Bread Many artisan bakers produce their own yeast with a growth culture. If kept in the right conditions, it provides leavening for many years. The baker's yeast and sourdough methods follow the same pattern. Water is mixed with flour, salt and the leavening agent. Other additions (spices, herbs, fats, seeds, fruit, etc.) are not needed to bake bread, but are often used. The mixed dough is then allowed to rise one or more times (a longer rising time results in more flavor, so bakers often "punch down" the dough and let it rise again), then loaves are formed, and (after an
Finnish bread traditional in Finland, and it makes the best of the humidity preserving qualities of traditional rye bread by serving each piece of bread as a pre-cut pair of two halves, which protect each other but can still be easily separated. The brand is not without competitors. Two of them are Fazer's "Ruispuikulat" (a newer competitor), which are oblong in shape instead, and Oululainen's "Reissumies" (preceding Vaasa's formulation by about a decade), which are round. Both competitors are distinctly more traditional in formulation than Ruispala, mainly changing the size and shape of the traditional rye bread. As rye bread is the