Rye bread. There are so many variations. Pumpernickel, rugbrød, all-rye, flatbreads. Jewish rye has a whole bunch of variations: Russian, Polish and Scandinavian. In Sweden their preferred rye bread is a sweet rye bread with spices. This is my recipe for sourdough limpa bread.
I love rye flour. It has an amazing taste, when baked. Even rye cookies are awesome. My favorite sourdough bread has 20% whole-grain rye flour, and the most perfect 100% rye bread is my danish rye bread.

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Jump to RecipeThe dough in this sourdough limpa bread recipe
Vitals
Total weight | 1385 grams |
Prefermented flour | 8.8% |
Hydration | 67.2% |
Yield | 1 large loaf |
The dough composition
The flour in this limpa bread is 100% sifted rye flour, which is called light rye flour in the states.
This bread is made with an enriched dough. It contains both butter, milk and syrup. The salt content is a bit above 2% which really brings out the taste of the rye flour.
The inoculation is just shy of 20% which should give the bread a fermentation time around 5-6 hours if you have an active sourdough starter.

The hydration of the dough is around 67%, and while that seems pretty low, for a 100% rye bread that is pretty fluid sticky stuff.
Which is why this bread is baked in a pan.
Weight | Ingredient | Baker's Percentage |
---|---|---|
620g | light rye flour | 100% |
430g | skim milk (0.5%) | 69.4% |
50g | butter, salted | 8.1% |
145g | light syrup | 23.4% |
120g | sourdough starter (100% hydration) | 19.4% |
13g | salt | 2.1% |
2g | cardamom | 0.3% |
2g | ginger, powdered | 0.3% |
1g | cloves, ground | 0.2% |
2g | bitter orange peel, powdered | 0.3% |
If you want to play around with the formula, change the quantity, the hydration or other key stats, you can do so here in my Bread Calculator.

The conclusion of this sourdough limpa bread recipe
While this bread is a 100% rye bread, there is some key factors that sets it apart:
- The bread is not sour, but a tad sweet. That’s both due to the sifted rye and the added syrup.
- The crumb is wonderfully soft and full of small holes. Quite unlike the usual dense crumb you get from rye.
- The crust is dark and super caramelized. Not crunchy like a common rye bread.
Sourdough limpa a wonderful bread. It’s perfect with a homemade jam or jelly.
This bread pairs great with a wonderful layer of butter, which we call “teeth butter” in Denmark, because you can see teeth marks after you take a bit.
Personally I love it with cheese.
It’s a great bread, make it one of your staples.

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This is my recipe for sourdough limpa bread bread. If you like the recipe please consider sharing it with like-minded bread lovers on social media.
If you make it and post it on Instagram, please tag me as @foodgeek.dk so I can see it. That would make me very happy.

Sourdough Limpa Bread
Equipment
Ingredients
- 620 g light rye flour sifted rye flour
- 430 g milk
- 50 g butter
- 145 g corn syrup golden syrup/light syrup
- 120 g sourdough starter
- 13 g fine salt
- 1 tsp cardamom
- 1 tsp ginger
- ½ tsp cloves
- 1 tsp bitter orange peel
Instructions
Mix the dough
- To a bowl add: 620g sifted rye flour, 13g salt, ½ tsp ground cloves, 1 tsp cardamom, 1 tsp ginger, 1 tbsp ground bitter orange peel.
- Alternatively, use the zest of an entire orange.
- Mix it up so that everything is well dispersed.
- Pour 50g melted butter into 430g milk.
- Pour it into the flour mixture.
- Then add 145g corn syrup or golden syrup.
- And lastly add 120g sourdough starter. Grown to its peak.
- Mix until the dough is completely mixed.
Fermentation
- Put the dough in a a pan sprayed with nonstick spray and let it proof until it’s grown by 50%.
- Put it somewhere warm and keep an eye on it. It took my dough about 5 hours, but measure the growth instead of using a set time.
Bake
- When the dough is ready, turn on your oven to 190°C/375°F.
- When the oven is hot add the pan to the oven.
- Bake for about 90 minutes or until a probe thermometer shows 99°C/210°F when put into the centre of the dough.
- If you'd like a darker crust you can remove the brad from the pan about 1 hour into the bake.
- When the bread is done, take it out of the oven.
- Put it on a wire rack to cool.
Video

I am crazy about food, cakes, snacks and everything in between. I love to do tons of experiments to find the best recipe, so that you don’t have to.
That looks like a USA Pans pullman pan. They come in two sizes: 9″, which they call “medium” and is the one to which you provide a link, and 13″, which they call “large” and has 44% more capacity than the 9″. You say to use a “large” pan which hints at the 13″ but link to the 9″ which hints at the 9″ and provide a picture that looks to me like a 9″ loaf. Could you clarify? Thanks.
It’s the 9″. I’ve linked it in the recipe 🙂
What size tin please?
Medium Pullman. I’ve linked it in the recipe 🙂