Upplandskubb

[Caprifool]

One of our tv-chefs over here mentioned an old traditional bread from the region of Uppland, called Upplandskubb the other day. It has been listed in the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity's Ark of Taste.

 

The oldest documented recipe dated back to 1852. And it was invented by the housewifes of the region that did not have an oven. It was baked in a 3 liter cylindrical milk churn with a lid, placed in a bain marie. So there's no baking sheets lyeing around the kitchen, takeing space while proofing. No kneeding (to speak of) and it is boiled in a tin for four hours instead of baked in a oven. We keep our wood stoves in all day and it struck me that perhaps this recipe could be useful with narrowboat stoves as well. It does earn it's place as sloooooow food! But isn't labor intensive at all.

 

You need some tin foil, string or rubber bands. A cylindrical tin with a lid. Say, 12-15 cm's in diameter..... A pot that fits your tin under the lid. A wooden spoon and a mixing bowl. Kids or a partner to do the washing up.

 

Ingredients

 

3,5 dl water

50 g yeast

1 dl treacle

1 tsp salt

5-6 dl rye flour

5-6 dl wheat flour

 

For the tin

 

A knob of butter and some rye flour

 

First, butter and flour the insides of your tin

 

Heat the water to body temperature and mix it together with the yeast, salt & treacle. Mix the rye flour into the liquid first. Then most of the wheat flour. Leave a tbsp or two for kneeding and shaping. Mix into a dough. Pour it out on to your work space. Kneed it in the rest of your wheat flour and shape into a firm ball that fits into your tin that you have buttered and floured inside. Place it in the tin, put the lid on and go about your other business for 3-4 hours while the bread is proofing.

 

Take your pot out and fill it with enough water to cover 2/3 of your tin. Seal the tin with some tin foil inside the lid. Take some more foil and put it over the lid and secure it with string or a rubber band. You don't want any water or steam getting inside the tin. Place it in your now boiling water. And boil it under a lid for four hours. Do something useful.....or not...

 

When it's done. Tip it out and let it cool for several hours or over night wrapped in a baking cloth. Cut into quarters and put each quarter in a plastic bag.

 

You just made four loafes of moist delicious bread with no oven an very little work.

 

Enjoy! I know I did. A quarter is gone already

Edited October 26, 2011 by Caprifool

[Athy]

Capri, your post is both instructive and entertaining, thank you!

[Guest Quo Vadis]

I'd be interested to see just how much condensation 4 hours of boiling could produce

[Caprifool]

I still havn't put my winter windows in my smal kitchen in yet. And I put a towel over the pot and had less condensation in four hours than when boiling spuds for 20 minutes.

[Joshua]

One of our tv-chefs over here mentioned an old traditional bread from the region of Uppland, called Upplandskubb the other day. It has been listed in the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity's Ark of Taste.

 

The oldest documented recipe dated back to 1852. And it was invented by the housewifes of the region that did not have an oven. It was baked in a 3 liter cylindrical milk churn with a lid, placed in a bain marie. So there's no baking sheets lyeing around the kitchen, takeing space while proofing. No kneeding (to speak of) and it is boiled in a tin for four hours instead of baked in a oven. We keep our wood stoves in all day and it struck me that perhaps this recipe could be useful with narrowboat stoves as well. It does earn it's place as sloooooow food! But isn't labor intensive at all.

 

You need some tin foil, string or rubber bands. A cylindrical tin with a lid. Say, 12-15 cm's in diameter..... A pot that fits your tin under the lid. A wooden spoon and a mixing bowl. Kids or a partner to do the washing up.

 

Ingredients

 

3,5 dl water

50 g yeast

1 dl treacle

1 tsp salt

5-6 dl rye flour

5-6 dl wheat flour

 

For the tin

 

A knob of butter and some rye flour

 

First, butter and flour the insides of your tin

 

Heat the water to body temperature and mix it together with the yeast, salt & treacle. Mix the rye flour into the liquid first. Then most of the wheat flour. Leave a tbsp or two for kneeding and shaping. Mix into a dough. Pour it out on to your work space. Kneed it in the rest of your wheat flour and shape into a firm ball that fits into your tin that you have buttered and floured inside. Place it in the tin, put the lid on and go about your other business for 3-4 hours while the bread is proofing.

 

Take your pot out and fill it with enough water to cover 2/3 of your tin. Seal the tin with some tin foil inside the lid. Take some more foil and put it over the lid and secure it with string or a rubber band. You don't want any water or steam getting inside the tin. Place it in your now boiling water. And boil it under a lid for four hours. Do something useful.....or not...

 

When it's done. Tip it out and let it cool for several hours or over night wrapped in a baking cloth. Cut into quarters and put each quarter in a plastic bag.

 

You just made four loafes of moist delicious bread with no oven an very little work.

 

Enjoy! I know I did. A quarter is gone already

 

Hi Caprifool,

 

 

We like rye bread, (its nice toasted for breakfast) especially the Swedish type, I find it less dense than the Danish and my girlfriend is Swedish so thought I would give this one a go.

 

We also keep wood burners in all day and several have nice big flat tops especially for cooking on.

 

Couple of questions:

 

Need to know exactly how big a tin all those ingredients fit into before I start mixing.

 

12 to 15 cm diameter you say but how deep, what size container did you use?

 

Any reason why it couldn’t be boiled in a plastic container?

 

Fresh or dried yeast?

 

 

Thanks

 

Joshua

 

 

[Caprifool]

Had to take the tape measure out :-) My milk churn is 15 cm's in diameter and 17.5 cm's high.

 

Plastic and high(ish) temps for 4 hours. Hm, I wouldn't.... But that might just be me being a little paranoid

 

50 grams of fresh yeast.

Edited October 28, 2011 by Caprifool

[PGriffin]

Hello,
I would like to make this bread - but I live in the USA. Any chance you could convert your measurements for me, please. I've never been very good at doing that. (yes, I know - we should be on metric - but that's another conversation)

Thank you.

[mrsmelly]

2 hours ago, PGriffin said:

Hello,
I would like to make this bread - but I live in the USA. Any chance you could convert your measurements for me, please. I've never been very good at doing that. (yes, I know - we should be on metric - but that's another conversation)

Thank you.

Ask Alexa

[Tony Brooks]

2 hours ago, PGriffin said:

Hello,
I would like to make this bread - but I live in the USA. Any chance you could convert your measurements for me, please. I've never been very good at doing that. (yes, I know - we should be on metric - but that's another conversation)

Thank you.

 

I will give you a clue, dl = decilitre or 1/10th of a litre. Now the problem starts. I think UK pints and US pints are different volumes, and you measure in cups rather than lbs, so converting in the UK for US use is not so simple.

[Chris Lowe]

4 hours ago, PGriffin said:

Hello,
I would like to make this bread - but I live in the USA. Any chance you could convert your measurements for me, please. I've never been very good at doing that. (yes, I know - we should be on metric - but that's another conversation)

Thank you.

 

Google is your friend, lots of converters online.

https://www.calculator.net/conversion-calculator.html

[MtB]

3 hours ago, mrsmelly said:

Ask Alexa

 

Or better, ask ChatGPS.

 

 

Or ChatGPT even!!

 

(If ChatGPS doesn't get you there....)

 

 

[David Mack]

A US cup is around 250ml, or about 2.5 deci litres.

Edited September 12, 2025 by David Mack

[Bacchus]

On 26/10/2011 at 14:57, Caprifool said:

A knob of butter 

 

19 hours ago, David Mack said:

A US cup is around 250ml, or about 2.5 deci litres.

 

Is the US knob the same as the UK?

[Rincewind]

4 hours ago, Bacchus said:

Is the US knob the same as the UK?

Yes, Trump & Farage are pretty much alike in their views and both very slippery and dense.

[Caprifool]

On 12/09/2025 at 15:16, PGriffin said:

Hello,
I would like to make this bread - but I live in the USA. Any chance you could convert your measurements for me, please. I've never been very good at doing that. (yes, I know - we should be on metric - but that's another conversation)

Thank you.

Oh my goodness, what a timely revival of an 14 year old post! Just two days ago I was googling for the recipe because I had lost it. With very little results. And I had totally forgotten that I had posted it here. Thanks to you I have secured it from my next memory lapse. 😅 Now I'm curious to how it differs to US Boston Brown Bread, that is also boiled in a tin.

 

I see that our fellow members have answered most of your questions already. And yes US and EU knobs are the same size. (Oooer missus!) Just scoop enough to grease the tin. 👍🏻

 

Thanks again for asking. You made my day. 

 

/Bengt the Swedish boat sitter.

[cuthound]

1 hour ago, Caprifool said:

Oh my goodness, what a timely revival of an 14 year old post! Just two days ago I was googling for the recipe because I had lost it. With very little results. And I had totally forgotten that I had posted it here. Thanks to you I have secured it from my next memory lapse. 😅 Now I'm curious to how it differs to US Boston Brown Bread, that is also boiled in a tin.

 

I see that our fellow members have answered most of your questions already. And yes US and EU knobs are the same size. (Oooer missus!) Just scoop enough to grease the tin. 👍🏻

 

Thanks again for asking. You made my day. 

 

/Bengt the Swedish boat sitter.

 

Welcome back Bengt, it is a long time since you last posted.

 

I hope you are on the road to recovery and are well.

[Peanut]

Sounds like suet pudding to me. 😀

[Caprifool]

17 hours ago, Peanut said:

Sounds like suet pudding to me. 😀

One might think so yes. But the proportions and yeast makes it totally different. It's definitely a "normal bread", and nice as toast too.  Ah, now you made me hungry for a bacon and onion Roly-poly! And we don't even have suet here. 😅

 

/Bengt

21 hours ago, cuthound said:

 

Welcome back Bengt, it is a long time since you last posted.

 

I hope you are on the road to recovery and are well.

True that. It's been a while. Facebook boaty groups just kind of took over. People are just not traveling as they used to after COVID. So my boat sitting kind of came to almost a complete stand still. And Brexit totally killed any retirement plans I had on the cut for the future.

 

I'm doing very well thank you. Hope you are too. I'm just missing the UK and my boaty tribe immensely.

 

/Bengt