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Picture spam, eleven small images
Illustrated Pulla Baking Guide
Because of the dreary weather, the kiddos and I baked some pulla, Finnish sweet buns. The girls made, erm, things and I cinnamon rolls ("korvapuusti" = a box on the ear :D). I've noticed that the courageous foreigners having tried to make them often have trouble with the verbal description of the baking part, so in order to rectify this I baked with my camera *g*
Finnish pulla recipe
Ingredients for 24 big cinnamon rolls
4 dlmilk (~2 cups)
22 g(2 packages) dry yeast (~0.8 oz)
1egg
2 tspsalt (a tsp is the same everywhere)
1½ dlcaster sugar (~0.6 cups)
3-4 tspcardamom
(raisins)
11-12 dlflour (~5 cups)
150 gbutter (~5.3 oz)
For filling: soft butter, cinnamon, caster sugar
For sprinkling: 1 egg, coarse sugar
Procedure
Heat milk to 42C (~110F) and dissolve the yeast in it. Add egg, spices and about half of the flour. Whisk properly with a wooden fork (this is important, the dough rises better if you do it like this). Add soft butter and knead the rest of the flour into the dough using as little flour as possible. The presence of raisins in pulla always causes strong opinions for and against; I don't put any in my pulla, but for some people that's bordering a crime against the state. If you want raisins in your pulla, this is the stage to put them in the dough.
Knead the dough until it becomes smooth and even and doesn't stick to your hands.
Put the dough, covered, in a warm place to rise. The dough has risen when you poke it and it bounces back up. That should take 30-40 minutes. You should always tidy the sides of the bowl, otherwise you'll end up in trouble with your mother-in-law (ancient Finnish wisdom *g*). My dough isn't as smooth as it should be, btw, put at least I can expect my peaceful co-existence with my MIL to continue.
Roll one third of the dough into a rectangle, spread soft butter on it, and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on it. Some people use almond paste too, I don't.
Make a roll out of the rectangle and place the seam UNDER the roll. The reason for this is that when cut, the seam will be on the side of the cinnamon roll, not on top of it. The rolls will open a bit while in the oven, so if the seam is on top, it will unwind, which is bad.
Cut the roll into triangles.
And now comes the part that's hard to explain in writing. Take a roll, place it on the table so that the narrow side of the triangle is facing up and press it, twice, with the blunt side of the knife. The idea of this is to flatten the roll and make the individual layers to squeeze out a bit. It isn't necessary, but everybody knows that this is how a korvapuusti should look like *g*
Cover the rolls in a warm place and let them rise again. This is important, otherwise the rolls will be suitable for baseball only. They have risen when the dough bounces back up after you poke it with your finger.
Brush the rolls with egg (it gives them a nice colour) and sprinkle coarse sugar on top. Some people use almond flakes for that, but in my book that's unorthodox.
Bake the rolls in 225C (~440F) for about ten minutes.
Best served when still warm (if you can wait for them to cool down a bit, it's usually very, very hard *g*), with cold milk. Yum. The rolls keep for a couple of days, but a stale korvapuusti is of course not as good as a fresh one (pulla going bad is usually not a problem in this household, though...)
Variations
Instead of cinnamon rolls ("korvapuusti") the dough can be baked into round buns ("pulla")(brush with egg and sprinkle coarse sugar or almond flakes on top before baking), used as pie crust (a typical blueberry pie is made that way: roll the dough, put fresh blueberries, sugar and sour cream on top) or braided with four strands into sweet bread ("pullapitko") . A Boston cake is made by placing cinnamon rolls (possibly replacing cinnamon with cherries, raisins and nuts) sideways in a cake tin and baked. One of my favourites is curd pasties: make a dent with the bottom of a glass into a round bun and fill it with a mixture of curd, lemon juice, sugar, egg, vanilla and raisins (Easter food, that one, and curd is something Russian, and the result of this is "rahkapiirakka" that tastes like cheese cake but is tonnes healthier). Some people love "voisilmäpulla", butter-eye buns: make a hole on the top of a round bun with your finger and stuff it with a mixture made of butter, sugar and vanilla before baking them.
Milk can be replaced with water, and butter of course with margarine, crisco or even oil, and you can't really tell the difference.
The dough can be used, with limitations, as edible plasticine too(that's the reason why my kids love to bake pulla, and why we did it today):
Illustrated Pulla Baking Guide
Because of the dreary weather, the kiddos and I baked some pulla, Finnish sweet buns. The girls made, erm, things and I cinnamon rolls ("korvapuusti" = a box on the ear :D). I've noticed that the courageous foreigners having tried to make them often have trouble with the verbal description of the baking part, so in order to rectify this I baked with my camera *g*
Finnish pulla recipe
Ingredients for 24 big cinnamon rolls
4 dlmilk (~2 cups)
22 g(2 packages) dry yeast (~0.8 oz)
1egg
2 tspsalt (a tsp is the same everywhere)
1½ dlcaster sugar (~0.6 cups)
3-4 tspcardamom
(raisins)
11-12 dlflour (~5 cups)
150 gbutter (~5.3 oz)
For filling: soft butter, cinnamon, caster sugar
For sprinkling: 1 egg, coarse sugar
Procedure
Heat milk to 42C (~110F) and dissolve the yeast in it. Add egg, spices and about half of the flour. Whisk properly with a wooden fork (this is important, the dough rises better if you do it like this). Add soft butter and knead the rest of the flour into the dough using as little flour as possible. The presence of raisins in pulla always causes strong opinions for and against; I don't put any in my pulla, but for some people that's bordering a crime against the state. If you want raisins in your pulla, this is the stage to put them in the dough.
Knead the dough until it becomes smooth and even and doesn't stick to your hands.
Put the dough, covered, in a warm place to rise. The dough has risen when you poke it and it bounces back up. That should take 30-40 minutes. You should always tidy the sides of the bowl, otherwise you'll end up in trouble with your mother-in-law (ancient Finnish wisdom *g*). My dough isn't as smooth as it should be, btw, put at least I can expect my peaceful co-existence with my MIL to continue.
Roll one third of the dough into a rectangle, spread soft butter on it, and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on it. Some people use almond paste too, I don't.
Make a roll out of the rectangle and place the seam UNDER the roll. The reason for this is that when cut, the seam will be on the side of the cinnamon roll, not on top of it. The rolls will open a bit while in the oven, so if the seam is on top, it will unwind, which is bad.
Cut the roll into triangles.
And now comes the part that's hard to explain in writing. Take a roll, place it on the table so that the narrow side of the triangle is facing up and press it, twice, with the blunt side of the knife. The idea of this is to flatten the roll and make the individual layers to squeeze out a bit. It isn't necessary, but everybody knows that this is how a korvapuusti should look like *g*
Cover the rolls in a warm place and let them rise again. This is important, otherwise the rolls will be suitable for baseball only. They have risen when the dough bounces back up after you poke it with your finger.
Brush the rolls with egg (it gives them a nice colour) and sprinkle coarse sugar on top. Some people use almond flakes for that, but in my book that's unorthodox.
Bake the rolls in 225C (~440F) for about ten minutes.
Best served when still warm (if you can wait for them to cool down a bit, it's usually very, very hard *g*), with cold milk. Yum. The rolls keep for a couple of days, but a stale korvapuusti is of course not as good as a fresh one (pulla going bad is usually not a problem in this household, though...)
Variations
Instead of cinnamon rolls ("korvapuusti") the dough can be baked into round buns ("pulla")(brush with egg and sprinkle coarse sugar or almond flakes on top before baking), used as pie crust (a typical blueberry pie is made that way: roll the dough, put fresh blueberries, sugar and sour cream on top) or braided with four strands into sweet bread ("pullapitko") . A Boston cake is made by placing cinnamon rolls (possibly replacing cinnamon with cherries, raisins and nuts) sideways in a cake tin and baked. One of my favourites is curd pasties: make a dent with the bottom of a glass into a round bun and fill it with a mixture of curd, lemon juice, sugar, egg, vanilla and raisins (Easter food, that one, and curd is something Russian, and the result of this is "rahkapiirakka" that tastes like cheese cake but is tonnes healthier). Some people love "voisilmäpulla", butter-eye buns: make a hole on the top of a round bun with your finger and stuff it with a mixture made of butter, sugar and vanilla before baking them.
Milk can be replaced with water, and butter of course with margarine, crisco or even oil, and you can't really tell the difference.
The dough can be used, with limitations, as edible plasticine too(that's the reason why my kids love to bake pulla, and why we did it today):