Spiced Christmas Bread

 God Jul is Swedish and means Merry Christmas

This lovely sweet and spiced bread is also eaten on christmas in Sweden, where it is called wort flavored bread. It can be baked with or without raisins, I prefer without since it gets too sweet. This recipe contains no wort, I find the spices the most important!

• 1000 ml dark beer and coke, combined
• 100 g butter
• 100 g baker's yeast
• 100 ml bitter orange marmalade
• 100 ml malt syrup
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp ground anise seeds
• 1 tsp ground fennel seeds
• 1 tsp ground cardamom seeds
• (50 ml raisins)
• approx. 3500 ml sifted rye flour, or a mix of 2000 ml wheat flour and 1500 ml light rye flour

Melt the butter in a saucepan, pour in the liquid and heat to 37° C or 100° F. Crumble the yeast into a bowl, pour some of the liquid in and stir until it dissolves. Add the remaining liquid as long with syrup, marmalade, salt and spices. Pour in almost all the flour (and raisins) and knead the dough for about 10 min. Let it rise covered with a towel for 30 min.

Put the dough on a floured surface and shape it into three loaves. Place them on a greased baking tray, cover with a towel and let rise for 40 minutes.

Bake loaves at 225°C or 437°F at the lower part of the oven for about 30 minutes. Let cool on a rack with a towel on top.

The bread tastes best with butter and cheese.