High Altitude Julekake (Norwegian Christmas Bread)

Soft and fluffy, high altitude julekake, made with yeast dough spiced with cardamom and fresh orange zest, sweetened with dried cranberries and apricots. This traditional Norwegian Christmas bread is wonderful toasted and buttered, or used for French toast and bread pudding.

You might also love these high altitude recipes for stollen (German Christmas bread), panettone (Italian Christmas bread) and brunsviger (Danish coffee cake).

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What is Julekake?

Julekake or julebrød is a traditional Norwegian Christmas bread. There are similar variations throughout the Scandinavian countries, with names like julekage (Danish) and julkaka (Swedish). This bread is typically made from an enriched yeast dough (enriched with butter, milk and eggs), and usually contains dried or candied fruit and citrus. The most important flavoring, though, is cardamom, and the earthy woody aroma of the cardamom perfectly complements the subtle sweetness of the fruit in this soft, fluffy white bread.

While julekake is wonderful enjoyed while it’s a little warm from the oven, the leftover bread is also fantastic toasted and slathered with butter and jam. If you have any stale bread leftover a few days later, you can use it for making French toast and bread pudding. You might even consider using it in your Thanksgiving stuffing.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Beautiful Rise. If you’ve been frustrated with your bread making at high altitude, you’ll love making this gorgeous loaf of julekake. It rises spectacularly, and the deep golden crust on top is truly beautiful.

Versatile Recipe. Customize this recipe with any variety of dried or candied fruit or spices.

High Altitude Tested. I develop all the recipes on my site for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet. If you’re at a lower or higher elevation, please see my FAQs for guidance on adjusting recipes for your altitude.

See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.

Ingredients

• Dried Fruit. I prefer dried fruit over candied, since the flavor is better and it’s not so sweet. I used dried cranberries and apricots in my julekake, but you could also use others that you have on hand. Dried cherries, apples, raisins, pineapple, mango, crystallized ginger, would be good, to name a few.
• Milk. Use whole milk for richness and moisture.
• Yeast. My preferred yeast for bread making is Red Star Platinum Premium Instant Yeast.
• Sugar. Just a few tablespoons of granulated sugar adds a hint of sweetness to the bread.
• Flour. Preferably, use bread flour (high protein flour) instead of all purpose flour, for a chewier texture.
• Salt. Adds flavor.
• Spices. You’ll need ground cardamom, but I also added a little ground nutmeg and vanilla extract for extra flavor.
• Orange Zest. This bread typically calls for candied orange peel, but I left this out and used fresh orange zest instead. I don’t like an overwhelming orange flavor, so I only used one teaspoon, but feel free to add more if you like a lot of orange flavor.
• Butter + Egg. Adds moisture and richness to the bread.

Instructions

Simmer the Dried Fruit

• In a saucepan, combine the dried cranberries, apricots and water. Bring to a boil, then turn off the heat and let the fruit soak in the water for several minutes.
• Drain the water, but save it for the dough.

Activate the Yeast

• In a saucepan, combine the milk and the water you soaked the fruit in. Heat the liquid over medium heat until it reaches between 110-115 F. If the temperature is hotter or colder, the yeast won’t be properly activated.
• Remove the saucepan from the heat. Sprinkle the yeast and 1 tsp of the sugar over the milk mixture and stir it in. Let it stand for about 5 minutes, until it becomes foamy and bubbly.

Mix and Knead the Dough

• Meanwhile, in the bowl of your stand mixer, combine 3 cups of the flour with the rest of the sugar, salt, orange zest, cardamom and nutmeg. Add the milk/yeast mixture, butter, egg, vanilla, and the dried fruit, and stir together to form a soft, sticky dough.
• Attach the bowl to your stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. Knead the dough for 10 minutes on medium low speed, gradually adding the remaining 1 cup flour. As the dough kneads and absorbs the flour, it will form sort of a “torpedo” of dough around the dough hook, and the dough will pull away from the sides of the bowl, although it may still stick to the bottom of the bowl. The dough should be soft, supple and spring back when gently touched. Don’t add more flour than stated in the recipe, or your bread will end up too dense.

Let the dough rise.

• Lightly grease a large bowl and place the dough in the bowl. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Set in a warm place to rise until doubled in size. It should take about 30-60 minutes. If your oven has a “bread proof” setting, use this. Otherwise, preheat the oven on to the lowest setting, then turn it off before you set the dough inside to proof.
• Prepare a small pullman loaf pan by brushing the bottom and sides lightly with butter. If you don’t have a small pullman loaf pan, you can make two smaller loaves using two standard 9×5 inch bread loaf pans.

Shape and rest the dough.

• When the dough has doubled in size, lightly flour a clean work surface. Gently deflate the dough by scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula, then turn the dough out into the floured counter.
• Use a rolling pin (or just press the dough with your hands) to roll out the dough into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick, with a width that’s equivalent to the length of your loaf pan. Roll up the dough into a log, and place it in the prepared loaf pan, with the seam of the dough facing down against the bottom of the pan, and the ends tucked down.

• Set the pan in a warm place to let the dough rest and puff up for about 20-30 minutes while the oven preheats. The dough should just reach the top of the pan. Note that this bread has significant oven spring, meaning it will continue to rise higher as it bakes.
• Instead of baking the bread in a loaf pan, you can also shape it into more traditional round free-form loaves. To do this, line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Divide the dough into two equal portions, and shape each portion into a round loaf or boule. Place the loaves on the baking sheet, and let rest for 20-30 minutes while the oven preheats.

Bake the bread.

• While the dough is resting, preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven.
• For the egg wash, whisk together the egg with 1 tbsp milk. Brush the egg wash over the top of the dough; this will give the bread a beautiful golden brown shine as it bakes.
• Bake the bread for about 50-60 minutes (for one large loaf) or 35-45 minutes (for two smaller loaves, until the top is a deep golden brown, and an instant read digital thermometer inserted into the center reaches 190-195 degrees Fahrenheit. If the top of the bread is browning too much before the center is cooked, lay a piece of aluminum foil over the bread to keep it from browning any more.
• Remove the bread from the pan and set on a wire cooling rack. Cool for about 1-2 hours before slicing with a sharp serrated knife. Julekake is fantastic eaten slightly warm or toasted, with butter or jam.

Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!

Frequently Asked Questions

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