Light Up

« Valopylväs or Lit pylon. Helsingin Engergia lit up one of the five blue power line pylons, a.k.a. hattiwatti (well, really they're called Antti's Footsteps but hattiwatti is a better name), on Ouritsaari between New Year's and Twelfth Night. In the background is the Ruoholahti power station and the lights of Ruoholahti. »

So, Tarja Halonen won the election and will be President of Finland for another six years. One has to appreciate a world leader who takes time on the weekends for bellydancing classes. Can you just imagine, say, Bush taking some sort of dance class in a public venue somewhere in DC? No, I couldn't either, but it'd be good for a laugh.

Tarja's long lost Irish-American twin, Conan O'Brien, will be visiting Finland sometime between the 13th and 28th of February to film bits for the show back in the states that airs so late that only the unemployed, insomniacs, night owls and true fans with TiVOs watch. Even in Finland it comes on too late for anyone with a day job that begins at a respectable hour. It's going to be interesting to see how many Finns get pissed when his humour crosses that inevitable line in his mission to entertain the vast majority of his viewers who live in the states.

permalink Ω 31 January 2006, Helsinki

Tastes Great, Less Punsch

« Runebergin torttu / Runeberg cake - A butter cake topped with raspberry jam and icing named for the Finnish National poet who is remembered each year on the 5th of February. »

Would you bake 15 batches of Runeberg cakes to find one that made a moist, tasty cake? No, you probably wouldn't as you're probably not a frustrated chemist who finds soaking a dry cake in a sweet liqueur to moisten it to be a lame solution to a bad recipe. Food should not be an alcohol transport vector. :) I figured that Cook's Illustrated's test kitchen wasn't going to be deconstructing the Runeberg cake anytime in the near future so I took that as a good excuse to try doing it myself.

Vaasan & Vaasan, the largest producer of baked goods in Finland and the Baltics, issued an interesting press release about Runeberg cakes and their sales statistics (in Finnish) last year on the 200th anniversary of Runeberg's Day which notes that, between New Year's and the 5th of February, over 1.4 million cakes are consumed each year and that number is growing by 5-10% each year. They also note that the "right" recipe is not in anyone's possession, but after having tried a number of recipes myself that I found in Finnish cookbooks and from a few web sites there certainly could be better recipes. The most interesting tidbit was about how the cakes came to be moistened with liqueurs. At some point in 1970s Turku, bakers began moistening the cake and the success of the moistened cakes brought an end to the dry, unmoistened cakes. Even today, there are disagreements about what is the proper moistening solution as Fazer uses rum, Vaasan & Vaasan uses cognac and others use a Swedish specialty known as 'arrakkipunssi' or Swedish Punsch. So, at last we know the where and the when of the addition of the sweet liquors to the cake.

« A 1963 Runeberg cake serigraph by Pertti Pohjola for HOK »

Where to begin the story of my two week odyssey in search of the golden moist ratio of butter, eggs, sugar and flour? Last year, I tried making the classic recipe from Kotiruoka with somewhat disappointing results as they were dry and weren't very attractive. I resolved to make a better cake this year and, after 15 different recipes and lots of research, I think I have achieved that goal. Although, I think Jarkko and my colleagues are a bit sick of eating them by now. :)

« My kitchen helper last year and this year (roll mouse over pic) while making Runeberg cakes. »

I started with the premise that, at heart, the Runeberg cake is basically a pound/bundt cake which is not a dry cake even though the amount of butter in the batter is about the same as the Runeberg cake. Looking through about 100 recipes for various butter, bundt and pound cakes, I settled on three things that might be immediately useful; lowering the temperature from 200C/395F to 175C/350F to keep the cakes from crowning, moving the baking rack from the middle of the oven to the lower third and emulsifying the egg with the creamed sugar and butter to give the cake a better texture and crumb. I also wanted to keep as close to the Kotiruoka recipe as possible since it remains one of the best recipes available and it is a good cake if only a bit too dry.

In the first few recipe variations I used almond paste creamed with the butter instead of ground or chopped almonds and about 1/3 of the flour. The resulting butter almond cake was excellent, but it had too much almond and was far too dense for it to be a Runeberg cake. Ground and chopped almonds were also tried with the chopped almonds winning for both flavour and texture. I increased the butter to 225g/1/2lb, added one more egg and tried various different flours. I even tried a spelt Runeberg cake [picture] that, while tasty, remained dry and had the wrong texture. Finally, I settled on regular, all-purpose flour, bread crumbs and ginger cookie crumbs. Most, if not all, of the commercial brands do not use bread or cookie crumbs in their cakes, but their primary goal is to make a cake that remains fresh for a week or more and so have less latitude in what they can use in their products. Brown sugar was added as well for its hygroscopic and browning properties.

There was one ingredient that was missing and is present in several of the commercially produced cakes that I suspect is the defining taste and aroma of what most people associate with the Runeberg cakes; bitter almond oil. Jarkko pointed out this missing and rather elusive ingredient. I say elusive since I went to four large groceries in downtown, none of which carried it. Stockmann didn't even have it and the clerk there told me that I would find it at my favourite baking ingredient supermarket, the aptekki. It was -30C with a brisk wind, but I hauled my arse down the street to the aptekki only to have the woman in the white coat inform me that it is illegal to sell it since it is a carcinogen. I left annoyed and confused since, although the bitter almond benzaldehyde is toxic in large doses, it is harmless in the amounts we use in baking, not to mention that most of the Runebergin torttu sold in Finland contain this aromatic compound. Jarkko finally located a bottle of it in a supermarket near his office. I am frequently amazed not only by the dearth of decent cooking shops with a reasonable selection of goods in Helsinki (In Rovaniemi, I found a shop in downtown that had a huge selection of stuff that put both of the tiny cook's shops in Helsinki to shame.), but also the difficulty I often have in finding seasonal and traditional ingredients and tools during the season that they are, well, traditionally used. It leaves me with the impression that either nobody bakes anymore or that the shops in downtown just suck.

Finally, I began to notice that the Runeberg forms weren't baking the cakes as well as I had expected them to so I decided to try a few baba forms which were about the same size only with a closed bottom and slightly tapered sides. The difference was like night and day as the cakes in the baba forms baked faster and browned nicely on the outside as they should. I tried to blame the problem on my oven, but no matter where I put the forms in the oven in various combinations, the baba forms consistently performed much better than the Runeberg forms I bought from Stockmann last year. I even tried baking them in a muffin tin with better results than the round forms. What's the difference? The baba forms are a heavier non-stick aluminum with a bottom and the Runeberg form is a lighter sort of aluminum without a bottom. I don't know who manufactures the forms, but since this is a small country maybe someone who knows someone who knows someone will read this and see if they can try altering the material and putting a bottom on them for better baking results. In the interim, Fantes sells a 2"x2" round cake form that is made of the same material as the baba forms. Unfortunately, they only ship within the US. The right pan can make all the difference. You could also pour the batter into a tube pan to make a lovely cake and serve it with an orange glaze and fresh raspberries any time of the year.

It's important, although not disastrous if you don't, to have the butter, eggs and orange juice at room temperature or roughly 21C/70F. Set them out on the kitchen counter for an hour or two before you plan on baking. Having them all at the same temperature will make the butter light, fluffy and airy which is what makes for a beautiful texture and crumb. If you don't have an oven thermometer, it would be a sound investment for less than 5 euro as ovens often have temperature variation. My oven had to be turned up to almost 200C to have a consistent 175C temperature in the lower third of the oven. Consistent portions and temperature result in even baking every time. Also, after trying numerous kinds of raspberry marmalade (just a really thick jam, no citrus) and jelly, the best one for the job is Ekströms vadelmahillo which comes in a squeeze bottle and has the perfect consistency. I had used a melon ball scoop with the marmalade and it worked well, but the squeeze bottle made quick work of dispensing the jam in perfect blobs on top of the cakes. Once you have a fresh, warm, moist Runeberg cake, you'll never have the same feelings for the Fazer Runeberg cakes again. :)

Paras Runebergin torttu / The Best Runeberg Cakes

Makes: about 18 cakes
Time: prep 25-30 minutes + baking
Special equipment: a 2x2-inch cake form, Runeberg form, baba form or muffin tin
Source: HFB, Ltd. test kitchen

• 3 eggs, room temperature
• 225g or 2 sticks butter, room temperature
• 1,2 dl or 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2,25 dl or 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/8-1/4 teaspoon bitter almond oil
• 1 teaspoon orange zest
• 1 teaspoon finely ground cardamom **optional
• 4,75 dl or 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1,2 dl or 1/2 cup finely crushed piparkakut or crisp ginger snaps
• 1,2 dl or 1/2 cup plain fine bread crumbs
• 1,2 dl or 1/2 cup unsweetened 100% orange juice, room temperature
• 1-2 dl or 1/2-1 cup chopped or ground almonds

topping:

• raspberry jam or marmalade
• a dash or two of orange juice (if marmalade is too thick)

icing:

• 2 dl or 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• about 1/2-1 tablespoon milk or light syrup

Position baking rack to lower third of the oven and preheat to 175C/350F.

Lightly butter the sides of the runeberg cake forms and place on baking sheet covered with baking paper.

Break the eggs into a medium-sized measuring cup with a pour spout and whisk with a fork until the yolks and whites are combined. Set the cup in a bowl of warm (not hot) water to bring them up to room temperature. Zest and juice one large or two small oranges.

Place sugars and butter into a bowl and cream together until light and fluffy, about 4-5 minutes. Add in baking powder, baking soda, salt, bitter almond oil and zest. Stop the mixer and scrape the bowl down.

With the mixer on a medium speed, pour the eggs into the butter mixture very, very slowly, about 1 tablespoon at a time, allowing the egg to be incorporated fully before adding more. If the butter appears watery at any point, increase you mixer's speed a notch and beat until it is smooth and fluffy again, and only then decrease the mixer's speed and resume adding the egg mixture. Continue until the eggs have been fully incorporated and beat for another 2-3 minutes until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Measure flour, crushed piparkakut and breadcrumbs and mix together in a bowl and add 1/3 of the flour mixture over the dough mix until incorporated. Repeat until all the flour is mixed into the dough and it looks smooth. Slowly pour in orange juice until well blended. Add ground almonds and mix well.

Spoon 3-4 tablespoons of dough into the bottom of each runeberg cake form taking care not to get the dough down the sides of the form as you drop it in. Even the dough out on the bottom of the form, smooth the top and, if necessary, scrape dough caught down the side of the form with a small spoon.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the top of the cakes are golden brown.

Place baking sheet on a rack to cool for about 15-20 minutes and check to see if the cakes have pulled away from the sides of the forms. Run a small, thin knife or spatula around the edge of the form if any of the cakes have stuck to the sides in places to release them. Allow them to cool for a bit longer, remove from the forms and place on a rack to cool completely before decorating.

When cool, pipe, squirt or spoon a dollop of raspberry jam onto the top of the cake and pipe a ring of stiff confectioners' sugar icing around the jam. If you dare, soak in cognac, rum or 'arrakkipunssi', a sweet Swedish concoction.

permalink Ω 29 January 2006, Helsinki

Three Years

« Looking south over Helsinki from the fire department's tower. (click photo for larger version) »

As of today, I've been in Helsinki for three years which is something of a milestone since a good percentage of expats, those who don't come to Finland with a fixed-term contract job, leave between the one and three year mark. There have been plenty of times where I desperately wished that Jarkko might have been from some warm, sunny and tropical Caribbean island, but I keep chanting my motivational motto to myself, "That which does not kill you, builds character."

Aside from baking more than the average Helsinki woman has in the last 40 years, leading my colleagues to believe that I'm crazy, and still being rather inept at speaking a language that causes even Finns to admit to having problems understanding their own people from other parts of the country, I have more or less found my niche. In the immortal words of Buckaroo Bonzai, "Wherever you go, there you are."

As a foreigner, I've noticed a dramatic increase in the past 12 months of articles covering the topic of immigration since it is an important issue in the current presidential election. The US has debates about Iraq and shifty foreigners and Finland has shifty foreigners and NATO. At least Finland isn't building a 700-mile long wall along the Russian border. I wish I understood what, exactly, the point of all the polls and superficially phrased questionnaires aimed at Finns and their attitudes towards immigration might be. Then again, I don't think the Finns know, either. Back in June, I noted this gem in the YLE news:

The group is concerned about the aging population and an impending labour shortage in the future.

However, the working group stressed that foreign workers should not take job opportunities from Finland's unemployed.

A statement that seems empty and inaccurate when you read the IMF report:

Wide-ranging measures are also called for to ease growing labor market mismatches and reduce structural unemployment. The sharp rise in vacancies in the recent upswing along with persistent high unemployment suggests a mismatching of skills and opportunities, as well as limited labor mobility between regions and occupations. The authorities' efforts to "price in" labor through subsidies for lower-skilled older workers are welcome if they are well targeted. As important, the temporary active labor market programs can help promote employment opportunities for underutilized segments of the labor force. In addition to these efforts, other supporting structural measures would be essential to achieve the authorities' ambitious goal of a 70 percent employment rate by early 2007.

And then you read bits that suggest that out of the 8,000 people in the net population gain last year from immigration that a large majority are returning expat Finns, many of whom are retirement age. I'm not entirely sure how repatriating citizens get lumped in with immigrants either.

The increased number of immigrants indicated by the statistics can be explained by the migration of Finns themselves. Some 40 percent of incoming migrants are Finnish citizens, and a major proportion of them are found in the group of the over 55-year-old migrants. No way will they be fit to serve as manicurists or masseurs in the next couple of decades.

I generally get really irritated when I see articles like these every week since it's known that the population isn't going to be able support the baby boom retirees in the way that they have become accustomed and, yet, these same people are the ones trying to quell immigration by stipulating that immigrants will not be competing on the same field for jobs as Finns. Given the time it takes for immigrants to settle in and learn the language(s) in Finland, roughly 2-5 years, and that the mass retirement phase of the boomers has already begun, it would seem too little and too late to allay the fears of those who are going to be very upset that the quality and quantity of social benefits are poised to decline. Who cares about a manicure when you might die waiting for basic medical care?

The riots in France had a predictable effect on the EU since everyone wants to know if the same could happen in their country. The Helsingin Sanomat Poll seems to indicate that at least half of the population thinks it could happen here and, at the same time, roughly 75% think that there is either enough or too many immigrants already in Finland. I suppose that Finland, given its attitude towards outsiders, is smart to keep the borders mostly closed since why invite people in if they are likely to face serious problems in integrating and living a normal life. France opened the borders but didn't appear to notice that large numbers of unemployed people living outside of the native society can breed serious unrest. It could happen here given the right circumstances. One person with nothing to lose is a danger to themselves. Thousands of people with nothing to lose is an army in search of an ideology.

I find these sorts of polls and articles to be a bit half-baked since random statistics don't tell you much nor do they serve much of a purpose save perhaps to assuage the fears of the geriatrics who are terrified of foreigners taking over their country and the young hipsters who hope that Finland might someday cease being an isolated backwater in Western Siberia. In the end, it doesn't tell us anything except that not much will change for foreigners and immigration, at least not terribly soon. The politician who speaks plainly about what fewer workers and more pensioners will mean over the next 10-20 years should prepare those retiring for the inevitable since it's likely far too late to change their firmly held attitudes.

The curious thing is that, aside from the nasty old grannies and the occasional asshole, I haven't felt any overt signs that I'm not welcome here. The worst I have to endure is usually annoyance after people figure out I'm not from around these latitudes. I work in one of the more 'integrated' Finnish (i.e. non-international) companies that boasts at least 6 non-native people in our 150+ person organisation. My colleagues even seem to like me, at least when I'm not threatening to slip them under the tiled floor in the lab. :) So, it's hard to reconcile the poll result that 75% of Finland doesn't want any more foreigners to enter Finland and what I personally experience daily.

My guess is that immigrant means something very specific to many people instead of the broader meaning of anyone who comes to live permanently in a country not their own. Of course, since the turnover amongst expats (which generally implies education, choice and means) in Finland seems rather high, they are perhaps not included. I'd really be interested in seeing the retention rate figures for educated westerners and Europeans who come with the intention of staying here, but leave after a few years. What the polls should be asking is what does immigrant mean. Russian? Somali with 10 kids? Damned Yankee? What? What makes this 75% think that there are enough or too many here? What makes them think riots couldn't happen here when there is a generation of Finnish born and educated children of Somali immigrants who reportedly have a difficult time finding a job?

I'd like to see a lot more numbers for patterns of immigration since, at least among the educated westerners here, there seems to be a lot of turnover and should Finland finally decide that they'd like educated foreigners to stick around instead of the Russian bedpan changers for the pensioners that they crack jokes about, someone should be asking why they leave and be receptive to the answers they receive. Presumably,the Directorate of Immigration officials keep track of foreigners and their justification for being here as well as if they are employed or not, etc. I'd also find a survey that asked why people aren't interested in more immigration far more interesting than the ones that have been published so far which don't tell me anything more than I already sensed on my own.

Finland can be an incredibly tough nut to crack, especially if you don't arrive here as a student, because it is a land filled with contradictions. I remember seeing Vieralla Maalla, a Finnish comedy, in the first year that I had been living here. The film was about a Finnish guy who dresses up as a black guy to research racism and somehow falls in love with a Finnish for Foreigners instructor while narrowly escaping getting beat up by drunk guys and harassed by the cops. It was a cute movie, but then I started to wonder how the parts that skimmed the surface of serious issues facing immigrants, especially those who are not white, could really be so amusing even with the distraction of boy meets girl. People often say that racism is limited and that it's just a few bad apples but then you see it in a mainstream comedy film and you wonder which has more truth to it.

I'm not an economist and therefore have no sure opinion on whether or not Finland needs immigrants, but it seems safe enough to draw the conclusion that the math indicates that without an influx of people to work and pay taxes, expectations for social services should be lowered since raising income tax isn't likely to be a viable option. How many Finns would change their opinion about foreigners and immigration if they are shown financial projections for the next 5, 10, 20 and 30 years? You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that in a population ~5 million people, that isn't growing very quickly, the estimated 600,000 more pensioners and 300,000 fewer tax payers by 2030 should be shocking enough to get a lot more considered attention.

permalink Ω 24 January 2006, Helsinki

Cake or Torte?

« Aleksanterinleivos ( Alexander's Cake ), raspberry jam sandwiched between two layers of shortbread topped with pink confectioners' sugar icing. »

In my search for something different recently, I found a reference to something called "Alexander's Cake" that I hadn't heard of or seen before so I started looking around for a recipe for it. I had to get a bit creative as the original name is "Aleksanterin torttu", but over the years it has been changed to "Aleksanterin leivos" for some reason that only Finnish linguists could explain since the nuance between leivos and torttu is a mystery even to many native speakers.

The cake is basically raspberry jam between two layers of shortbread that is topped with a sweet confectioners' sugar icing. One of the bakeries claim to to be 'Finland's oldest cake' though I'm not certain how they arrived at that conclusion. Perhaps it is the oldest cake named for a famous figure since it is named for the Russian Tsar Alexander I as he allowed Finland to become an autonomous Grand Duchy of Russia in 1809 with the Treaty of Fredrikshamn after the Russians defeated the Swedes. The treaty would later be credited for reviving Finnish culture leading to the Finnish language gaining official equal status. I'm still not sure if the cake is, in fact, a Finnish creation as it appears in Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian cookbooks under the same name, but all of the Baltics were similarly occupied by Russia in the 19th century though it seems less likely that they would have named any of their cakes after a Russian Tsar.

Making the cake is easy as long as you handle the shortbread layers with care as they are dry and reasonably delicate. I can't recommend the strawberry flavoured (a.k.a. pink) confectioners' sugar as though it has the appropriate intense pink colour, the strawberry flavour is rather strong and overwhelms the subtle shortbread and jam.

Aleksanterintortut

Makes: about 16+ servings
Time: about an hour
Source: Kotiruoka

• 200g or 1 3/4 sticks butter, softened
• 1 dl or 0.45 cup superfine sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 4 dl or 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons vanilla or vanilla sugar

filling:

• 2 dl or 3/4 cups raspberry or apple jam, marmalade or puree

frosting:

• 3 dl powdered sugar (pink or regular)
• about 1,5 tablespoons warm water or orange juice
• (tiny amount of red or green food colouring)

Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add egg and mix well. Mix together flour, sugar and baking powder in a small bowl and add gradually to the dough. Place dough in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Pre-heat oven to 175C/350F.

Split dough into two equal parts and press into the bottom of two round 8-9"/20-23cm cake pans lined with baking paper (you can use a third round cake pan to press the dough firmly and smoothly into the bottom of the pans). Bake one at a time for about 15 minutes each. Allow to cool until firm.

Gently place bottom layer of cake onto a serving plate, spread jam on top and carefully lower the second layer onto the jam. Decorate with pink or green coloured frosting. (Wrap a strip of baking paper around the edge of the cake to keep the jam and icing from oozing over the sides if you like.) Place in fridge for about 30 minutes and cut into 16 thin wedges. (Traditionally the cake is rectangular and cut into small squares, but the round cake is easier to deal with and the wedges make it look like a nice cake slice.)

permalink Ω 23 January 2006, Helsinki

Meatsicle

« Double exposure panorama of the Sibelius monument and Jarkko acting goofy with Otava. Click on the photo for a larger version. »

One of the slight drawbacks to enjoying the company of a large, furry canine, bred to rescue people frozen in the snow, in your life is that when Helsinki becomes western Siberia you have to take the dog, who is oblivious to the cold, outside for a minimum of 30 minutes four or more times a day since every pile of snow must be leapt upon, rolled around on, dug into and thoroughly enjoyed. Thermal underwear is my best friend at the moment since I nearly froze last wednesday night when the wind was driving the 0F temperature down to the neighbourhood of -25F. It hasn't warmed up since then, either. Otava romps around as though it were a summer's day only with mountains of snow and balls of ice on his paws. He's like a kid where every day is a snow day. I just try to keep from transforming into a meatsicle on the other end of the leash and think happy, warm thoughts about moving to the surface of the Sun.

permalink Ω 22 January 2006, Helsinki

Leisure Suit Larry

« Mushroom lamp. »

Inspired on this very rare occasion by /. and it's comments on the What is Perl 6? story, I thought I would share a vision with the few perl people with a sense of humour about perl6 left.

Envision a few perl freaks in leisure suits ala SNL and One Night at the Roxbury. Now, cue the music in the pub at some perl conference where they go around trying to enthuse perl guys by singing:

What is Perl?
Baby don't hurt me
Don't hurt me
No more

I sense there is either a lightning talk or a psychotherapy goldmine in there somewhere. :)

permalink Ω 17 January 2006, Helsinki

Hungarian Butter Horns

« Triangles of rich dough filled with an airy, nutty meringue. Hungarian butter horns are delicious, lightly sweet and nutty cookies. »

I didn't really do much of anything exciting over Christmas out in what is now suburban wasteland that once was mostly farmland when I was young, but I did bake a few things since it beat confronting the full extent of the SUV nation and it wouldn't be Christmas without plates of cookies. My mother wanted to make the toxic 'peanut butter balls' (creamy peanut butter, confectioner's sugar and crisp rice formed into balled then covered in sweet milk chocolate) that everyone but me seems to love so I thought I'd make something to offset the sugar payload.

Mom had the recipe for a cookie that one of the neighbours, a retired librarian, would always bring to block parties where I would snatch more than was perhaps polite from the plate. I'd even send other kids over to get me a few more when I knew I had been busted on taking more than my share. :) God, remember block parties? These days Mrs. Anderson, the hostess for our annual block party, would die at the thought of having 50 people and their kids over to swim in her pool and party until the wee hours with altogether too much food and drink due to liability with the pool and, well, the world is no longer the nice place it used to be where you could do such things with casual affection. At least the cookie recipe remains.

Mrs. Daniel, the retired librarian, had the coolest gadget in her kitchen; a double-door convection oven. Even as a kid I thought it was fun to watch the cookies bake and puff up almost like magic. I still like to stare in the window and watch things bake as I'm easily entertained. I tried to track down the provenance of this recipe since it is very likely not hungarian. In the two cookbooks I found the recipe in, one told a story about a dying grandmother dictating the recipe from her deathbed for posterity which was highly dubious in spite of the touching personal detail. The other cookbook was the 1950s edition of Betty Crocker's classic red cookbook. The classic recipe could very possibly be related to a hungarian pastry called kifli as the dough and the filling are very similar.

I tried a couple different variations to see if I could improve on the cookie since, while tasty, they aren't the most beautiful cookies on the plate as the meringue puffs up and spreads out of the cookie and then deflates a bit when it has cooled. I tried piping a bit onto each wedge and then rolling the dough up which did keep the meringue from spreading but it didn't taste as good without it being spread between all the layers of dough. I tried both with and without an eggwash and, again, the original recipe without the wash looked better. I dissolved the yeast in a small amount of water before kneading it in and, well, it didn't seem to make a difference at all. Of the three nuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, and pecans, that I tried I found the hazelnuts were the best with the sour dough and the sweet meringue.

One thing that does make a noticeable difference in the cookies is how cold the dough is when you work it and subsequently pop it in the oven. Don't start to work with the dough until it's firm and if you have a tray of cookies ready to go into the oven but have to go do something for a few minutes, put them into the fridge. Keep it cold and keep it moving. It makes a lot of cookies with very few ingredients.

Hungarian Butter Horns

Makes: about 64 cookies
Time: about 90 minutes
Source: Mrs. Daniels, retired librarian, who used to live down the street from my parents.

Dough:

• 1 cake (17g) fresh yeast
• 4 cups or 9,5 dl sifted flour
• 2 1/2 sticks or 283g butter, cold and cut into small pieces
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 egg yolks, well beaten
• 1/2 cup or 1,25 dl sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Filling:

• 3 egg whites
• 1 cup or 2,5 dl sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla or 2 teaspoons vanilla sugar
• 1 cup or 2,5 dl finely chopped nuts
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

For the dough: Sift flour with salt. Add crumbled yeast and mix well. Cut in butter. Add beaten yolks, sour cream and vanilla. Mix until blended, use hands if necessary. Wrap in baking paper and chill until filling is ready.

For the filling: Whip egg whites, vanilla, cinnamon and sugar to soft, firm peaks. Fold in nuts and cinnamon.

Brush pastry board with a 50-50 mixture of powdered and granulated sugars. Divide dough into 8 parts. Chill unused dough. Roll each part into a 9-inch/23cm circle, an easy trick to trim the dough is to use an inverted pie pan over the dough and use the pastry wheel to cut around it. Spread dough with a thin layer of filling, leaving a small border around the edge and a small circle in the center empty, and cut circle into 8 pie shaped wedges using a pizza cutter or pastry wheel. Roll wide edge of each wedge toward center and place rolled cookie on baking sheet lined with baking paper.

Bake in preheated 400F/205C oven for about 7 minutes if using convection or 15-18 minutes in a conventional oven. Cool on rack and dust with confectioners' sugar or cinnamon sugar. You can also decorate with simple confectioners' sugar frosting if you want to add more sweetness.

permalink Ω 17 January 2006, Helsinki

Oracle of Gravity

« The triple energy bolt logo of Helsingin Energia on one of their older buildings in Töölö. »

Finland's presidential elections were held yesterday and, because there was no clear winner with 50% of the vote or better, there will be a second round of voting for the top two contenders in two weeks. Of late it seems that major democracies around the world have been having more frequent troubles in selecting clear winners in elections, e.g. Germany, the US, etc. Does it mean that we are becoming more divided in our political views or, perhaps more likely, that our choices of leaders in just sucking more and more often?

The AP has a stringer up here who likely gets this kind of top fold excitement once only every six years or so, unless someone blows up a mall or gets a $500k speeding ticket. The wire story this morning had this to say about the important and solemn task of selecting a new leader in a sovereign country:

She bears a resemblance to the redheaded late-night talk show host Conan O'Brien, who has been promoting her re-election bid on his show as part of a running joke about their supposed physical similarities.

In one show, O'Brien presented a mock ad for Halonen in which he and two Finns discussed the election while ice fishing.

When they talk about Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, a rival candidate who finished third Sunday with just under 19 percent, a dead fish shoots out of the hole in the ice, prompting a joke about how the mention of his name makes fish commit suicide.

"Fish recognize a bad leader," O'Brien says in broken Finnish, to laughter from his studio crowd.

I was, like, bitch, what? Fish can recognise a tired, tired, absolutely overdone joke, too, but obviously the media cannot. For those who neither know nor care who Conan O'Brien is or have no idea why anyone interested in the outcome of the Finnish elections might be, there's a joke that O'Brien looks like Tarja in the same vein that Austin Powers assaults Basil's androgynous mother exclaiming, "She's a MAN baby, yeah!" It was cute at first, but it has gone too far when it enters the election news reports. What will Conan do when he's here in Finland in early February if Tarja loses? (He is apparently coming only for filming, not a studio show. Maybe the Quebequois fiasco put him off of hosting shows elsewhere.) Gads, is Finland so desperate for media attention that it will go to any lengths, including making a big joke out of a late night talk show host from the US and their president to do it?

Jarkko got a bathroom scale over the weekend. One of those snazzy digital jobs that not only tell your weight, but your water and fat percentage, too. I've not weighed myself in at least 10 years, but there's something so alluring about a scale as though a voice in the back of your head is shouting, "Oh! Great Oracle of Gravity, tell us our number!" If only it would print out my fortune and award me with a cupie doll when it is wrong it would be perfect. I don't suppose the special carny edition of bathroom scale would be terribly popular though. I did, of course, succumb to my curiosity and was surprised that I weigh less than I feel like I do, but more than is comfortable in my jeans. When 'relaxed fit' jeans are more like 'snug fit', it's time to face reality that, well, your size has incremented by one or two. I guess it's a bit better than the 'suck it in and don't breathe fit' or 'painted on fit'. :) So, maybe I'll start bringing my lunch to work more often and taking the stairs instead of the lift to try and decrease my gravitational mass. In the interim, I think I'll avoid the bathroom oracle of gravity.

And in the tradition of Greek oracles of gravity, et al, there is a new series of books from Canongate Publishers that is really quite good. I've just finished The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, that is a tale of Penelope, Odysseus' wife, during the years of the Odyssey which was quite an entertaining read. The next one I intend to read is The Helmet of Horror which is a retelling of Theseus and the Minotaur. The Canongate Myths Series is apparently a collaboration between 32 publishing houses and promises 100 titles by 100 acclaimed authors over the next few years. Authors from around the world are being invited to reinvent a myth of their choosing in 25,000-35,000 words. It is one of the most imaginative and original ideas in the publishing world I've seen in a long while. I wonder if any Finnish contemporary writers would deign to write an English retelling of the Kalevala from, say, Louhi's point of view? :)

permalink Ω 16 January 2006, Helsinki

Frak That

« After the ice storm; Minnesota, 1964-ish. Taken by my Grandfather. »

The upside of a 3-day weekend spent doing nothing particularly useful and instead visiting friends, eating, sleeping, walking the dog and watching Battlestar Galactica on DVD is that it is very relaxing. The downside of such a weekend is feeling badly about all the lofty goals of cleaning the house and organizing your sock drawer that your weak, lazy self avoided even thinking about for 72 hours straight. Well, maybe not that badly. :) Except for all the email that I've not yet caught back up on. I keep trying to reply to email only to have the replies to the replies come faster than I can reply. A few weeks off the grid is good for the soul and bad for the desire to hop back on.

My brother-in-law gave me his set of Battlestar Galactica: Season 1 DVDs before I left the US which I was all excited about seeing since I was a big fan of the original show back in the dark ages of polyester and disco, but after watching the first episode or two I was completely lost. I asked around and found out that there was a mini-series that aired a year before that was essential watching before moving onto the full series which is something people eagerly awaiting BSG's arrival in Finland on SubTV later this month will want to be aware of. The series is quite good, even excellent, but there is one continuing theme that runs through every episode that bothers me. Apparently the creators of the new show have taken the whole idea of the survival of the remains of the human race and decided to give it a familiar socio-political topic; the cylons are monotheistic fundamentalist robots without souls who look like humans and the humans are polytheistic victims of terrorists attempting genocide, both invoking god or the gods frequently. While it is an excellently written and filmed show, I just don't know that I appreciate the holy war/biblical aspect no matter how philosophical it tries to be though I've not yet seen a human ask a captive Cylon why they decided to nuke the colonies back to the stone age. I hope they get to that at some point as that might give this particular aspect of the story a bit of needed depth. And for the record, I really hate the frakking frak-ing all the time. Frak them and the frakking frak they frakked in on. Let's hope they don't bring back the robot dog, muffit. Frakkers.

On New Year's it rained on top of a very wet snow which then froze into treacherous ice on the sidewalks and just about everywhere else, including the dog parks. Poor Otava has been behaving rather well considering we can't take him to the dog park and we try to only walk him on streets without ice or plenty of grit to give us both traction. Three cheers for the cranky old ladies who live on Bulevardi, the only street with immaculately clear sidewalks in town. There seems little point to winter if there's no snow to go with the cold and the dark.

The dog food poisoning scare in the US has finally reached Finland and since I didn't see the story translated in the usual local English news outlets, I thought I would mention that some of the tainted food may have been shipped to Finland and that pet owners should visit the Diamond Pet Foods page for more information. The stories of dogs knowing something wasn't right with the food and the owners adding gravy and such to make it more palatable only to have the dogs die are just awful and it breaks my heart just reading them as who hasn't done that occasionally to a dog's meal? The company appears to be doing everything it can to do the right thing by being very public with the information and paying the vet bills for victims.

permalink Ω 10 January 2006, Helsinki

Ring Toss

« A tower of almond rings popular in parts of Scandinavia for weddings, New Year's and other celebrations. »

I somehow managed to survive two weeks in flyover country, home to the world's largest strip mall. During the mad shopping frenzy the week before Christmas I had some time to bake as I was a bit afraid to venture out into the wilderness of SUVs and rabid shoppers. I had ordered a bunch of stuff from the Baker's Catalogue and had it shipped to my mother's house that in retrospect, given that the stores looked like locusts had stripped them clean, was a wise idea.

One of the things I ordered was a set of kransekake forms. Kransekake is a rather impressive looking cake formed from rings of almond paste cookie that has been baked, cemented together with royal icing and decorated with marzipan or flags and candies. It's a cake that looks a lot like a Fisher-Price Rock-a-Stack toy only without the bright colours. I've never seen it in Finland, but the rest of the Nordic countries seem to enjoy it for weddings, New Year's and other high holidays. The cake is about 7 inches/18 cm wide at the base and stands almost 12 inches/29 cm tall. I figured that if I could find almond paste in the grocery that I'd make it for a nice centerpiece for Christmas dinner. My brother-in-law suggested that I make something "ethnic" and, given that nobody but the Danes and the Norwegians have any idea of what this thing is, it fit that request rather well. :) I think my family liked it, but the cake requires an army of almond lovers to eat the whole thing.

The grocery had lots of marzipan but the space where almond paste should have been was empty so my sister and I had to track down a clerk who made a valiant effort to find the missing shipment of almond paste. The difference between almond paste and marzipan is found only in the ratio of almonds to sugar, the paste having a higher percentage of almonds than the marzipan. My sister was ready to give up after 10 minutes, but I was too close to go home disappointed. :) Twenty minutes and 15 aisles later, I had two tubes of almond paste. I was really surprised that not only did they have almond paste and marzipan but that they had to go find the new shipment. Almonds, as far as I can remember, were never much of a popular baking item in the US. Walnuts and pecans are the most commonly used nuts in baking so perhaps Martha Stewart has been featuring almond paste in a few recipes lately or something. Go Martha.

I used the recipe on the side of box that the kransekake forms came in, but there seem to be two different varieties of dough that is used to make the cake; the Scandinavian variety that uses only almonds, confectioners' sugar and egg whites and the American variety that also includes butter and flour. I made the latter as it was the recipe on the box and I didn't have a decent mixer handy to make what would likely be a more difficult to handle dough as it would be more stiff without the butter and flour. It was surprisingly simple to make, even with the handicap of not having a pastry bag and having to use an antique cookie press that only occasionally pressed the dough through the hole when I squeezed the trigger.

Once home, I thought that I would try to make the cake the Scandinavian way by using only the ground almonds, confectioner's sugar and egg whites just for the sake of comparison and this is where the exercise got interesting. Odense, a manufacturer of marzipan, almond paste and even a pre-made kransekake dough, also has a brief history of the kransekake in Danish. What I couldn't puzzle out on my own, the Nordic perl guys translated for me, but basically it says the cake is a Danish creation. What is curious is how the cake changes form in Sweden and Finland. Instead of using rings, which can also be used to make confections in the form of cornucopias, baskets, bowls filled with custard and cakes topped with whipped cream and strawberries, the krokan is a freeform tower of the same ingredients that is cemented together with caramelised sugar and features praline almonds surrounding the base. I'm not sure how or why the cake changed from the ringed pillar/cornucopia as there's very little information about the cake to be found in any language, but I'd be intrigued to know how and when the transformation came about. I'd almost guarantee that there's bound to be the usual "Swedes have to be different" explanation in there somewhere. :) I did find an entertaining article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Assembly Required, where a reporter gets a lot more entertainment out of this cake than even I did. :)

Surprisingly, the ground almonds are not so easily found in Helsinki in quantities larger than 80g (In the US, King Arthur sells almond flour in 1 pound bags for about $7). I asked the resident Norwegian at my office if he knew if he knew where I could find a better supply and he told me how his ex-wife used to make him grate the individual almonds one at a time just to make his miserable life even moreso. It's a torture device and it's a cake. :) Some of the Finnish krokaani recipes use warmed marzipan with a small amount of added sugar and egg whites which sounds unreliable, since it would be a bit too easy to wind up cooking the egg whites, as well as being more work than necessary. Both of the recipes I tried worked well and I can't really say which of them I thought tasted better. The traditional recipe is a bit harder to work with since it dries and stiffens quickly, especially on days with low humidity. It also requires a cookie press since it is simply too stiff to use a pastry bag. Rolling ropes of dough out with your hands is an option but it's a lot of work and if you don't roll them evenly you'll get a really irregular browning which won't look as nice. Watch over the rings as they bake as once they start to brown, they go from light brown to dark brown in a blink of an eye.

Buy a set of the rings, make a kransekake and maybe this can be the beginning of the next Scandinavian food craze as there hasn't been much from this part of the world since ABBA, Swedish meatballs and fondue parties faded from the limelight. I had a vision of making the rings out of something like baked spam and then covering the tower with chunks of cheese and such on toothpicks as a salute to the 1970s fixation with foods on toothpicks. The ringed bowl of goo might be fun to experiment with as well. :)

Kransekake / Kransekage / Krokaani / Krokan - Butter cookie style

Makes: one 18-ring kransekake
Time: about 1 hour for cake rings and about 25 minutes to assemble
Source: Kransekake form box

Rings:

• 4 sticks or 450g butter, softened
• 1 cup or 225g almond paste, grated
• 2 cups or 4.75 dl sifted confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 4 egg yolks
• 5 cups or 11.75 dl sifted flour

Preheat oven to 350F/175C. Grease forms well with butter.

Cream together butter, grated almond paste, sugar and extract until smooth. Beat yolks in well. After sifting, measure flour and add gradually, mixing until smooth.

Put dough into cookie press or pastry bag fitted with 1/2-inch (1.25cm) tip and pipe onto greased ring forms. Bake for 15 minutes or until very lightly browned. Do not remove from rings until cold.

OR

Kransekake / Kransekage / Krokaani / Krokan - Traditional Scandinavian style

Makes: 1 18-ring kransekake
Time: about 1 hour for rings and 25 minutes for assembly
Source: King Arthur/Baker's Catalogue

Rings:

• 1 pound or 455g almond flour, plain or toasted
• 1 pound or 455g confectioners' sugar
• 1/4 cup or 0,60 dl all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon bitter almond oil or 2 teaspoons almond extract **(I didn't use this - seems excessive)
• 3-4 egg whites

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the almond flour, sugar, all-purpose flour, and almond oil or extract. Add 3 egg whites and mix on slow speed for several minutes. Continue mixing, adding part of the fourth egg white as needed, until a firm, cohesive (but not dry) dough is formed. Gather the dough into a ball, and cover it with plastic wrap to keep it from drying out as you prepare the molds.

Grease the molds lightly with butter. Dust your work surface with confectioners' sugar. Grease your hands with oil. Break off pieces of dough and roll them into long 'ropes', about 1/2 inch in diameter. Fit the ropes into the greased molds, pinching the ends firmly together. You can also place dough into a cookie press fitted with a 1/2-inch (1.25cm) hole and pipe onto greased ring forms. The dough is a bit too stiff to use with a pastry bag.

Place the filled molds on a baking sheet and bake the rings in a preheated 400F/200C oven for 10 to 12 minutes, until they're very lightly browned. Let the rings cool for several minutes before removing them from the molds. Cool them completely on wire racks.

Icing:

• 1 1/2 cups or 3,5 dl sifted confectioners' sugar
• 1 egg white

For icing: Whip egg white until foamy. Add sugar and beat until stiff. Add more sugar if not stiff enough. Put in pastry tube fitted with small round tip.

Assembly:

Arrange disks with baked rings in order from the largest to the smallest next to a plate or pedestal you intend to assemble the cake on. Starting with the outermost ring on the largest disk, pipe a small amount of icing onto the top of the ring (the bottom being the smooth side that baked inside the disk. The bottom should always the top surface with assembling the cake.) and place, icing side down, onto the plate. Pipe a zig-zag ribbon of icing onto the ring and place the outermost ring on the next disk on top, being careful to keep the ring centered. Pipe a zig-zag ribbon of icing on top of the ring and repeat until all 18 rings have been attached to the cake. Decorate with small Norwegian flags, marzipan fruit, tiny wrapped presents or foil wrapped candy affixed with toothpicks. You can also assemble the cake around a wine bottle.

permalink Ω 9 January 2006, Helsinki

It's good to be back

« Parr-esque in its depiction of the ordinary, my Grandfather's affection for annual pictures of carving holiday poultry is odd and interesting. This one is from circa 1954. »

How far we all come. How far we all come away from ourselves. So far, so much between, you can never go home again. You can go home, it's good to go home, but you never really get all the way home again in your life...and once in a while, once in a long time, you remembered, and knew how far you were away, and it hit you hard enough, that little while it lasted, to break your heart. - A Death in the Family, James Agee

There are few things so jarring and so unnatural as squeezing yourself into a metal tube with several hundred other people you wouldn't otherwise share space with to travel 12 or so hours to a distant destination very unlike the place where you began. Returning to the US after being away for three years was almost as bizarre as being dropped onto another world after being abducted by aliens. I will admit that it was nice that everyone spoke English in spite of strangers making frequent comments on how funny my accent was or asking me where I was from.

I remain jet lagged, tired and dazed from the trip so it will be a few more days before returning to my old tired and lazy self. I have a renewed appreciation for my adopted home that only spending two weeks in the heartland of flyover country with it's miles of strip malls, massive SUVs and nearly ubiquitous "Support Our Troops" ribbons on their bumpers could provide. It was good to see my family, but I'm glad to be home again.

permalink Ω 2 January 2006, Helsinki