from bread in plastic
bags! Bread tastes proper when it’s fresh. It is not supposed to be soggy and soft,
but have a thick, flavorful crust and be somewhat tough and elastic inside.
At Olof Viktor’s, everything revolves around the firewood brick oven. No
electric oven could ever yield the same flavor and aroma. The clever baker Erik
Olofson was the first in Sweden to use a firewood brick oven, at Rosendal in
Djurgården in Stockholm. Today he runs a fine bakery in an old mill in Gotland,
and he was the one who taught us to light the fire in the oven.
When I got my baker’s and pastry chef certificate, brick-oven baking was not
mandatory, but rather a lost art in our country. Nowadays, more and more brick-
oven bakeries are opening, and interest has increased tremendously among home
bakers.
At Olof Viktor’s, we retain old baking traditions and knowledge of the trade,
and the only machines we use are kneading machines for heavy doughs. We use
only butter; for us, margarine does not exist. We almost always start with pre-
doughs, sourdoughs, and scaldings before we begin baking. We knead the dough
the next day and let it rest, after which we shape the loaves and let them rise
slowly overnight. Early the following morning, we bake the bread directly on a
baking stone in the firewood brick oven, our pride. At 6 a.m., most of the breads
are ready for sale in the store and on their way to customers in Malmö,
Höllviken, and Helsingborg. This profession is for early risers . . .
In this second book of mine about bread, I have included many more whole
wheat breads than in the previous, and a few more original flours like Emmer,
Kamut, and spelt wholemeal. It also contains pastries and some savory dishes
that come with the territory. Follow the recipes carefully and use scales for
weight indications whenever possible—using deciliters or cups will yield less
accurate results! Use a thermometer to ensure the temperatures’ precision. Keep
in mind that flour is perishable and does not improve with storage. Old and dry
flour absorbs more water than fresh flour. Also, put a baking stone in the oven
and you will discover what lovely breads you are able to make yourself.
I wish you the best of luck with the breads and pastries in this book, which I
dedicate to the memory of my dear mother Kerstin, who taught me what bread
and food should really taste like.
Jan Hedh
Malmö, August 2009
