Baking Bread with Lava in Iceland

Siggi Rafn Hilmarsson is an Icelandic baker with an interesting technique. He buries his dough 16 inches underground where it actually bakes from the natural heat generated by Iceland's volcanic hot springs. Why doesn't Siggi just use a conventional oven? Come on. His method is WAY cooler.

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(playful string music)

[Narrator]
Siggi Rafn Hilmarsson

is an Icelandic baker

with an unconventional oven.

He bakes bread by
burying it underground,

where it's heated for 24 hours

by nearby hot springs.

[Siggi] It's very common
to see hot springs

here in Iceland.

There is constant lava
crawling under us.

This lava is heating up water,

and this water comes
boiling up on the surface.

We could put it in the oven,

but this is much more fun.

[Narrator]
Iceland is one of the most

volcanic regions
in the world,

with 30 active volcanoes
at any one time.

That helps create an
abundance of hot springs,

some with boiling
hot water,

and Siggi uses them
to his advantage.

He specializes
in baking hverabraud,

a traditional Icelandic
rye bread recipe

that dates back
hundreds of years.

I know for sure that
in this village,

I can track it down as far
as late 1800 something.

My grandmother taught my
mother how to bake this bread,

and my mother taught me.

In the hot spring rye bread
recipe we have

rye, flour, sugar, baking
powder, salt, and milk.

We put this in a pot,
we put butter in the pot,

then we wrap it
with plastic foil

and we put it down in our
hot spring hole for 24 hours.

It's very obvious to see if
the ground is hot or not.

I never use a thermometer.

If I need to check the heat,
I just use this one.

Our biggest
challenge is rain.

If it rains a lot, these
holes that we are using

can cool down, and if
they are not hot enough,

obviously the bread
doesn't bake completely.

Everybody eats our bread:
our visitors, the locals.

Hot spring rye bread
has a unique taste

that you don't get
from ovens.

The texture of this
bread is quite special.

It's quite heavy, it's not
the typical light bread.

When you show this to travelers
that come to Iceland and

you see their faces,
they go "Wow!",

then you start to think that
this is quite amazing, actually.