Food photos at the “Cave People”

Rúllupsylsa and Hangikjöt

When we visited the "Cave People" in the Laugarvatnshellar, I took the opportunity to photograph typical Icelandic food in front of this absolutely unique backdrop after our tour of the cave.

This is Rúllupylsa . So “rolled sausage”. A traditional Icelandic meal.

Sausage and cold cuts, as we know them in this country today, have not been around in Icelandic cuisine for very long. One of the very few traditional types of sausage that people ate in Iceland, alongside black pudding and liver sausage, was this "rolled sausage". In addition, the belly flap of the sheep, actually a not so productive piece of meat, became a very nice delicacy. After all, it would have been a sin not to use everything properly!

If you want to try Rúllupylsa yourself, you can of course find the corresponding recipe here on my blog!


I also photographed Rúgbrauð and Hangikjöt here - if there is anything (besides waffles!) that I am sure that the "last cavemen" of Iceland also ate here around 100 years ago, then it is Rúgbrauð and Hangikjöt .

Rúgbrauð, Icelandic rye bread, is one of Iceland's traditional breads. Every farm and every family had or has their own recipe, each a little different. But always a dark, soft rye bread that tastes a bit sweet - it's a bit like pumpernickel, even if the consistency isn't quite right.

Of course, you can also find the recipe for rúgbrauð here in the blog!

The typical Icelandic hangikjöt means “hanging meat”. It comes from a twice-smoked, particularly well-cured leg of lamb. It is traditionally smoked with sheep dung - dried, pressed sheep dung with a little hay in between.

Smoking with sheep dung is not permitted within the EU, which is why Hangikjöt is unfortunately not allowed to be sold there.

It is a rather more odorous dish, by the way - a very impressive olfactory taste experience! (Or as my children think: Bah, that stinks!)

Rúgbrauð and Hangikjöt

As you can see here in this "making of" that my husband secretly took - I had fun with this photo session!

Food blogger at work

[Translated from here.]

Rúgbrauð – Icelandic rye bread

Ingredients for 2 loaves of bread

400 g rye flour
80 g wholemeal flour
200 g sugar syrup
1 packet of dry yeast
1 tsp salt
250 ml milk


Preparation

Preheat the oven to 200 °F (100 °C)C (upper/lower heat, not convection!).

Mix the flour with the wholemeal flour, sugar syrup, dry yeast and salt. Then pour in the warm milk and work everything into a sticky, tough dough.

Take two milk cartons, cut off the top and clean the cartons thoroughly and rinse with hot water.

Pour the bread dough into the milk cartons; the cartons should be about halfway full because the dough will still rise accordingly. “Plump up” the dough in the box a little so that as many cavities as possible are filled and no air bubbles form.

Then carefully cover the milk cartons with aluminum foil and then place them in the oven at 200 °F (100 °C) upper and lower heat for about 10 - 11 hours.

Then take the milk cartons out of the oven and let the bread cool before carefully removing it from the cartons. The Rúgbrauð is relatively sweet, a little sticky and tastes extremely delicious - perhaps a bit like pumpernickel.

The bread is spread with salted butter and served.

For example, we enjoyed the Rúgbrauð with cheese of the "White Stilton Blueberry" variety - even if it wasn't Icelandic cheese, but came from my favorite organic farmer, but blueberries almost always go with Icelandic cuisine!

Annotation:

Classically, the Rúgbrauð in Iceland is baked in tin cans in the hot earth for about 24 hours, and the result is impressive. For example, I ate wonderful "Geysir bread baked in the geothermal heat in the ert" in the Cow Café in Vogafjos on Mývatn .

Due to the lack of hot earth, you have to make do somehow - to get as close as possible to the desired result, you bake the bread in the oven at 175-200 °F (80-100 °C) for 10 - 12 hours.




[Translated from here.]

Rabarbarabaka með smjörbökuðu rúgbrauði

Rhubarb casserole with toasted rye bread

Rhubarb with Rúgbrauð is a pretty popular combination in Iceland.

I recently presented the Rabarbarakaka með rifnu rúgbrauði, the “rhubarb cake with plucked rye bread”, here in the blog. This recipe is less of a cake and more of a dessert - I would say: Icelandic Rhubarb Crumble. And I found it really delicious!

Icelandic rye bread ("Rúgbrauð") is a very special specialty that's hard to find in other countries. It's quite sweet and fluffy. For this recipe, I brought a portion of Rúgbrauð from Iceland to Germany!). Normally you either bake it yourself - or you replace the Rúgbrauð with pumpernickel. Pumpernickel is firmer and drier and has a slightly grainier structure, but the result is fine if baking yourself is not an option.

Ingredients

500 g pumpernickel
50 g butter
200 g brown sugar
500 g rhubarb


Preparation

Preheat the oven to 200 °F (100 °C) upper/lower heat.

Carefully chop the rye bread/pumpernickel with a grater.

Melt the butter in a large pan and add the breadcrumbs.

While constantly stirring, add the sugar and stir until it has dissolved.

Then place the mixture on a baking tray lined with baking paper, spread it carefully and bake in a preheated oven at 200 °F (100 °C) upper and lower heat for about 15 minutes.

Remove the tray from the oven and let the bread mixture cool down a bit.

Place about half of the rye bread crumbs in a fireproof shallow baking dish and press gently.

Wash the rhubarb, peel it and cut it into approx. 2 cm long pieces.

Then spread the rhubarb pieces over the bread mixture.

Then spread the remaining rye bread crumbles over the rhubarb.

Set the oven to 300 °F (150 °C) upper and lower heat and let the Rabarbarabaka bake for about 30 minutes until the rhubarb has become nice and soft.

Then serve the whole thing with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

[Translated from here.]

Rúgbrauð - Icelandic Rye Bread

A particular specialty of Icelandic cuisine is the Icelandic rye bread, i.e. rúgbrauð. It is a bit similar to pumpernickel, but it is soft and fluffy and tastes sweet. 

Baking bread with the heat of the earth

Traditionally, this bread is baked in Iceland’s geothermally heated ground, then usually in a tin can, which is buried in the ground for 10 - 24 hours (depending on the temperature on site). This bread is known, for example, from Heimaey after the volcanic eruption in 1973, from the region on Mývatn or from the geothermal bakery at the swimming pool "Fontana" in Laugarvatn.

An oven of the village community

In some places, however, there are also communal "ovens" where the inhabitants can bake their rye bread in special devices with the hot steam of geothermal energy. 

A friend of ours lives here, and she showed me her "oven". In this steaming "tin barrel", there is a grid, on which you place a milk carton filled with your dough. Then you push the lid down again and screw it down. Then the bread bakes in hot steam. On the next day the rúgbrauð is ready. 

But in fact, you need at least two people when you put your dough in here, because the barrel is really hot, and I would have had big problems to screw down the lid on my own. 

Slow baking - baking time 12 to 24 hours

If you don't have geothermal energy available, you can also bake your rúgbrauð in the oven. Here I have  a recipe for you, which  is prepared with ab-mjólk (a special probiotic thick milk) or alternatively with yogurt. The bread is baked classically in empty, washed-out milk cartons (32 fl. oz. resp. 1 l) - here for about 11 hours at 200 °F (90 °C). 

Ingredients for 3 loaves of bread

460 g rye flour

260 g wholemeal wheat flour

3 tsp coarse sea salt

3 tsp baking soda

1 l ab-mjólk (or plain yogurt)

350 g syrup

oil for greasing

Preparation

Preheat the oven (circulating air) to  200 °F (90 °C).

In a very large bowl, mix the rye and wheat flour with the salt and baking soda.

Then add sour milk and syrup.

Mix everything thoroughly to a smooth dough.

Wash the milk cartons thoroughly, cut open the upper end, grease a little bit their insides.

Then fill the dough evenly into the prepared milk cartons, which should then be almost half filled (be careful, the dough really rises properly when baking!).

Cover the milk cartons thoroughly and firmly with two layers of aluminum foil. 

And bake in a preheated oven at 200 °F (90 °C) circulating air for about 11 hours.

Then take the bread out of the oven, carefully remove the aluminum foil and let the bread cool. Finally open the milk carton carefully and tear it off.

Cut the bread into slices and serve with fresh butter as an accompaniment to soup or fish dishes.

I had baked this bread here for a forum meeting of Iceland fans in Germany, where I had arranged an Icelandic lunch: meatless meat soup (we also had vegetarians with us) with rye bread with butter and for dessert cinnamon rolls and ástarpungar ("loveballs"). 

The bread tastes best fresh, but you can also cut it into slices and freeze it in portions if there is anything left. 

[Translated from here.]

Íslenskar rúgbrauðstertur

Icelandic rye bread cakes

I love rúgbrauð, that heavy, sweet, moist Icelandic rye bread.

In Iceland, this bread is often baked in hot earth, usually in a tin can that is buried in the ground for 10 to 24 hours (depending on the local temperature). This bread is known, for example, from Heimaey after the 1973 volcanic eruption, from the Mývatn region, or from the geothermal bakery near the "Fontana" swimming pool in Laugarvatn.

In some places there are also communal "ovens" where the inhabitants can bake their rye bread in special devices using the hot steam from geothermal energy.

Since I don't have hot earth or a nice village community oven at my disposal, I usually bake my rúgbrauð in clean, washed milk cartons for about 11 hours at 90°C fan-assisted oven.

The rye bread tastes so delicious - and you can also use the bread for other purposes. For example, old, dry rye bread can be used up wonderfully in classic, sweet rye bread cakes.

If you would like to try a typical Icelandic rye bread cake, you can find various recipes here on the blog:

Gömul rúgbrauðskaka - Old rye bread cake

This recipe comes from an old Icelandic cookbook from 1858. The cake is made with bread, lots of eggs, a generous amount of sugar, grated almonds, and—most luxuriously—juiced fresh oranges. You can also substitute orange juice. My husband thought the cake had a bit of a Christmassy feel.

Rugbrauðskaka

This recipe for a rye bread cake with eggs, brown sugar, cocoa and potato flour, as well as plenty of cream filling and grated chocolate, comes from a collection of Icelandic Christmas recipes from the 1960s.

Rúgbrauðsterta með bláberjum - rye bread cake with blueberries

This was the first rye bread cake I tried for the blog, back in 2015—a delicious cake with ground hazelnuts, sugar, lots of eggs, and a rich cream with whipped cream, mascarpone, grated dark chocolate, and blueberries.

Very tasty — and reminded me of the hazelnut cake with cranberries and cream that my mother often baked for birthdays when I was a child — I almost felt nostalgic about this rye bread cake.

Rúgbrauðsterta með jarðarberjum - rye bread cake with strawberries

And sometimes it's not so easy to follow a particular recipe in Iceland. Last year, I wanted to recreate the recipe from 2015, but then I couldn't find the ingredients at the supermarket. So I had to get creative. I replaced the ground hazelnuts with a mixture of ground almonds and chopped hazelnuts; I used cream cheese instead of ricotta, but adjusted the ratio of cheese to cream; and I used strawberries instead of blueberries.

I was absolutely thrilled with the result—and I found the chopped nuts in the soft dough particularly delicious!

Gamla góða rúgbrauðsterta - Traditional rye bread cake

I recently found this recipe for a traditional Icelandic rye bread cake ("the good old rye bread cake") online, in an old article from the magazine Morgunblaðið from December 1967.

For the cake, apart from the Rúgbrauð, you mainly need eggs, sugar, some flour and a bit of potato flour, and the filling consists of cream, bananas, apples and grated chocolate.

Alternative: Pumpernickel

In Germany, I use pumpernickel for these rye bread recipes. It's not the same, but the result is really good; the taste and consistency are ultimately really good.

[Translated from here.]

Brauðsúpa II

Icelandic rye bread soup

I previously shared a recipe for bread soup , now I tried another recipe - and I'm completely thrilled! But I also used the rest of my home-baked Rúgbrauð instead of using pumpernickel, it's more "absorbent" and I like the result better. Absolute soul food for me! (However, this soup fills you up phenomenally quickly.)

Ingredients for 2 - 4 people

330 ml malt beer
250 g Rúgbrauð
80 g brown sugar
3 Tbsp raisins
250 ml whipping cream
1 Tbsp grated orange peel


Preparation

Cut the Rúgbrauð into small cubes.

Put the crumbled bread in a saucepan, pour in the malt beer and let it sit in the fridge for about 3 hours.

Then add the sugar and raisins...

...and simmer on the stove over low heat for about 2 hours.

Then pour the whipping cream into the soup and stir.

Add some grated orange peel and stir again...

...and serve warm.

[Translated from here.]