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.)

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. :)