We regularly exchange ideas with our counterparts at the Danish Whole Grain Partnership, and this morning received an email from Andreas Skovmand Agesen, a student assistant working with them. He wrote, “I have devised a recipe because of the upcoming Super Bowl. It is an American Football Bread (which fulfills the requirements of the Danish Whole Grain Logo). We thought you might find it fun and relevant to use on your side of the Atlantic as well.”

Thanks so much Andreas! Here it is, posted today in time for anyone who wants to make this fun bread for the Big Game. We’ve converted the Danish metric measurements to U.S.-style measurements as well as possible, but keep in mind two things: 1) Serious bakers use measurements instead of cups and spoons anyway, and your scale can probably handle grams fine even if your brain can’t and 2) Bread baking is more of an art than a science anyway, so exact measurements rarely apply with bread.

With that, I’ll give the blog over to Andreas’s recipe. Tell us if you try this out! We love the look of it. (Cynthia)

American Football bread

Ingredients
250g whole white wheat flour (about 2 cups sifted)
250g all-purpose wheat flour (about 2 cups sifted)
100g whole rye flour (about a heaping ¾ cup)
5-7g yeast or one packet of dry active yeast
40 drops of gravy color (such as Gravy Master) or 30g roasted malt flour
400g warm water (about 1 ⅔ cups)
8g salt (about 1 ½ teaspoons)
1 egg, beaten

Directions
Add 100g (or ½ cup) of water and the yeast to a bowl and stir until the yeast is dissolved. Add the rest of the water, the whole white wheat flour, the all-purpose wheat flour and salt and stir until the dough begins to release the sides of the bowl.

Set aside part of the dough to make the lacings later. Take about 100 grams of the dough (about a half cup’s worth) with wet hands and place it in a separate smaller bowl. Cover the small bowl with a damp cloth and set aside in a warm place.

Now add gravy color or roasted malt flour to the large bowl and stir until it is evenly distributed. Finally, add the rye flour to the large bowl and knead the dough until it becomes elastic. Let this main piece of dough stand covered in a warm place and rise for 1½ hours.

Gently tip the main dough onto a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and form the dough into an oval with slightly pointed ends, again gently. Smooth the upper side of the dough, stroking it with wet hands. Let the dough rise for another 30 minutes. When the dough has risen again, brush it gently with the beaten egg.

(This is a good time to preheat the oven if you haven’t done so already. The original Danish recipe called for a convection oven preheated to 200°C. A little Googling leads us to believe this would be just under 400°F in a convection oven, or about 425°F in a regular oven.)

Take the smaller, light-colored dough and stretch and roll it into a long flat strip using plenty of flour on your working surface. The strip should be about 5mm (about ¼”) thick. Cut the strip into lacings and place it on the bread, as shown in the picture. Place the bread in a preheated oven. Baking time 25 minutes (convection) to 35 minutes (regular oven).

Keep an eye on the bread along the way. If the laces get too brown, they can be covered with a piece of baking parchment.

Serve the bread with your favorite foods, as in the picture. Our favorites included coleslaw, pulled chicken, ketchup, pickles and chili. (Andreas Skovmand Agesen)