Funnel cakes for May day--Tippaleipä

The first of May, or vappu as it is called in Finnish, is a huge celebration.  The entire country celebrates with street festivals.  The most traditional food for this celebration is funnel cakes, and these are enjoyed with sima, a lemon-flavored mead.  I'm making these a few days early as a surprise for the kids when they come home from school--that way I'll have the photos to post this so you can make them for May 1, too!

I based my recipe on the one in the Finnish Cookbook by Beatrice Ojakangas.  I doubled the recipe because yeast batter keeps well in the refrigerator and you can always make waffles out of the extra for breakfast tomorrow!  For the funnel cakes, you need:

4 eggs
2 cups of warm milk
1 tablespoon sugar
1 package dry yeast (2.25 teaspoons)
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups flour

Oil for frying

First, warm the milk but don't get it too hot or it will kill the yeast.  Break the eggs in a very large bowl and stir them to break the yolks.  Stir in the warm milk, sugar and yeast.  Add the salt and about half of the flour.  Stir this well--I didn't bother using the stand mixer for this because the batter is much easier to mix than a bread dough.  Then I stirred in the rest of the flour, and continued to stir until it was fully combined.  Next, the recipe said to let it stand in a warm place for about an hour.  Since I have several hours before the kids come home, I just left it on the counter so it would rise more slowly.  After it doubled, I put it in the refrigerator to wait for the school bus to come.  Watch the dough carefully, if it rises too much, you may need to stir it to knock it back down.  Look at how much the batter rose before the kids started coming home!

Instead of using a funnel, I used a gallon-sized plastic baggie, and put some batter in it.  I snipped the corner (be careful--the hole doesn't have to be very big!) and used that to squeeze the batter into the hot oil.

To fry the batter, heat oil in a heavy skillet until it sizzles when a small drop of water is dripped in it.  I used canola oil in an old cast iron skillet.  Never leave oil unattended while you are frying!

Squeeze in the dough, it will brown almost instantly.  Flip it with a fork, and let the other side brown also.

When both sides are brown, use the fork to take out the pastry and set it on a plate covered with a few layers of paper towels to drain.  I always use plain white paper towels for this.  Sprinkle on some powdered sugar and eat immediately!  I wish the Sima was finished to drink with these...

Cinnamon buns--Kaneli pulla (korvapuustit)

Yesterday I made Finnish cinnamon buns, they are very good with coffee.  They are not as sweet and gooey as their American counterparts, and they have a light cardamon flavor.

These are the ingredients to make 40 buns:

2 packets yeast (4 1/2 teaspoons if you buy in bulk like I do!)
150 grams butter (10 1/2 Tablespoons)
5 dl milk (2 cups)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cardamon
1 egg
about 1 1/2 liter flour  (about 6 cups)

for the filling:
75 g butter (1/2 cup)
1 dl sugar (1/2 cup)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Topping:
1/2 of a beaten egg to brush on before baking
pearl sugar


First, I melted the butter and put it into my stand mixer bowl.  Then I heated the milk in the microwave until it was lukewarm.  Then I sprinkled the yeast on top.  The salt, sugar, cardamon and egg were also mixed in well.

Next, the flour was added a little at a time.  This is what the dough looked like after I had added 3 cups of flour, mixing after each addition:

After 4 cups of flour and scraped down the edge of the bowl with a spatula, it looked like this:

At 5 cups, it looked like this:

The dough pulled away from the sides at 5 1/2 cups, I let it knead in the machine a little longer, but didn't add any more flour.  The dough has an incredible feeling, it is warm and soft, don't add too much flour or it will get too stiff and won't rise as well.

I moved the dough to a lightly greased, non-metal bowl to rise.  Never leave the dough to rise in a metal bowl, it just doesn't work as well.  A sprinkle of flour on top, and I covered it and put it in a warm place.  I used my warming drawer on the proof setting, but it also works well to turn the oven on as low as possible, let it heat up, then turn it off and put the bowl of dough in.  Or find a heating register in a place where it won't be disturbed.  At our house, it would be difficult to find somewhere it would be safe!

It was supposed to rise for about 40 minutes, but we were busy rewiring the internet cable in our house, and it rose a little longer!  Look how big it got:

I punched it down, it was still warm and soft, very relaxing to work with.

After dumping the rest of the flour (1/2 cup) onto the clean counter, I cut the dough in half and rolled each half out into a large rectangle, about 14x28 inches (or 20x40 cm).

To make the filling, I melted the butter and added the sugar and cinnamon.  If the butter had been well-softened, I wouldn't have melted it, but I forgot to lay it out earlier.  It doesn't seem to matter much if you melt the butter, but if it is too hard, the filling won't spread well.

After spreading the filling on the rectangles, I rolled them up along the long side (making a long, thin roll).

There are different options cutting them, the first I did was what is called korvapuustit in Finnish.  Cut the rolled dough on an angle, making every other angle the opposite direction:

Half of the buns will be right-side up, and the other half will need to be turned over so that the narrow edge is at the top.  Take a knife and smash in the top like this:

Each bun should look like this:

Another shape can be made by cutting the dough straight, then cutting two slits in the dough which don't go all the way through.

Open the attached pieces slightly, and lay them on their side, and you get kind of a bear claw shape like this:

You can also just cut the dough straight and lay the pieces on their sides.  I used a very sharp serrated steak knife to cut, it worked well.

Move all of the buns to a cookie sheet that has been prepared with parchment (or you could grease it).  Cover them again and let them rise about 20-30 minutes until they double in size.  This dough rises so well, I'm not sure that it took even 20 minutes!

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit (250 Cesius).

Brush the buns with beaten egg and sprinkle with pearl sugar.  Bake for about 8-10 minutes, watch them carefully!  Theoretically, they should cool under a clean dishcloth.  I don't think my family has ever let these get completely cool, they are incredible straight from the oven!

But if you are able to make a few extra, these keep for about 3-4 days.  Or make extra and freeze them to have on hand when guests come for coffee, as is very popular in Finland.  My kids have already learned that "coffee" in Finland means that there will be plenty of good treats to eat!

Jam-filled Croissants -- Hillosarvet

Jam-filled Finnish croissants with strawberries

I woke up this morning sure that it was Fat Tuesday, and ready to bake the most delicious, almond-paste filled traditional Finnish Fat Tuesday buns.  But then I realized that Easter is not until the end of April this year, and it is two more weeks until Fat Tuesday.  My wonderful artist friend who is always looking on the bright side, Tammy from Painted by Tammy pointed out that I could practice making them today, an excellent idea.  But when I was looking in my favorite baking book for the recipe, I saw this one, and decided to delay the Fat Tuesday buns by at least a week.

Fortunately, my baking book is totally in Finnish, and the name of the recipe literally means "jelly horns."  If I had seen the word croissant on the page, I might have been intimidated and not tried these wonderful pastries!  "Jelly horns" sound so much easier to make, don't they?

I've had a suggestion (mainly from my Mom!) that it would be nice if I change my "cook along" format and put the recipe at the top of the page.  One reason I haven't done that up until now is because I feel strongly that you should read the entire recipe before starting to cook, and sometimes I even find myself cooking from the ingredients list.  But today I will compromise.  I made twice the amount from Parhaat Leivonnaiset, here are the amounts I used:

2 packets yeast (2 1/2 teaspoons) or 50 g
13 Tablespoons of butter or 200 g
1 cup milk or 2 dl
3 Tablespoons sugar
a couple dashes of salt
about 4 cups of flour or 10 dl
strawberry jam for filling
egg to brush with
pearl sugar or almond slices to garnish

First, I warmed up the milk in the microwave.  About a minute in my microwave made it tepid, but not hot.  If it is too hot, it will kill the yeast.  Next, melt the butter and mix the milk and butter together.

Add the yeast to this, and the mixture will start to bubble.  Add the sugar and salt at this point, and dissolve the yeast.  The sugar is food for the yeast, and the salt limits the yeast's growth.

I used the bread hook on my stand mixer to add in about 3 1/2 cups of the flour, 1/2 cup at a time.  After  the dough pulled away from the sides, I kept mixing for a few more minutes.

This is what the dough looked like when I turned it out into the bowl.  Very shiny from all the butter!  It was very warm and soft, just as it should be.

Sprinkle some flour on top, and cover with a clean dishcloth.  Let it rise in a warm place for about 40 minutes.  I used my warming drawer on proof setting.  Before we had pets, I would let dough rise on a heat register.  Heating the oven to the lowest setting and then turning it off also makes a great place to let dough rise.  Make sure to let the dough rise in a bowl that is not metal.  An insulating bowl (such as glass, plastic, or even wood) helps the rising process.

Here is what the dough looked like after 40 minutes, so soft!

I put the rest of the flour out on the counter and punched down the dough.

Then I cut the dough into 4 equal pieces.  Sorry that this photo shows it only cut in half...I was cooking along with the original recipe, and forgot for a minute that I was actually making a double recipe!

I rolled each of the four pieces into about a 9 inch (24 cm) circle:

Then I cut each circle into 8 pieces and put on a dab of jam.  I used strawberry, you could experiment and use different types, for example orange marmelade or any other thick jam.

To roll them, start with the largest side:

and finish by tucking the "tail" underneath.

Put the pastries on a cookie sheet that is either greased or lined with parchment paper.  Cover them with a clean dishtowel and let them rise for another 40 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit (250 C).  Brush the pastries with a beaten egg.  If you don't have a clean pastry brush, or just to save cleaning, you can use a folded paper towel to rub the beaten egg on the pastries.

These are sprinkled with pearl sugar, you could also use sliced almonds on top.  Pearl sugar doesn't melt while baking, and you can get it at Ikea or from Amazon:

  

Bake for 5-7 minutes.  The recipe says that they are best eaten warm from the oven.  

The also says to let them cool while covered by a towel.  We wouldn't know about the cooling part...I put them in the oven as soon as the kids started getting home, and was barely able to take photos before they were devoured!  We'll be making "jelly horns" again soon!

Pulla-Bulle Cardamon buns

I love to bake Finnish breads, and these little buns are delicious.  They are lightly sweet with a delicate cardamom flavor.  You can find these everywhere in Finland, they are very traditional.  I baked a couple of batches yesterday to give to friends and for my family to eat on this cold, snowy day.

50g cake yeast = 1 packet dry yeast

150 g butter =1 and a half sticks

5 dl milk =2 cups

half tsp salt

1 dl sugar = quarter cup

2 tsp fresh ground cardamom

about 1 and a half liters flour = 6 cups

Melt butter and warm milk (98 F).  Add yeast and stir.  Add salt, sugar and cardamom.  Stir in flour until dough pulls away from bowl.  Let rise covered in a warm place until about double (30-40 minutes).  Knead in rest of flour.  Divide dough (64 small pieces, divide in half, in half again, in half again …) Shape each piece into a rope and tie in a knot.  Let rise again, covered (about 20 minutes).  Brush with egg and sprinkle with sugar.  Bake at 450F for 5-10 minutes (Do not overbake).


I use pearl sugar to sprinkle on top, it looks a lot like pretzel salt and holds up to baking. 

This recipe is adapted from the book Parhaat Leivonnaiset, OTAVA 1993 ISBN 951-1-1804-8, my absolute favorite baking book! 

When I was an exchange student, one of the girls didn't realize at first that there are two official languages in Finland, Finnish and Swedish.  When you go into a coffee shop, everything is labeled twice, usually first in Finnish, then in Swedish.  These delicious traditional sweet buns are "pulla" in Finnish, "bulle" in Swedish, but she always ordered "pulla-bulle."

Interestingly enough, people who are "pleasantly plump" in Finland would be called pulla.  I've always wondered if this was because of the shape of the buns or the amount of butter!