What do you do when you have tried food, enjoyed it but discovered that it is not quite Icelandic enough? That’s right, you put it in a volcano! Well, maybe not throwing the rye bread into an actual volcano – you could end up with well-made toast in that case – but digging it with a volcanic area is close enough. In fact, the most traditional Icelandic rye bread is baked this way. The name “hot bread” literally means “hot bread” but its other nickname “thunder” means even more exciting “thunder bread”. (Although this may be less exciting when you realize that it does not refer to the fear-inspiring factors that helped create it, but to the windfall that accompanies its excessive consumption.)
Although most Icelandic rye bread is cooked in modern ovens, there are still some bakeries that demand that nothing tastes quite as good as the ancestral method. Laugarvatns Fontana is one such place: the dough here is placed in a closed pan, fixed on foil and dug in hot sand for exactly twenty-four hours. The result is firm, chewy and sweet – a bit like gingerbread. For the most traditional combination, serve hot with melted butter, smoked trout and some hard-boiled eggs. You can cook this too in the hot spring, if you’ve adventurous and you, well … have a hot spring nearby. For the whole Zac Efron ‘Down to Earth’ experience, eat while wearing a fleece hat and say “wow!” And “awesome!” Awkwardly often.
Source: The Nordic Page