Finnish Sweet Buns, or Pulla

A lot of things have happened in my kitchen since my last post.

First of all, at about 7PM on Christmas Eve, just as I was baking some Christmas loaves, my oven and stove suddenly broke. I had to wait five days until we finally got them repaired! In the meantime, I did a lot of microwave cooking - I had no idea the device could be used for so many different purposes. I even baked a sourdough loaf in microwave oven... (I do NOT recommend it, though; but microwave bread is anyway better than no bread at all...). Anyway, I wasn't very convinced - and will continue to use my microwave oven mostly to melt butter and chocolate :)

Secondly, the warehouse where I've got a lot of my family's stuff stored is going to close next month. So I spent one entire day going through many things I haven't seen in years, thinking what to keep, what to give away or sell, and what to put straight to the garbage. One of the nicest surprises were my old cookbooks, from about 30 years ago! I was super happy to be able to give them to my kids.

It seems that those old recipe books have not lost their interest... During the two past days, my kitchen has been under the invasion of cute halflings dressed in aprons, baking the most delicious findings from those old books! Like these traditional Finnish sweet bun "boys" (pullapoika) from yesterday.

For the dough you need:

• 250ml hand-warm milk or water


• 25g fresh yeast


• 100ml sugar


• 1 tsp salt


• 1-2 tsp cardamom


• about 700ml all-purpose flour


• 100g softened butter (f0r a vegan version, use margarine)

To decorate:

• raisins


• almonds


• 1 egg (for a vegan version, use vegan milk for brushing)

The method:

Crumble the yeast and place in a baking bowl. Pour the hand-warm milk in the bowl and stir until dissolved. Add sugar, salt, and cardamom. Then, add flour gradually stirring with your hand until the dough is smooth but still sticky. Lastly, add the softened butter and knead the dough until it's smooth and elastic. Add more flour if needed. (My halflings didn't knead the dough at all, yet their buns turned out perfect. Just telling you this in case you're feeling lazy ;) )

Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and let ferment until doubled in size, or about 1 hour.

Pour the dough onto a baking surface and beat the air out of it. Shape as you wish, decorate with raisins and almonds, and proof about 15 minutes. Brush with egg and bake in a preheated oven (200C) until your buns are golden brown.

Sweet buns are best eaten when they are still a bit warm - is there anything better in this world than warm home-made pulla?

The Last Stretch: Raspberry Truffles and Soft Toffee Candies

I bet a lot less sweets would be eaten if everyone made their own candy: first, it takes quite a lot of time, and second, you really get to see what goes in them! The amount of sugar and fat is just beyond imagination.

But hey, it's Christmas, so we don't really care! (Do we ever? ;) )

Anyway, today I made the last stretch to complete my reverse advent's calendar and prepared two different sweets. First, raspberry truffles that featured in the Finnish Elle magazine a few years ago, and second, soft toffee candies from a really old cookbook I've lost a long time ago. Luckily, a friend still has a copy and e-mailed me the recipe!

To make about 25 truffles you need:

• 300g semi-sweet dark chocolate (I used a 66% one)


• 25g butter


• 25ml heavy cream


• 100ml frozen or fresh raspberries


• 1 Tbsp sugar


• plus cocoa powder, for dusting

And this is how to proceed:

Place the chocolate, butter, and cream either in bain-marie or in a micro-wave-proof bowl. Heat the mixture so that the butter and chocolate melt. Stir well. In a small saucepan, bring the raspberries and the sugar to the boil. Let boil 2-3 minutes or until the liquid has almost disappeared (especially frozen raspberries contain lots of water!). Pour the raspberry mixture into the chocolate mixture, stir, and let cool in the fridge until it's hard enough to handle.

Then, take small teaspoons of the mixture and form into balls. Cover each truffle with cocoa powder ( I rolled them in a small bowl containing cocoa powder). Place your truffles on a plate and let cool again, either in a cool room temperature or in the fridge. Store in a tin box - but not for a long time! Truffles have to be eaten within 2-3 days ;)

And this is what you need to make about 50-60 small toffee candies:

• 100g butter


• 200ml molasses


• 200ml heavy cream


• 300ml sugar


• 1 Tbsp cocoa powder

This is how to proceed:

Melt the butter in a heavy pan. Add molasses, cream, sugar, and cocoa powder. Stir well and bring to the boil. Let simmer over medium heat for about 35 minutes. Stir once in a while - especially towards the end.

Pour the toffee-to-be on a large plate covered with a parchment paper. Let cool in room temperature until the toffee is hard enough to be cut in pieces. You can also cool it in the fridge to make things go faster - my fridge was full of Christmas food and my balcony full of snow, but I wasn't in a hurry. (I wrapped the gifts in the meantime!)

Toffee candies should be wrapped individually in small (tin) papers, because they are somewhat sticky.

Now my advent's calendar is accomplished, and I wish you all a merry Christmas!

Day 21: Sweet Christmas Bread, Finnish Style

You remember I wrote in my previous post about one almost never coming to think of recipes that wouldn't already exist? The following is the exception justifying the use of almost; at least I couldn't find anything similar with a quick Google research.

The first bread I ever baked from scratch was a Finnish Christmas loaf, and, if my memory is to be trusted, it turned out perfect. It was the classical recipe from the best-known traditional Finnish cookbook, Kotiruoka, or Home Cooking. It's baked with molasses, fennel, bitter orange peel, and caraway seeds - and lots of yeast. Which is the reason why I wanted to modify the recipe, to be baked with sourdough starter instead of yeast.

The result was the most delicious and moist loaf ever! (If you happen to like sweet bread and anise taste, that is. I'm the only one in my family who does! More bread for me......!)

This is what you need for two loaves:

• 200g sourdough starter (on the stiffer side)


• 400g buttermilk


• 200g rye flour


• 200g spelt flour


• 200g all-purpose flour


• 12g salt


• 100ml molasses, divided


• 1tsp aniseed or fennel seeds (I couldn't FIND my fennel seeds, so I used aniseed instead)


• 1tsp bitter orange peel


• 1tsp caraway seeds


• plus some more fennel and caraway seeds for the topping

Combine starter, all three flours, and buttermilk in a baking bowl. Stir so that the flour gets moist and let stand about 20 minutes. In the meantime, combine 60ml of the molasses, the orange peel and slightly crushed fennel (or aniseed) and caraway seeds in a small saucepan. Bring to the boil and remove from heat.

Now, add salt and the molasses mixture into the baking bowl. Knead about 10 minutes or until you have an elastic, smooth dough. I had to add some water because my flour was very thirsty (whole-grain rye and spelt flour tend to be...).

Cover the dough with a damp kitchen towel and let ferment overnight, or about 8 hours.

After the fermentation, beat the dough about 2 minutes and divide it into two parts. Proof each loaf in a proofing basket about 1 hour.

Transfer the loaves on a baking tray and brush with the rest of the molasses (add about 1 Tbsp water to make it liquid enough for brushing) and sprinkle with some seeds.

Bake in 225C for about 15 minutes, then turn the heat down to about 180C and bake until thoroughly cooked, about 45 more minutes. This bread burns easily, so check every once in a while. If necessary, cover the loaves with a wet parchment paper.

Let cool and enjoy with lots of butter!

P.S. I baked this bread now twice with sourdough starter, and the oven spring with the first batch was incredible: first, the loaves didn't seem to rise at all, but suddenly they had turned into small "volcanoes"! The second batch didn't turn out that pretty - but just as delicious ;)

P.P.S. I baked these loaves yesterday but didn't have time to write the post. Today, I'm going to bake Linzer Schnitten - among my favourite Plätzchen! And then - two more days to go!!

 

 

Day 20: Christmas Jello Cubes

When I was a kid, my mom used to make jello cubes in different colours and flavours around the Christmas time. I remember how much fun it was to cut those colourful cubes and toss them in sugar - and get to taste quite a few at the same time! What made the whole thing so special was that back in the 80's, all those ingredients (agar, colouring agents, aromas) had to be bought at the pharmacy.

What wasn't fun was the horrible stench of cooking agar. I didn't want to be anywhere near our kitchen when the cooking part was done! Somehow this didn't seem to bother my mom. And funny enough, it didn't bother me now - one more sign that I'm not getting younger ;)

The other night, I was lying in my bed and couldn't sleep. Suddenly I remembered those jello cubes - and had an inspiration: what if I made ones with glögg, or a Christmas drink popular all over Scandinavia? I had to get up and check if someone had already come up with that idea - and, as (almost) always is the case, I found two recipes for glögg jello cubes. I tried this one, and the result is awesome!

For about 34 smallish jello cubes you need:

• 250 ml water


• 250 ml sugar


• 7,5g agar


• 100ml glögg concentrate (I used my favourite brand, Marli) - or any other syrup of your liking


• plus some extra sugar for tossing the cubes

This is how to do it:

Place water, sugar, and agar in a sauce pan. Bring to the boil and let simmer, constantly stirring it, until all of the agar has dissolved and the liquid thickens. According to the agar package I used, this should have taken 5-10 minutes. The recipe said 30 minutes. I cooked mine for about 20 minutes, but this was clearly too little - all of the agar hadn't dissolved yet.

Then add the glögg concentrate (or syrup) and stir. Remove from heat. Pour the mixture in a rectangular recipient (about 10cm times 20cm), the bottom of which you have covered with a piece of parchment paper. Let cool in the fridge or outside until completely set.

When the jello is set, reverse it on a working surface and remove the parchment paper. Cut the jello in cubes about 2cm times 2cm. Toss the cubes in sugar and place on a plate. Let dry for a few hours and store. If you can resist eating them before, that is!

Day 18: Stars, Moons, and One More Log

Today, I baked two of the most beloved Plätzchen: Vanillekipferl and Zimtsterne. Vanilla crescents and cinnamon stars, that is! For the stars I used the recipe from last year, but for the vanilla crescents I tried a traditional German recipe that I couldn't make work last year. Only this time, I was equipped with a special form for this kind of cookies, and that made all the difference; the cookies turned out impeccable!

So here's the recipe to try if you've got that Kipferl form at your disposal:

In a bowl, combine 100g ground almonds, 50g sugar, 150g all-purpose flour, 8g vanilla sugar, and a pinch of salt (if the butter you're using is unsalted). Add 150g butter cut in small cubes, and rub the flour in the dry ingredients until you can form a ball with the dough! Take small amounts of the dough (about 12g) and form long sticks. Bend them to fit in the Kipferl form. Bake in a preheated oven (150C) about 20 minutes or until well cooked but not brown yet. Let the cookies cool a bit and very, very carefully transfer them on a serving plate. They break very easily at this point! Sprinkle some confectioner's sugar on top and enjoy one of the best things ever invented in Germany ;)



In addition, I felt confident enough to make one more Christmas log; the feedback this morning was overwhelmingly positive! This time, I added 1 Tbsp extra strong instant coffee in the butter icing - sublime! I also used potato starch in the batter instead of all-purpose flour (a bit less than half the amount) and the Swiss roll came out just the way it should. I was planning to freeze the log, but my kids convinced me to serve it tomorrow for their dad's birthday. Oh well, maybe I'll have to make a third one this year..

 

Day 17: Chocolate Yule Log

Today, I didn't bake anything for my reverse Advent's calendar.

Instead, I finally made one of my dreams come true: I baked a real bûche de Noël, or a Yule log! (How cool that the word yule exist, by the way - just like jul in Swedish!) Theoretically, I could have kept it for our Christmas dinner - according to some recipes I read, a Yule log can be frozen up to three months.

But this one is going to a very special purpose: a class I'm teaching is going to eat it tomorrow - it's their last French class before their Christmas holidays... Hope they'll be as thrilled as my kids who got to eat the test version today - and made me promise we'll have one for the Christmas dinner as well ;)

At the same time, I got the chance two other things I had never done before: making a real ganache and butter icing - how can I have missed these two this long?! Well, now I know how to make them!

The following recipe is for one log. It's adapted from this recipe - I browsed a lot of different ones, and somehow this seemed perfect. And it was...

I made double this portion, and used about 1/4 to make a small test version, and the rest to build a very big log! I'd say one portion is big enough for 10 people.

I had some serious problems in getting the Swiss roll done properly: it broke in several places when I tried to roll it in. Luckily, everything is covered with that butter icing, so no-one will see that. Anyway, I'd be thankful for some tips about how to make a perfect Swiss roll!

This is what you need for the Swiss roll:

• 4 eggs


• 3/4 cup sugar


• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour


• 1/4 cup cocoa powder


• 1 tsp baking powder


• 3 Tbsp melted butter

For the ganache:

• 180ml heavy cream


• 180g dark chocolate (about 60% or so)

For the butter icing:

• 1 cup butter, softened


• 1,5 cups confectioner's sugar


• 3 Tbsp cocoa powder


• + a bit of heavy cream, if needed

For the decoration:

• marzipan figures


• confectioner's sugar

First, prepare the ganache. Bring the cream to the boil in a saucepan, remove from heat, and add the chopped chocolate. Stir until the chocolate melts. Place in a cool place - this time of the year, even my room temperature was cool enough! Fridge is not a good option, though; try a cold-water bath instead if your house is warmer than mine. Let the ganache-to-be stand about one hour. Then beat the mixture until it gets fluffy and somewhat less dark. This took about 7 minutes with my spiral whisk!

Then it's time to prepare the Swiss roll. Combine flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder in a bowl. Set aside. Beat the eggs and the sugar in another bowl until the mixture is pale and thick. Add sifted flour mixture and the butter and stir until well combined. Pour the batter on an oven tray covered with a parchment paper. Leave a margin on all sides. My cake was about 35cm times 25cm.

Bake in a preheated oven (200C) about 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. In the meantime, place another parchment paper on a baking tray. Sprinkle some sugar on it. Once you take the cake out, reverse it immediately on the sugar-covered parchment paper. Remove the original paper and roll the cake in, starting from the side closer to you. (Like I told you, mine broke in several places. I have no idea what went wrong!) Let the cake cool while you prepare the butter icing.

Soften the butter and beat it until it gets creamy and fluffy. Then add sifted confectioner's sugar and cocoa powder, and rub them in the butter. Add some cream if needed (I didn't need any, but then again, I just couldn't use all of the sugar amount either! It felt horribly over-sweet as it was - with maybe 3/4 of the sugar amount of the original recipe!).

When the ganache and the butter icing are ready and the cake has cooled to room temperature, it's time to build the log. Roll the cake out again, spread the ganache evenly on top of it, and roll in again. Spread the butter icing on your log and, using a small spatula, create a wood-a-like surface (this was really easy with the butter icing! I just love it!). Decorate with any marzipan figures you like, and sprinkle with some confectioner's sugar. We want some snow for Christmas, don't we?!

I made my marzipan leaves and mushrooms myself. I had planned to buy them, but, well, maybe I just don't know the right places to go in Helsinki - or there aren't any available. At least I couldn't find any. So equipped with some natural-coloured marzipan and a bottle of green and red colour I managed some mushrooms, green leaves, and red berries.

The log can be kept 2-3 days in the fridge (if it fits ;) ), or frozen.

P.S. You can flavour the ganache and the butter icing - next time, I'll use some coffee in both! Or how about orange? Or - well, just consult your Flavour Thesaurus for further ideas!



 

Day 16: Zedernbrot, or a Happy Marriage Between Lemon and Almond

The first time I tasted these very lemony, very almond-y Christmas cookies was at a friend's place. They were made by her mother-in-law, and the recipe was top-secret. I managed to convince my friend to convince her mother-in-law to give me the recipe, and the plan worked!

But here's the thing - I lost the paper on which the recipe was written.

The other recipes I've found give a good result as well - like this one I posted last year. This year, I used 100g roasted ground almonds and 100g plain ground almonds (last year only roasted almonds because that was the only organic variety I could find). I also reduced the amount of lemon juice, because last year the dough was a bit too liquid.

And I decorated my Zedernbrot cookies with some finely chopped candied lemon peel!