Pine bark bread

Recently, I delved into my family history to find out how my family members fared during the Great Famine of 1867-1868. During those years, my family members must have survived on flour substitutes. The most common substitute for rye flour was pine bark. I wanted to find out how the pine bark bread tasted, so I harvested pine bark and baked famine bread!

Collecting pine bark

Pine bark flour is called pettu in Finnish. Note that you need the land-owner’s permission to collect pettu. In my case, I enlisted the help of my father to fell a suitable pine tree from my parents’ land.

The actual edible layer is under the brown outer bark. This edible inner layer is white and it transports water and nutrients up the tree. This layer is typically easy to separate in spring. In autumn, however, we had to carefully pry it off with our knives. One small pine tree gave plenty of pettu for many experiments.

After collecting, the inner bark darkens and turns sticky.

Processing pettu

To remove stomach-irritating substances in pettu, it must be roasted. In the oven, pettu darkens and dries. (I’m sorry, I don’t remember the exact temperature. Maybe 200 degrees Celsius?)

After this, the slices are ground into flour. A modern mixer will do nicely! You’ll have to be patient and feed slices into mixer in small amounts, but the result was good. To remove any bigger pieces, I sieved the flour.

Baking pine bark bread

The easiest way to bake pine bark bread is to use rye flour with the starter included. You’ll also need water, yeast, some salt if you want – and of course, pine bark flour. Think how much pettu you want to have. 10 % pettu bread is quite safe to eat. None of us noticed any irritation and 10 % pettu bread is even sold in some special bakeries. If you go any higher, be careful! We baked also 30 % and 50 % pettu bread but only to taste – I don’t recommend eating any bigger amounts of those.

Mix the yeast in lukewarm water. Measure the pettu flour and mix it in. Mix and cover with a cloth for at least an hour. Bake into a flat bread with a hole in the middle. Stick some holes in the bread with a fork or a toothpick. If you want, you can cut the bread into slices, too. Lift the bread to the baking paper and cover it with a cloth. Let rise for half an hour. Brush the surface with water before baking. Bake at 250 degrees Celsius for about 25 minutes.

Serve the pine bark bread with butter!

I hope you found this post interesting! Drop a comment if you have ever tasted pine bark bread or are planning to bake some! See you soon!

Katja