Swedish Limpa

A friend of mine, who saw some of my bread posts, was reminiscing to me about one of his favorite breads from his native homeland, Sweden, which he left to attend University in the U.S. (playing tennis, stayed, married, and he & his wife just had their 2nd child a few days ago).  He asked me if I had ever had limpa -- I hadn't.  Since this friend is in the process of moving away, I thought I'd try to make this bread before he left...

I looked for recipes -- I had never heard, let alone seen, limpa and knew nothing about it.  I wasn't sure what an "authentic" recipe would be.  The one thing I noticed from various recipes I found online was that they all had combinations of fennel and anise seeds -- some had caraway or, believe it or not, cumin seeds.   The amount of fennel and anise seemed odd to me -- all I could think about was a bread that tasted like licorice (not one of my favorite flavors).  So I asked my friend if his favorite "limpa" had seeds  or any hint of black licorice... "no, no seeds... no licorice"...

That night, I was playing hockey with another friend who was born in Sweden but came to the US at a young age -- although he still travels back to Sweden frequently and I frequently hear him on his phone sounding like the Swedish Chefs from the Muppet's.  I asked "seeds? licorice?" --  "No, no, no seeds, no licorice", was his reply.  But he had the ability to call his mom which he did as we dressed for the night's game. After doing his best Muppet's Swedish Chef imitation -- he turned to me and said, "yes, anise... yes, fennel".

The next morning, I woke up to about 4 emails from my hockey friend -- all with different limpa recipes, all with anise & fennel.  But the one thing these recipes had that no other recipe that I found had, was that they put the seeds into the molasses mixture, heated, and then strained the seeds out.  "Ah!!", I thought -- that explains why neither of my Swedish friends remembered seeds nor a licorice flavor -- given the seeds being strained out, any licorice flavoring would be potentially too slight to pick out from the other dominate flavors -- rye flour, molasses, some sweetening, and orange grind.  I picked this recipe from his book  "The Vasa Cookbook"

Anyway,  I cooked two loaves.  I gave one to my tennis friend who is moving away. I kept 1/2 and I gave 1/2 to my hockey friend -- I asked him to be critical because I had no idea what it should taste like.  I was slightly disappointed at the look but was pleasantly surprised at the taste but what the heck do I know about limpa??  My hockey friend said, "Exactly like Swedish limpa. No way to improve it! Crust is a little harder but I like it that way".    He might have been being nice to me because I control the hockey lines...

I plan on marrying the flavors & general flour blend of this recipe with the styles/techniques of breads that I am used to making -- most probably starting with a poolish -- I think it could mimic the same flavors but give a lighter crumb.  Swedes might think that would be sacrilegious but since I'm not Swedish...