roll

Butter Rolls

March 31, 2015


Milk, honey and butter. With these ingredients you bake sinfully good breakfast rolls! I usually make the rolls the evening before and I'm always worried if any of them is left until the morning.

There is lots of butter in the dough. Therefore the rolls don't need butter, cold cuts or cheese on them. They are perfect for a brunch and a great addition to a lunch salad, because it's easy to break apart the bread into delicious bites. 

The recipe makes eight large rolls. If you want to make small and pretty rolls, cut 20 rolls, glaze with egg and sprinkle some poppyseed on them.

8 pcs.

25 g fresh yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp honey
3 dl (300 g) milk
75 g butter
8 dl (520 g) wheat flour

Stir the yeast, salt and honey into the lukewarm milk. Add most of the flour (about 6 dl). Knead the butter and the rest of the flour into the dough. Keep kneading until the dough is elastic and bouncy.

Cover with a tea towel and let the dough rise at room temperature about 30 minutes.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead it until it's elastic again. Divide the dough in half. Roll each half into a rope. Cut each rope into 4 pieces. Shape each piece into a ball. With a sharp knife, make five cuts into the rolls. Line two baking trays with parchment papers, place the rolls on them, cover and leave to rise at room temperature for 20 minutes.


Preheat the oven to 250°C. Bake for 810 minutes.

no-yeast

Traditional Finnish Rye Bread

March 25, 2015


As a child I thought that the neighbour of my grandmother was a strange man, because he was washing his bread. We don’t wash our bread! Well, he wasn’t either. He used to eat rock-hard, dried rye bread, which became chewy and edible with water.

This has been a well-known practice in Western Finland, where almost every housewife had bread poles on the roof beams of the kitchen for her rye breads. There are still kitchens, where you can find them. The house of my grandmother’s mother is one of them. Women baked lots of thin rye breads especially in the fall. They were well preserved on the poles until the following spring and in the kitchen they were always conveniently within reach. 

3 breads

First day, evening

1 dl (100 g) sourdough starter
2,5 dl (250 g) lukewarm water
2,5 dl (150 g) organic rye flour 

Mix together the sourdough starter, water and the rye flour. Cover with a tea towel and leave at room temperature (24–26 °C) for 12–20 hours. Next day the mix should look brisk and bubbling, which tells you, that it’s ready.

Second day

1,5 tsp salt
2,5 dl (250 g) lukewarm water
the starter dough from the evening before
6–7 dl (330-380 g) organic rye flour

The following day, blend the salt with the lukewarm water. Stir together the starter dough and the liquid. Mix the flour into the dough and knead until firm and well bound together, for about 5 minutes. Cover and leave to rise at room temperature for 6 hours.

Turn the dough out onto a baking surface and divide it into three balls. Flatten each piece into a thin disk on a parchment paper. Make a hole in the center of each dough disk with a glass. Poke the surface randomly with a fork. Place the ring on a baking tray with the help of the paper. Cover with the cloth and let rise for 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Bake for 30 minutes or so.


roll

Breakfast Rolls

March 19, 2015


Freshly baked, warm rolls are a sweet treat in the morning. Even the sleepyheads can bake them with this recipe, because the dough is made the evening before.

16 pcs.

5 dl (500 g) water
17 g fresh yeast 
1 tsp salt 
11 dl (700 g) wheat flour

First day, evening

Stir the yeast and salt into the cold water. Mix in the flour. Knead the dough for 8–10 minutes until it feels bouncy and elastic.

Cover the bowl with a plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator overnight. 

Second day, morning

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead it thoroughly. Divide it in half. Roll each half into a rope. Cut each rope into 8 pieces. Shape into rolls and place on parchment papers. Cover and leave to rise at room temperature for 60 minutes.

Put a baking tray into the oven and preheat it to 250°C. Bake for 10–15 minutes. Let the rolls cool on a wire rack until cool enough to handle. The scent of freshly baked rolls will surely bring your family to breakfast table.

leftover

Whey Loaf

March 12, 2015


Egg cheese is a traditional Finnish banquet delicacy, which I make every Christmas. In the summer, it's even better with a lift of fresh herbs. 

I use the whey left over from making cheese as the liquid for my bread doughs, because I hate to see it go to waste. But, it's impossible to use all of it right away. I usually end up freezing the whey in 5 and 7,5 dl containers. The smaller one is for rolls and the larger one for two loaves.

This is one of my regular recipes, which I remember well because of repeating twos.  

This dough needs only one rise. Once you make the dough, shape it and put it right in the tins to rise. You don't have to rise the dough after kneading, because you use the bread tins and therefore the dough don't need excellent handleability.

2 loaves

7,5 dl (750 g) whey (or water)
25 g fresh yeast
2 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp anise seeds
2 tsp fennel seeds
2 tbsp oil
20 dl (1300 g) wheat flour

Stir the yeast, salt, sugar, ground seeds and oil into the cold water. Mix in the flour. Knead the dough for 8–10 minutes until it's smooth and feels bouncy and elastic. 

Divide the dough into two, roughly even halves. Shape the pieces into loaves and place in the oiled tins. Cover the breads with a cloth and let them rise at room temperature for 60 to 90 minutes, depending on how warm your kitchen is.

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Bake for 30 minutes. 

Cover with a cloth and let them cool on a wire rack.


crispbread

Traditional Crispbread

March 05, 2015


This is the very first crispbread I've made. The recipe is old and little bit old-fashioned, but it's one of the beloved classics of our kitchen. 

40 pcs.

50 g fresh yeast
5 dl (500 g) lukewarm water
0,5 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp ground anise seeds
1 tsp ground fennel seeds
100 g melted butter
5 dl (280 g) rye flour
7 dl (450 g) wheat flour

Stir the yeast into the lukewarm water. Add salt, sugar, seeds and the cooled butter.  Mix in the flour. Knead the dough for awhile until smooth. Cover the bowl with a cloth and let the dough rise at room temperature about 15 minutes.

Turn the dough out onto a baking surface and divide it into four pieces. Roll out each piece to a 3 millimeters thick sheet on a parchment paper. Roll with a patterned rolling pin or poke the surface randomly with a fork. Place the sheet on a baking tray with the help of the paper. Cover with a cloth and let rise 15 minutes.

Traditional Scandinavian crispbread

Cut the sheet into squares with a knife or a roller cutter. Preheat the oven to 250°C. Bake for 10 minutes.

Cut the crispbread into pieces while it's still warm. Place on a wire rack and allow to cool.