Fro Yo

« Mämmi frozen yogurt. (Those unfamiliar with mämmi might read "Warm Cowpies".) »

Mämmi is that pre-digested-looking substance that rarely finds friends outside of the native Finnish population. It's a pity, really, as once you get past the way it looks it's delicious. It's like the browner, less chocolatey, more viscous cousin of Whoppers. I've often thought that mämmi is a perfect substance to use as an ingredient in other things given its unappetizing looks and distinctive flavour. It usually is only available around Easter, but with some creativity, it could be enjoyed all year long.

Last year, Jarkko, Arabella and I left work early to visit the Häme fair in order to try mämmi ice cream. I couldn't wait to try it and I was totally crushed when it was all gone by the time we arrived. I vowed that I'd make my own if I had to since I thought it was a brilliant idea to take the mämmi and the cream it is traditionally served with and make it into a frozen dessert.

Two months ago I went in search of an ice cream machine and, after sizing up the very few models available in the shops downtown, went with the smallest and cheapest model; the Braun. I can't say that I'm impressed with the performance, but it works and produces a manageable amount of ice cream in a short amount of time. It's a pain in the ass to stick the tub in the freezer for 24-hours before I want to make ice cream and the stirring paddle is suspiciously flimsy but, given the choice between a 350eur Italian model vs. a 40eur Braun, I can't really complain that I didn't get what I paid for. I have fond memories of the old hand crank variety that used ice and rock salt, but I don't honestly remember if it made better ice cream or not. Now that I have spoken critically of the Braun, it will promptly break the next time I try to use it. :)

I first tried a recipe for mämmijäätelö I found on MTV3 (that is now lamentably gone) that was a cooked custard base of milk, cream, sugar and 8 egg yolks. There are a lot of recipes that simply use vanilla ice cream with mämmi mixed in, but really good store-bought vanilla ice cream is hard to find and it's much more fun to make your own. It tasted terrific but it was a bit too heavy. What about frozen yogurt? Yogurt is very popular but I've been somewhat surprised at the limited popularity of frozen yogurt, especially given that it is often much lower in fat than ice cream. I went looking for a frozen yogurt recipe, but nothing really fit with what I wanted so I sort of made one from various ideas I liked in several recipes. What results is something that tastes a bit like a light version of a malted milk shake for those who are old enough to remember what a malt is. After making this stuff I wonder why Valio yogurt hasn't introduced a mämmi-flavoured yogurt before or maybe the Valio Bar in Kämppi could consider offering a mämmi milk shake during Easter and beyond.

The Kymppi Company who is a major producer of this brown malty goodness offer a bunch of mämmi recipes on their website (or a free booklet if you write to kymppi@kymppi.laihianmallas.fi and request a copy). Some of them, like the mämmi shot, are...not so inviting, but the letut and muffins look good. Kymppi also hosts the mämmi eating contest in Toijala, but they only hold it every other year so perhaps in the off years of the eating contest they could host a mämmi bake-off to inspire people to cook/bake with mämmi throughout the year.

Behold the power of mämmi! :) Hmm...I wonder if it tastes good with cheese.

Mämmi Frozen Yogurt

Makes: about 1 litre/4 cups
Time: about an hour, including the ice cream maker

• 170g or 6oz granulated sugar
• 80ml or 1/3 cup light syrup
• juice from one large orange
• 2 eggs, separated
• 1 litre or 4 1/4 cups unflavoured yogurt (whole or low-fat), drained
• zest from one large orange
• 300g naturally sweetened mämmi (you can use the sweetened kind, too, but you may want to adjust the amount of granulated sugar.)

1. Pour yogurt into a sieve lined with cheesecloth and place over a bowl to drain. Allow to drain for a few hours or until it loses about 1/3 to 1/2 its volume. (note: low-fat yogurt will yield much more water than whole-fat yogurt)
2. In a saucepan, bring the syrup, orange juice and half of the sugar to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Boil for 1 minute and remove from heat.
3. Beat the egg yolks lightly and stir in a small amount of the hot syrup to temper the yolks. Add the remaining syrup and let cool to room temperature. Stir in orange zest.
4. Whip egg whites until they are foamy. Gradually add the remaining half of the sugar and whip to stiff peaks.
5. Pour the drained yogurt into a bowl and whisk in the syrup and egg yolk mixture until smooth. Whisk in mämmi until smooth and evenly distributed. Fold in egg foam with a spatula. (At this point you can cover the yogurt and refrigerate it for up to 24 hours to allow the flavour to 'mature' before processing it into frozen yogurt.)
6. Process in an ice cream freezer according to directions.

permalink Ω 6 April 2006, Helsinki

Killer Buns

« Lenten buns / Laskiaispulla / Semlor - a soft cardamom yeast bun filled with an almond paste infused pastry cream and a healthy swirl of whipped cream that is traditionally served on Fat Tuesday and subsequent Tuesdays during Lent. »

These buns have killed once and they'll kill again. What could be more thrilling than tempting fate by eating a filled bun that was thought to have been the cause of the Swedish King Adolf Fredrik's death in 1771. Of course it might have also been the enormous meal he consumed before snarfing down 14 of the buns served in bowls of warm milk. These buns are heavenly but, I don't know that eating more than one or two in one sitting is recommended.

The history of the traditional Fat Tuesday treat is rather interesting as it is detailed at length in a new book on the subject, Semlor [pa svenska]. It contains more than you ever wanted to know about semlor along with a variety of recipes for them at the end. I was raised Catholic, yet never really encountered these before having one in Finland so I was curious. The modern semla is descended from the German and Danish kumminkringlor, a pretzel-shaped bread with cumin, which came to southern Sweden during the 1600's when the area belonged to Denmark. The first citation of semlor being eaten in Stockholm dates back to 1689.

The name semla comes from the latin word simila, meaning wheat flour which was a luxury save for the wealthy class, and generally meant any sort of wheat bun or bread. The buns originally were filled with hot cream, butter and cinnamon. The almond paste filling didn't arrive until the 1800s when Swiss bakers came to Sweden who brought their knowledge of almonds with them and the whipped cream filling and cap on top didn't become common until much later in the 1930s. The oldest name for the buns, hetvägg, indicated that it was served in hot milk. Although most English recipes for the buns instruct the cook to serve in a bowl of hot milk, the tradition seems to be rarely observed anymore. Aside from making the bun rather difficult and messy to eat, a bowl of hot milk doesn't really add flavour or better texture to the bun. If made without the whipped cream, the hot milk would be more appealing.

Useless factoid - In 1996, the world's largest semla was baked in Alingsås, Sweden. The bun was 113cm/45-inches in diameter and weighed about 60kg/132lb by itself and 134kg/295lb with the almond and whipped cream fillings.

There also seems to be a semlor standard as well as a Semmelakademien (semlor academy) in Göteborg where one, presumeably, learns all there is to know about semlor. For the true semlor perfectionist, a recent article on semlor from an English paper in Sweden lays down the semlor rules:

In fact there are fiercely-contested "Best in Test" competitions pitting city cafés against each other in a kind of annual regional semla Oscars. Mattias Sundberg, a semla enthusiast, explains what it takes to be a winning semla:

"The bun itself should be a light golden brown and about 10cm or 4-in across. The 'lid' is preferably triangular and properly sprinkled with powdered sugar. It should sit squarely on its cream bed. The whipped cream shouldn't overspill the edges and should rise 2-3cm or 3/4-1.2in - just so your nose doesn't dip when eating."

But aesthetics will only take a semla so far; the proof is in the taste test. According to our expert, "The bread mustn't be too dense and should be lightly sweetened. The whipped cream ought to be hand-whipped and lightly sweetened as well." Traditionally the cream is unsweetened but our modern aficionados seem to have developed a sweet tooth.

Mattias Sundberg admits that there are differing opinions on how to judge the best semla. It is almond paste that seems to split the jury. Sundberg prefers a sticky paste while some of his fellow critics opt for a crumblier version. All sides agree on one thing:

"It's important that [the paste] of about 2 teaspoons is dead centre and is absolutely not bitter."

Sundberg and friends are hardly oddballs when it comes to their high standards for semlor. There's even a semla academy in Gothenburg. They have their own established minimum standards:

• The lid must be structured so it may be used for scooping;
• There must be cardamom in the dough;
• The almond paste must be authentic;
• The whipped cream must be fluffy;
• There must be powdered sugar sprinkled on the lid.

I'm all for authentic, but forget hand-whipping the cream in an age of electricity and arm saving appliances. I'm not going to go out back and milk my own cow for that matter, either. :) I'd love to visit the semlor academy and take a class. I wonder if they have a section on how to eat them without winding up with a face full of cream.

Last year I tried my hand at making these buns, but it had been a long time since I had made a yeast bread and wound up making weapons grade buns rather than soft, delicate buns. I vowed to try again this year and have finally gotten the hang of it after lots of trial, error and determination. So many recipes are either lacking in any descriptive guidance or fail to offer measurements in weight, as is often necessary when making bread since cups are not reliable measurements for flour, that I'd wager most people who think they can't bake pulla bread very well, will have much more success with the recipe here.

I think I managed to make just about every mistake possible while trying to attain the ideal soft bun. Too much yeast, over-proofing, under-proofing, too much flour and adding the butter too soon. I even tried a recipe that included hartshorn, a.k.a. baker's ammonia, which gave the dough a rank scent of ammonia and, in spite of the recipe claiming that it would burn off in the oven, a decidedly odd aftertaste.

I returned to an article on pulla dough in an issue of Ruoka & Viini for some insight to the secret of soft dough. Aside from many common sense tips such as warming the milk to the right temperature and having all your ingredients at room temperature, the only thing that was unusual was the recommendation to use 'erikois' flour instead of all-purpose or bread flour. I tried a batch with bread flour and I could have used the dough as a basketball it was so rubbery. The 'erikois' flour is different than the all-purpose flour in that it is slightly coarser and has a higher percentage of wheat germ which is lower in gluten and less absorbent. Using all-purpose flour works fine, but the erikois flour definitely seemed to give better results. The closest equivalent in the US would likely be the King Arthur All-Purpose Artisan Organic Flour with a lower percentage of gluten and made with hard spring and winter wheat.

I had a revelation at one point when searching for bread techniques with A9 as a book that I had gathering dust in my Amazon.com shopping cart kept popping up. I hadn't bought The Professional Pastry Chef: Fundamentals of Baking and Pastry, 4th Edition since I am not a professional pastry chef but the book remained tempting. I searched through it and found a recipe for Swedish Lenten Buns that I read and discovered that, after all these years of thinking that it made no difference if the butter was added with the milk or after the dough had come together, it is important not to add the butter when dissolving the yeast in the milk as it prevents the yeast from expanding. The recipe not only used weight measurements, but it also featured a simple pastry cream mixed with the almond paste filling instead of plain milk which intrigued me so I decided to give it a try. What a difference moving the addition of the butter from the beginning to the end of the dough process made! Given a choice, I had always added the melted butter to the milk as, even though I enjoy kneading dough, the slimy feel kneading butter into the dough is not one of my favourite sensations but, given the dramatically improved results, I'll deal with it. I've tried a few more recipes from the book now and am sorry I didn't buy it sooner and cannot recommend it more highly to anyone who likes baking well with accurate recipes and techniques. The pastry cream recipe was almost a miracle given the crap recipes I've used and struggled with before now.

So now that bun nirvana had been achieved, it was time to focus on the fillings. In Finland there are two varieties of filling; strawberry jam and almond paste mixed with milk and bits from the buns. The strawberry jam is easy and fairly popular, but the almond filling is a bit bland so I was eager to try the pastry cream variation and it is absolutely terrific. I don't even like the regular almond-filled buns but the pastry cream adds just enough creamy sweetness to make it rather tasty. You can mix and match pastry cream, jam and almond cream fillings any way you like, too.

The crowning touch to the buns is taking a small cookie cutter to the lids to give them an attractive shape and to make the bun easier to eat since the lid often does little more than squish the whipped cream when you bite into it and makes a bit of a mess. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and they're almost too pretty to eat. Just try not to eat all of them in one sitting. :)

laskiaispulla / semlor / lenten buns / cream buns

Soft Pulla Dough

Makes: 16 buns
Time: about 90 minutes
Source: Based on recipe in The Professional Pastry Chef: Fundamentals of Baking and Pastry, 4th Edition (note: recipe doubles well)

• 25g fresh compressed yeast
• 250ml warm whole milk (105-115F/40-46C)
• 3oz or 85g superfine granulated sugar
• 7,5g salt
• 1 tablespoon or 8g ground cardamom
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 1lbs 5oz or 600g all-purpose or 'erikois' flour
• 7 tablespoons or 100g melted butter
• 1 egg white and a dash of milk (for egg wash)

Melt butter in the microwave. Set aside to cool. Weigh and measure out all ingredients and arrange near your workspace. Warm milk in a 2 cup measuring cup for about 1 minute in the microwave. Check the temperature with a thermometer and confirm that it is about 40C/105F. Crumble yeast into the warm milk and stir until it has fully dissolved. Stir in the sugar, salt, cardamom, eggs and a few tablespoons of flour. Stir until the mixture is smooth and the flour completely incorporated. Set aside for a couple minutes until it begins to bubble.

Pour the yeast mixture into a larger, room temperature, bowl and begin adding flour a few tablespoons at a time. Stir with a whisk or dough whisk until it begins to thicken. From this point on, knead the dough with your hands. Continue adding flour a few tablespoons at a time until the dough is soft but still slightly sticky. You may have a bit of flour remaining, but resist the temptation to add it all if the dough has the right feel. The amount of flour you need to use to reach the point of soft, yet slightly sticky, dough will vary depending on the type of flour, the age and moisture content of the flour and the humidity in the air.

Knead in the butter (it is important that the butter does not come in contact with the yeast before the yeast has had a chance to start expanding.) until it is fully incorporated. Again, resist the urge to add more flour in lieu of kneading the dough until the butter has been absorbed. Sprinkle a wee bit of flour over the dough if it is a bit too soft and tacky once the butter has soaked in, but be conservative. You want a soft, slightly sticky dough. Knead dough for a couple of minutes and place into a bowl that has been lightly greased with vegetable oil or butter, cover with a towel or plastic wrap and set in a warm spot for about 20 minutes to rest (Don't leave it for an hour thinking more is better since you don't want to over-proof the dough as this will make it tough). While the dough is resting,clean and prepare your workspace and baking sheets.

Turn the dough out of the bowl onto a silpat mat, countertop or other smooth surface. Do not flour your workspace or the dough. Knead dough lightly and divide dough into two parts. Roll each half into an 8-inch rope and cut into 8 1-inch pieces. Take each piece, place it on your workspace cupped in the palm of your hand and, with a reasonable amount of pressure, press down while moving your hand in a circular motion until the dough has formed a smooth, tight round ball. [see also diagram] If your dough isn't a little sticky or you are having trouble forming a smooth ball, rub your workspace with a wet (but not dripping) towel and try again. Arrange balls on baking sheet lined with baking paper leaving an inch or so between them. Lightly brush with egg wash (you can sprinkle the tops with pearl sugar or slivered almonds at this point, but personally I think that they don't complement the soft texture of the bun). Cover with a clean linen dishtowel or plastic wrap and leave in a warm place to rise for about 30 minutes or so.

Heat oven to 200C/390F. Bake buns for 10-12 minutes until they are a light golden brown. Place on cooling rack and allow to cool.

Filling(s):

Creamy Almond Filling:

• 2-4 tablespoons (50-100g) pastry cream (see below)
• 150g-200g almond paste, room temperature

Grate almond paste into bowl. Beat until smooth. Add pastry cream and beat until smooth, thick and creamy.

Pastry Cream

Makes: about 600g
Time: about 20 minutes
Source: The Professional Pastry Chef: Fundamentals of Baking and Pastry, 4th Edition (note: recipe doubles and halves well)

• 1 pint or 480ml whole milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 ounce or 30g (about 1/2 dl) cornstarch
• 4 ounces or 115g granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 stick or 55g butter

In a bowl, whisk the cornstarch, sugar and salt together. Gradually whisk in the eggs and mix until smooth.

Place milk in a saucepan or double-boiler. Bring to a boil and remove from heat.

Slowly pour about 1/3 of the hot milk into the egg mixture while whisking rapidly. Pour the tempered egg mixture back into the remaining milk.

Place saucepan on a medium heat and cook, whisking constantly, until the mixture comes to a boil and thickens. Let it bubble for a few seconds and remove from the heat. Stir in the vanilla and butter until completely incorporated.

Pour pastry cream into a bowl and allow to cool a bit. When cool, use for filling or cover with plastic wrap, pressing the wrap directly onto the surface of the cream to avoid condensation and to keep it fresh. It will keep refrigerated for up to four days.

Traditional Almond Filling:

• 200g almond paste
• 1,5 dl or 3/4 cup milk
• bits of bun scooped out for filling

Grate almond paste into bowl. Beat until smooth. Blend in milk. Add pulla and beat until smooth.

Whipped Cream:

• 3-5dl whipping cream, cold
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar

Pour cream and sugar into a completely dry, cold bowl and whip to stiff peaks. Place cream in a pastry bag fitted with a #7/14-mm star tip.

Assembling:

1. Slice top off of buns. Take the tops of the buns and cut into heart, star or other shapes if you like. For the strictly traditional, use a pair of scissors held at a 45-degree angle to make a triangular cut on top of the bun about 2cm or 3/4-in deep. Trim excess bread from the underside of the triangular divot.
2. Spread almond mixture (or strawberry jam and/or plain pastry cream if you don't like almonds) onto the buns or into the triangular hole.
3. Pipe whipped cream generously over the tops.
4. Place top of bun over the whipped cream.
5. Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar.

permalink Ω 21 February 2006, Helsinki

Mush

« Spicy lamb meatballs, feta-olive cheese sauce and mashed potatoes. »

When you have a toothache, in spite of the dentist telling you twice that there is nothing there, that causes you to daydream about taking a dremel to the offending tooth or chugging down a bottle filled with 400mg ibuprofen to ease the headache, soft foods become really attractive. Brief flashes of fizzing dentures in a glass with efferdent and sucking your meals through a straw do tend to dampen the desire to have all of them removed without ceremony. In a world without teeth, the surest proof of a non-existent or a surly bastard of a malevolent god, one might even reconsider atheism.

In the interest of soft foods, I noticed a tasty and gum-tastic recipe for meatballs and a feta cheese and olive sauce that I had to try. The pureed tomatoes that are mixed with the bread crumbs really had such a nice flavour that it's worth adding to regular meatballs as well. I served them with nice, soft and fluffy mashed potatoes that were proof that the potato ricer is a gadget worthy of my affection. A bit of butter and milk warmed in the microwave then poured over the riced potatoes and mixed with a fork are amazingly smooth. Amusingly, there seems to be a great deal of heated debate online over whether the ricer or a food mill or the old-fashioned masher makes the best mashed potatoes. It's one of those things you'll just have to try for yourself. I'll never make lumpy mashed potatoes again.

Even for those without fantasies involving dentists with pliers, meatballs and mash are perfect winter food and these actually have some taste to them. Although the Finnish 'coffee pudding', made with rolled spelt wheat, milk and coffee, that I tried making the other night looked like vomit and smelled like popcorn so I'm not sure that all soft foods are as appealing as others. :) Now, what do I make for the mobility-challenged man who wrecked his ankle yesterday? Is there such a thing as self-delivering food? Perhaps I could work on strapping a food tray to Otava. :)

spicy lamb meatballs and feta-olive sauce

Makes: about 45 meatballs
Time: about an hour
Source: Ruoka & Viini

spicy lamb meatballs

• 2 dl or 2 cups pureed tomatoes
• 1 dl or 1 cup bread crumbs
• 1,5 teaspoons sea salt
• 1 egg
• 500g or 18oz ground lamb meat (ground beef could also work)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1,5 teaspoons ground cardamom
• 2 tablespoons freshly chopped mint
• 1/2 dl or 1/4 cup chopped pine nuts
• 1/2 dl or 1/4 cup chopped golden raisins
• ground black pepper

feta-olive sauce

• 150g or 5.5oz feta cheese
• 1 dl or 1 cup chopped green olives
• 250g or 9oz kermaviili/unflavoured yogurt
• zest of one lemon
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons freshly chopped mint
• ground black pepper

Heat oven to 200C/390F.

Puree tomatoes, mix with bread crumbs and let sit for a minute or two. Add salt, egg, and meat. Mix well. Add the remaining ingredients, mixing well. Form mixture into small meatballs. Place on a baking pan (place a lightly greased small wire cooling rack on top of the baking pan and bake the meatballs on it to allow the grease to drain away and the underside of the meatballs to brown) and bake for 15-25 minutes until brown.

In a bowl, crumble feta cheese with a fork. Blend in chopped olives and kermaviili/yogurt. Flavour mixture with lemon zest, lemon juice, mint and black pepper.

permalink Ω 17 February 2006, Helsinki

Blue Plate Special

« Maksalaatikko, a.k.a. liver and rice casserole. »

I was one of those weird kids who really liked liver and onions. Liver gets an undeserved bad rap and subsequently isn't very popular in American dishes or very commonly featured in cookbooks. Years ago, I did a stint in a research lab where we would obtain human liver samples, isolate the hepatocytes and infuse them with various substances and I lost my taste for it after one night when I was mistakenly given an enormous whole human liver instead of the usual 50g sample. The image of the hard, red, bulbous organ would pop into my mind every time I'd see or smell liver for the next few years, but I eventually got over it and it's a good thing, too, since liver casserole is one of the most popular and commonly consumed dishes around here. It's the macaroni and cheese of Finland.

Finland doesn't have diners, sadly, but if it did maksalaatikko would be first on the menu since it's packed with diner and comfort food qualities. I can imagine it as a featured blue plate special served with a side of slaw and fries at any diner north of the Mason-Dixon. It's easy to make in a single dish (such as the fabulous Arabia Kokki casserole), in fact so easy that there aren't any good excuses to buy the ready-made instead, especially since the ready-made stuff doesn't really taste like much of anything except rice. I add cronions to the top for a bit of truck stop flair as well as to avoid the pre-digested appearance of the store-bought variety and it works well if you like onions. A bit of blue or cheddar cheese might also make a nice addition. What's not to love about liver when it's baked with tasty stuff in a casserole?

Maksalaatikko / Liver Casserole

Makes: 4-6 servings
Time: about 50 minutes + bake time

• 400-500g or 14-18oz beef, chicken or pig liver
• 2 large onions, diced
• 50g or 4 tablespoons butter
• 5 dl or 2 1/4 cups milk or beef stock
• 1 dl or 1/2 cup raisins, soaked in warm water if dry (optional)
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 1 tablespoon ginger culinary syrup (optional)
• 1-2 teaspoons ground white pepper
• salt
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh or dried marjoram
• 1 dl or 1/2 cup cronions for the top (optional)
• lingonberry jam or cranberry sauce to serve with it

rice:

• 2 dl or .85 cup porridge rice
• 5 dl or 2 1/4 cups water
• 5 dl or 2 1/4 cups milk

In a saucepan or the casserole dish, bring milk, water and rice to a boil. Stir in raisins, cover and simmer for about 45 minutes.

In a skillet, or in the casserole dish you intend to bake with, melt butter and sautee onions until soft. Put onions into a small bowl and set aside. Slice liver into small pieces and sautee until brown and cooked through. Place on cutting board and use either a sharp knife or a pizza cutter to crumble the liver into very small bits. You could also briefly use a hand blender.

When rice is done, mix together all ingredients in casserole dish and bake for about 50-60 minutes at 200C/390F.

permalink Ω 5 February 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

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

Baked America

« Fresh, warm dallaspulla. It might be impossible to eat only one. :) »

On the Friday before last, I was leafing through Nyt magazine and saw a sidebar that answered a burning question I've had for nearly two years [see below]; What's the deal with all the pullas named after American locales? The bostonkakku has been around for a really long time and is essentially a cinnamon-almond filled pulla baked in a round pan and served like a pie rather than individually. Then there is the texaspulla which I assumed was named for its size. Recently the dallaspulla started appearing everywhere so I figured it was a trend. Maybe someone at Fazer *hearts* GWB or has a bakery underground supplying pulla to Finns at the Nokia offices in Dallas. I keep hoping for a fruit and nut version to be called the californiapulla. Fazer might like to know that Texas is home to 'Needmore' and 'Happy' which would make great pulla names. There's also a Boston, Texas. :)

Who invented the Dallas?

A dallaspulla there, a texaspulla here. They have taken over cafes, R-kioskis and service stations. Soon you won't find any other kind of pulla in Finland!

Who is responsible for this? We asked Fazer Bakery Head of Product Development Sampsa Haarasilta. "The Pullas were invented by our product developer Tapani Mäkäräinen."

Does he wear a stetson and boots? "No, at least not at work."

Why exactly are dallas and texas pullas taking over the market? "They have good fillings and rich dough and the taste is unpretentious. The texas has a cinnamon filling and the dallas has a vanilla quark filling."

Why is the pulla's name dallaspulla? "First came the texaspulla which was fashioned after the American cinnamon roll. Then someone noticed that there is also a city called Dallas [in Texas] and suggested we give another pulla that name."

We also asked Dallas residents if they have seen dallaspulla.

"I've not seen them. Besides, it's really hard to find quark [rahka]", says Dallas resident Heli Niemi.

See, Texas is really more like a cornbread and beef jerky kind of place rather than coffee cakes and cinnamon rolls. Tex-mex beef jerky pulla would be more worthy of the texas title. Boston is closer to the mark. I'm still confused, but I'll accept the explanation. :) I went hunting for a dallaspulla recipe since I didn't know what the filling was made of and found the original recipe from Tapani Mäkäräinen on the ruokala.tv website. It would make enough pulla for 60 people as well as the ingredients were all measured by weight rather than volume, which is a pain if you don't have a kitchen scale. So, I did a bit of research and worked on the recipe to come up with a version an average person like myself would consider making. The dallaspulla are really cheap and easy to make if you follow the recipe and have a little patience. I baked some of the new frozen Fazer mini dallaspulla as part of my research and found them dense, greasy and overly sweet. Nothing beats a fresh, warm pulla from your own oven that isn't full of E additives.

I first translated the recipe and then halved it successfully as my research subjects appeared to be too busy snarfing pulla to find fault with them. I tried a few more batches, cut the production down to 12 pulla and adjusted a few parts that I thought needed it. The first thing to go was the cardamom. The dallaspulla in its current form doesn't contain cardamom and it's such a strong spice that it wrestles any flavours more subtle than itself into submission. I also replaced the powdered milk and water with real whole milk since there's really no good reason to use powdered milk in such a small recipe.

Finnish dough recipes very often leave the addition of the butter until the dough is already in a ball and it is kneaded in last. It seems to work well, but I find it a bit strange. I prefer making the primordial ooze containing the butter, milk and sugar for the yeast at the beginning which gives the yeast a chance to feed and leaves me free to add flour as needed without having to worry if other ingredients are mixed in with it.

The original filling calls for a vanilla cream powder which someone on a bulletin board mentioned is the same as the instant vanilla sauce mix that is found in most groceries. I compared the ingredients of the vanilla cream powder and the vanilla sauce mix and found this to be correct. The suggested substitution also works well.

The flavour of the rahka filling reminded me of cream cheese but it was difficult to work with since it wasn't very stiff and it didn't bubble up like the filling appears to do in the bakery versions of the dallaspulla. I tried a few variations and didn't succeed in reproducing that effect. The original recipe also suggests piping some of the filling onto the tops of the pullas, but this didn't work well at all as it didn't brown and it turned into a chewy sort of cheese.

Since rahka/quark is not available in the US, I figured that the filling should use something American to deserve the name. I made a filling out of Philly Cream Cheese [ yet another food with an American city in the name. :) ] which is available in Finland and also makes a stiffer filling that is easier to work with when slicing the roll of filled dough. Lemon zest will add just enough sourness to lean towards the rahka flavour of the original filling and the orange is a pleasant variation. The dough itself is also very soft so if the filled roll is too soft to work with reasonably, place it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes or so to firm it up a bit. The icing is a very tasty, very American touch if you're up for the sugar buzz. :)

Kierrepulla vaniljarahkatäytteellä, a.k.a. Dallaspulla

Makes: 12 pulla
Time: about 2 hours
Source: Tapani Mäkäräinen on ruokala.tv

Dough:

• 2,5dl or 1 cup whole milk
• 75g or 3/4 stick softened butter
• 1 50g yeast cake or 1 packet of dry yeast
• 1 egg
• 80g or 1/2 cup superfine sugar
• 2,5g or 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 0,55 kg or ~5 cups wheat flour

Finnish Filling:

• 50g or 1/2 stick butter
• 1 large egg
• 25g or 2 tablespoons sugar
• 100g or 1/2 cup maitorahkaa (a.k.a. quark)
• vanilla cream flour [can be replaced by mixing together 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar and 25g or 1/4 cup potato or wheat flour]

American Filling

• 8 ounces or 200g cream cheese (1 package)
• 1/4 cup or 0,5 dl granulated sugar 
• 1 large egg 
• 1 teaspoon orange or lemon zest from 1 small orange/lemon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract  or 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• 2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour 

Icing

• 1/2 cup or 1,25 dl confectioners sugar
• 3 teaspoons fresh orange or lemon juice
• dash of water to desired consistency

Directions

1. Prepare filling by mixing ingredients into a smooth paste. Refrigerate until needed.
2. In a saucepan over low heat, warm the milk and butter to about 40C/104F.
3. In a bowl, crumble the yeast into the warm milk and butter mixture. Add sugar, salt and egg. Mix together well until the yeast is dissolved.
4. Add flour gradually until the dough forms a ball. Add more flour only if it's still sticky and add only a little at a time.
5. Knead dough for about 5 minutes until smooth and elastic.
6. Place a towel over the bowl and let the dough double in a warm, draft-free place for about 30 minutes to 1 hour [warming the oven to ~40C/100F works very well as a proofing box].
7. Turn dough out onto lightly floured work surface. Gently shape dough into rough rectangle with long side nearest you. Lightly flour dough and roll into a 16-inch x 12-inch (40cm x 30cm) rectangle.
8. Spread filling on the dough leaving a 1cm/.5in border on the far edge.
9. Beginning with long edge nearest you, roll dough into taut cylinder.
10. Firmly pinch seam to seal and roll cylinder seam-side down.
11. Very gently stretch and roll to cylinder of even diameter and 18-inch/45cm length; push ends in to create even thickness.
12. Using a sharp serrated knife and gentle sawing motion, slice cylinder in half, then slice each half in half again to create evenly sized quarters. Slice 3,8cm/1.5in pieces from the rolls and place into a rectangular pan using a spatula.
13. Cover with a towel and allow to rise for about 30 minutes while the oven warms to baking temperature.
14. Make icing.
15. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200-225C/390-435F for about 13-15 minutes.
16. Cut pulla apart and drizzle icing over the tops.
17. Try not to eat them all in one sitting. :)

permalink Ω 20 March 2005, Helsinki