Lingon bread is typically Finnish.  Much of Farmor’s baking has been passed down by her Finnish mother.  This bread is called Lingon bread as it features the ‘lingon’ (cowberry).  (In Norwegian it is called tyttebær.)  Lingon berries are a tart little bush fruit that grows in the Arctic regions.  The berries can be found growing wild all over Alta and every Autumn we go picking to stock up for the year.

As Farmor doesn’t follow recipes and doesn’t measure quantities, I found myself snapping every move she made.  Here is a guide as to how to make Lingon bread.  I’m sure you could use another berry bread recipe as a base and just adapt the ingredients if you are eager to try this delicious bread.  (If you don’t have lingon berries you can use cranberries instead.)

In a steel bowl Farmor put a collection of seeds – linseed, sesame seed…. and a couple of raisins.  They were soaked in a little water.

Next she put in some lingon berries straight out of the freezer.  (Usually she thaws them first as to help the bred raise faster.  Putting frozen berries in meant she needed to let the bred rise for about six hours as the coldness slowed down the yeast.)

When we go berry picking Farmor puts the berries into plastic bags and flattens them to go in the freezer.  This is very typical in Norway as times when berries are needed, like May 17, they are not readily available.  In the past the berries would be jammed but since the invention of the freezer the berries can be preserved without additives.  We freeze cloudberries, blue berries, strawberries, lingon berries – everything.

In went a handful of …..aniseed.

Mixed (Farmor chopped in the berries).

The yeast was put into some warm water which was then added to the seed mix.

Next the flours were added – whole wheat flour…

…and brown flour.

A quick mix.

And lastly, white flour.  Why the different flours? Taste, texture and to use up the end of packets.

Some rapeseed oil was added.

It was mixed with a wooden spoon to make a dough.

More flour was shifted in to get the right consistency.

The dough was kneaded a little into a ball and placed back into the bowl to rise.

After the dough rised (it took a couple of hours coz of the cold berries) the dough was turned out and sliced into three.  It was re-shaped for bread tins and left to rise again.  The dough was then baked.

We had some for now and saved two for our trip to Finland (as Farmor doesn’t fancy Finnish bread!)