The easiest bread ever! Unleavened Barley bread--Ohrarieska

I tried a new recipe for bread to go with dinner tonight, and it was fabulous!  My husband loves rieska, the unleavened flat bread popular in Scandinavia, but until now I have always used a different recipe that made a thick dough that had to be rolled out.  Lots of work, lots of cleanup.  This recipe from the Finnish Cookbook by Beatrice Ojakangas is wonderful, all you have to do is stir the batter in a bowl and pour it in a cake pan.  Less than five minutes of active work, and the flavor and texture were incredible.  I'll be making this again all the time.



First, mix together one cup milk, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon sugar and 1 cup barley flour.  When this is mixed smooth, it will be about the consistency of pancake batter. Stir in 1 tablespoon of melted butter.  I doubled all of the ingredients and made two loaves.

I prepared 9 inch cake pans by spraying them with cooking spray that contains flour, you can also butter and flour the pans.  Don't use regular cooking spray that doesn't contain flour, the loaves will stick!

I found barley flour at the local grocery.  Health food stores would probably have it, too.

It is also available on Amazon:

The recipe says to bake at 450 F for 35 minutes.  I was in a hurry and didn't realize that I had set the oven to 350 F instead!  I think 450 F may be too hot, they cooked beautifully in the bottom of the oven at 350 F.

I flipped them out on a plate to serve.  The recipe says to serve them hot, so I was very careful to time them so that they would come out at exactly the time everyone should arrive.  So of course my husband and oldest were half an hour late and we ate them cold!  But they were still so delicious.  The recipe recommends eating them with butter.  We ate them with ham, gouda cheese, tomato slices, and cucumber slices that had a little sweetened rice wine vinegar on them.

Enjoy!