Spoon Biscuits ‒ Lusikkaleivät

Random facts about Finnish coffee culture #6: Much like Italian habit of eating spaghetti with a for and a spoon, his is a habit largely disappeared, but you can still see some older people doing it. They pour their coffee from the cup to the saucer to cool it down. Then they press a sugar cube tightly between their lips and trough it sip the coffee from the saucer.

In my childhood, these biscuits shaped like spoons were a standard standing coffee table piece on every confirmation and  50th birthday party. So I kind of associate them with silverware, linen tablecloth and candles, but there's really no reason why they couldn't be a part of a regular coffee table too. Still, I'd reserve them for special occasions such as Independence Day or name days.

One thing I've wondered is why so many Finnish cakes and biscuits use baking soda though I don't see anything especially sour on the ingredient list. I kind of assumed it's more for the taste, but several sources claim baking soda used in a wrong place makes everything thing taste bitter. Apparently in biscuits it's purpose is to give a light brown colour without raising too much the structure meant to be crunchy. (The following should make about 40 biscuits.)

- 200 g margarine
- 1.5 dl sugar (plus some to decorate)
- 2 tsp vanilla sugar
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 4 dl wheat flour
- 1 dl raspberry marmalade

Heat up the margarine in a sauce kettle. Don't lift it off as soon as it has melted but stir occasionally and continue to cook for about five minutes. When the margarine has toasted just a little, move it into a bowl, add sugar and stir even. Let the mixture cool down.

Mix the dry ingredients together and add them as well. Find an oval and deep shaped teaspoon. Press the dough into the spoon evenly. Draw it carefully out of the mold and onto a baking sheet with the flat side down. Repeat as many times as you have dough left.

Bake 12‒15 minutes in a 175°C oven. Let them cool down. Spread marmalade on the flat side and press another individual against it. Quite often these are also rolled in sugar before serving.

Nutritional values / 1 biscuits / 18 g:
energy 73 kcal
fat 4 g
protein 1 g
carbohydrates 9 g
fiber 0 g

Bébé Cakes ‒ Hiekkahentuset

Random facts about Finnish coffee culture #5: Finland is the only country in the world that has made coffee breaks mandatory at workplaces. Though actually drinking coffee isn't mandatory, most workplaces offer free coffee to workers and you can have as much as you like.

When I ate pink bébés as a kid there was some retro feel about them. But they're surprisingly old cakes. And as with most old recipes, newer versions are full of non-vegan ingredients, but if you go far enough, you'll find recipes that don't need any special veganizing. Such is with this one, found from a 100 year old personal recipe collection.

Hiekkahentunen is the crust part of this recipe, reminding of small sand cakes. You can use them alone and fill with anything you like from fresh berries to many kinds of foams. Together with the filling and icing they become French babies which Svensson bakery in Vaasa prepared in the early 20th century. To me, they're most of all an exercise of how different forms you can get from sugar and fat. From this amount, I got 18 cakes.

Crust:
- 212 g margarine
- 160 g sugar
- 400 g wheat flour

Filling:
- 75 g margarine
- 150 g sugar
- 1 dl whippable vegetable cream
- vanilla powder

Icing:
- 2 tbsp water
- 0.5 tbsp white vinegar
- 3‒4 dl icing sugar
- sprinkles

Froth the crust margarine. Beat in the sugar and the flour. Press them carefully into small cake molds. Try to achieve thin but smooth layers. It may be helpful to flour your fingers once in a while. Bake in a 175°C oven for about 15 minutes or just enough to get some colour. Let the crusts cold down a bit before digging them out from their molds.

Melt the filling margarine and froth together with the sugar. Spice with vanilla. Whip the cream and mix in with the rest. Scoop the filling into the hiekkahentunens. See they're cool before adding the icing.

Prepare the icing simply by mixing all the ingredients. Rub even and shiny. Quickly spread on the cakes with a knife before it hardens too much. Quite often bébés are also decorated with sprinkles.

Keep the cakes in cold until serving.

Nutritional values / 1 bébé / 75 g:
energy 308 kcal
fat 13 g
protein 3 g
carbohydrates 45 g
fiber 1 g 

Boston Cake ‒ Bostoninkakku

Random facts about Finnish coffee culture #4:Coffee parties are predominantly a female territory. In the 18th and 19th centuries they were a very important form of social gathering among upper class women. Later on, meetings of women's organizations centered around them. These parties joined women from all social classes and organizing one became a showcase (plus a competition) for many women. Important project regarding schooling, worker's movement and prohibition law were plotted in these parties, so they were by no means mere knitting occasions.

This is the last MoFo recipe using the pulla dough, or at least the last one I've planned. Though the name refers to Boston, this is quite a traditional Finnish cake. There are lots of place names referring to far away places and they all seem to originate from the same time period, when common folk started hearing news from those places. I bet someone remembered there was some talk about the Boston tea party and thought that sounds like a delightful and a bit upper-class tag for a cake.

Boston cake is basically a heap of ear buns. The most common version even has the same cinnamon filling, but different jam versions are also common. I however decided to use vanilla paste which you normally see in another similarly named pulla type, Dallas pulla, plus some nuts. Dallas pulla usually looks a lot like quark pulla and is a fairly new type, probably named after the TV show popular at the 80's. The vanilla paste recipe is from Saara Törmä's cook book Saa vaivata.

- half a portion of pulla dough
- 1.5 dl oat milk
- 0.5 dl sugar
- 0.25 dl corn starch
- 25 g margarine
- 1 tsp vanilla sugar
- 1.5 dl crushed nuts
- coarse sugar to decorate

Prepare the dough as normally. While it rises, prepare the vanilla paste. Mix the sugar and the corn starch in a sauce pot. Add the milk and start heating up, careful to stir all the time. Keep stirring until the liquid thickens. Keep on the heat for couple of more minutes. Add the margarine in small pieces. Refrigerate.

After the dough has risen, knead for a while to get any extra air out. Roll the dough into a square of about 30x60 centimetres. Spread the vanilla paste on the square and sprinkle with most of the nut crush. Roll the square as if you were making a Swiss roll. Cut it into chunks. Lay the chunks into a small, round and buttered cake tin (the kind with a loose base is handy with this). Sprinkle with more nuts and coarse sugar. Cover with a towel and let the cake rise for at least half an hour.

Bake in a 200°C oven for 30-35 minutes. Serve at a sophisticated coffee party with a Boston-like aura.

Nutritional values / 2144 g:
energy 6255 kcal
fat 200 g
protein 169 g
carbohydrates 941 g
fiber 57 g 

Pitko

Random facts about Finnish coffee culture #3: Though Finns mostly drink their daily average of 6-7 cups of coffee from mugs, nearly every family owns a fancier set of coffee dishes which are used when guests arrive. They usually feature cups much smaller, only about 1,25 dl worth of coffee.

I think themes really help readers if you're going to blog for a whole month. Today I thought I'd include a list of some of the many interesting themes of this year's MoFo but it turned out they were quite hard to find since the official theme preview didn't include links and googling doesn't seem to help with all of them.I'd love to find for example the blogs posting about Japanese Inspired, Fermentation or the End of the World, but perhaps if I'll just keep on clicking through Randomofo.com. Here's anyway a list of 15 (because ten was too hard to choose) themes I'll be watching (in no order whatsoever):

• French Food by Good Food Marsh
• Jewish and Middle Eastern Recipes Veganized by DIYletantte
• Vegan Scotland by Imogen Michel's Blogging Spot
• Thai Food & Travel by Messy Vegetarian Cook
• Food from Wales by Rosie's Vegan Kitchen
• Gravy by Tofu Mom
• Tea by Tea and Sympatico
• Vegan Cheese by Mary's Test Kitchen
• The Letter S by Green Gourmet Giraffe
• Will My Kids Eat It? by Veganopoulous
• Harry Potter by Dumbledore's Vegan Army
• Vegan Month of Cake by Seitan is My Motor
• Burgers by Zsu's Vegan Pantry 
• How This Kid Gets Protein by Peace, Love, Be Vegan (who's writer is only ten!)
• Intervention of a Food Hoarder by Don't Fear the Vegan

This year there doesn't seem to be any overarching theme like taco cleanse, but several people are writing about box lunches. Great since mine tend to be dead boring and I could really use some fresh ideas.

As for my recipe today, the popularity of this pulla version is best described by the amount of names it has: leeta,nisuleeta, leikkopulla, leettapulla, pullaleetta, pullaeltta, eltta, pullalonka, lonka, lenti, lentipulla, pullalentti, vehnäskukko, vehnänen, lettivehnänen, vehnäsletti, pullaletti, letti, letike, lettipitko, pitko, kranssi, huikari, käntty, nisuänkkä, nisu, nisuankastokka, ankkastokka, ankkastukki, pullanvuolu, runtipulla, mummo, tillukka. Some of them are plain odd to me as well, most describe the braid-like shape and the most familiar one for me, ankkastukki, is practically unknown in most of the country. The word assumably comes from the coast area's Swedish-speakers word ankorstocka, which means a part in a wooden anchor.

- half a portion of pulla dough
- 1 dl raisins
- coarse sugar for decoration

Start the dough as normally. After it's risen enough, knead any extra air out. Add the raisins into the dough and knead more to spread them evenly.

Now comes the fun part. Roll the dough into long bars you can braid together like hair. The most simple variant has three bars, but there can be four or five, depending on what you like or feel comfortable trying. The one in the photo has four of them, though as you probably see, I'm not that good at braiding. Basically, you first roll two bars together and then join two double bars. Here are instruction pictures with four bars, here with five.

Finish the ends by taking a small piece off with your amazing karate hand. Leave it under a towel for at least half an hour. Then butter with well sugared coffee and decorate with coarse sugar. Bake about 20-25 minutes in a 200°C oven. Bring the whole pitko to the table but cut a few slices ready for the guests.

Nutritional values / 1920 g:
energy 5625 kcal
fat 139 g
protein 155 g
carbohydrates 931 g
fiber 44 g 

Ear Buns ‒ Korvapuustit

Random facts about Finnish coffee culture #2:Though coffee table is the main event of any regular family visit and everyone knows it, you shouldn't seem too eager about it. When the hostess first asks guests to come to the table, no one seems to hear. After the second invitation they already start to look at each other, wondering who's the bold one to go first. If no one else is willing to appear as if they came only for the food, the oldest lady (or some other guest of honour) might get offered a chair because it's more comfortable than standing

The second day of MoFo and I still haven't really checked the other blogs. Think tomorrow I'll write you (and myself) a small list of interisting themes I'm especially looking forward to read.

Korvapuusti is easily one of the biggest classics to have with coffee and I must admit there is a reason to it. Its closest cousin is cinnamon roll which I've heard being called both American and Danish invention. If anyone has any further knowledge, do let me know! Korvapuusti's name literally means ear bun because of the cute "ears" it has. The word has also come to mean a slap on a person's ear, probably because someone thought it sounded humorous. There are different versions with different fillings, but this one's the classic. It makes about 16 big ones or 32 small ones.

- 1 portion of pulla dough
- 100 g margarine
- 1 dl farine sugar (stickier and more aromatic than regular)
- 2 tbsp cinnamon
(almond flour, cardamom)

Prepare the dough as normally. When it's ready to be shaped, take half of it and let the other half rest. Roll it into a large rectangle with one long shape and the other somewhat shorter, perhaps 60x30 centimeters or so.

Melt the margarine and use half of it to butter the rectangle. Sprinkle with cinnamon and farine sugar (and if you wish, almond flour and cardamom too). Then roll the rectangle as if you were making a swiss roll and leave the seam under the roll. Cut it into pieces but make the cuts diagonally like this / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ so all the pieces have one long side and one pointy side so they're almost triangles. Flip the pointy side up. Press your finger or a spoon gently but firmly in the middle of the roll so the middle part goes to the table and it's ears flop out. (Here's a helpful diagram). Repeat with the other half of the dough.

Place the big-eared fellows on a baking sheet and cover with a towel. Let them rise for about half an hour. Butter with well sugared coffee and sprinkle with coarse sugar if you wish. Bake in a 225°C oven for 8-10 minutes. Enjoy hot with coffee.

Nutritional values / 1 pulla / 126 g:
energy 390 kcal
fat 13 g
protein 10 g
carbohydrates 58 g
fiber 2 g

Quark Pulla ‒ Rahkapulla

Random facts about Finnish coffee culture #1: Finns consume the largest amount of coffee per capita, 12 kg a year while the world's average is only 1,3 kg. Other Nordic countries follow close behind.

Vegan Month of Food is upon us again! Renovating our apartment and watching after a soon year old child have kept me too busy to blog this summer, but luckily a post per day for a whole month should make up for it.

This year I decided to take a real challenge and post with the theme "Finnish coffee table". That means I'll be busy baking all sorts of sweet things, or at least fail miserably, since confectionery definitely isn't my strongest kitchen area. I only have a vague list of what I might be posting so far, but at least I'm going to start with some recipes taking advantage of the basic pulla dough. Unlike last year, they are going to be mostly from the classic end of the spectrum and not so much my own or otherwise highly modern ideas. And since few foods are known in one country only, it's often quite hard to say what is truly a Finnish speciality, but I'll draw the line to those which are clearly associated with some other country even though they might be common in Finland as well, for example pavlova (Russia, though it's actually invented in New Zealand) or princess cake (Sweden). Also, I'll leave sweetnesses associated with certain holidays to their respective seasons.

My purpose was to first say a word or two about the coffee table culture in general but then I decided it's more fun to tell about it little by little as random facts included in every post. Right now all you need to know is that we're talking about a more humble weeknight occasion, in contrast to the standing coffee table you see at weddings and funerals. It's a culture already disappearing from cities but alive and well in more rural areas like South Ostrobothnia where I grew up. When people go to visit their friends or relatives in the evening, they dress up a bit tidier than they normally do but not too dressy. The hosting family (or usually, the hostess alone) serves them coffee and little snacks on the table while everyone discusses about the latest gossip. And of course, there is an extensive amount of small but expected rituals that no one even thinks as such until some poor foreigner comes along and starts acting funnily. So I hope this month worth of posts will also act as a guide in case one of you finds themselves in the middle of this weird but hospitable occasion.

I'm only going to post about the sweet stuff here, but in case you'd like to repeat something like this at your own home, remember that generally only one savory item is enough. It might be vatruskas, a pie or just your average open-faced sandwiches. Sandwich cake on the other hand might be a bit too fancy.

- 1 portion of pulla dough
- 5 dl soy yogurt (drained)
- 1 dl sugar
- 1 tl vanilla sugar
- 1 dl bilberries, black currants or raisins for decoration

First prepare the filling. Drain your yogurt in a coffee filter overnight to make it firmer. Then mix with the sugar and vanilla sugar. Refrigerate.

Start the baking process as normally. After you've rolled the dough into buns, take a drinking glass with an even bottom. Flour it and press firmly but gently on the ball. It should squeeze and leave a nest in the middle, but the bottom shouldn't have holes in it. Repeat with all the pullas.

Fill the nests with couple of spoonfuls of the filling. Crown by placing some berries or raisins into the filling part. Bake 10-15 minutes in a 200°C oven, until the quark has curdled. You don't necessaily need to butter them as it's ok if they look a bit fair skinned compared to regular pullas.

Nutritional values / 1 pulla / 208 g:
energy 597 kcal
fat 14 g
protein 16 g
carbohydrates 96 g
fiber 4 g 

Rutabaga Spaghetti with Peas and Pistachios ‒ Lanttuspagetti herneillä ja pistaaseilla

The spring has been early this year, after practically no winter. I saw catkins already in February, caltsfeet flowers in March and right now finding some leftover snow is a matter of some serious search. Yesterday there were, pushing out of the ground, something green which I am almost certain was ground elder. It's definitely the time to get rid of the last root vegetables, berries in the freezer and dried nettles to make room for the fresh stuff.

This pasta dish was something I came up with one night when I came home late and hungry, from the ingredients I happened to have. This time we tried it with a bit more special twist, using a "pasta" famous among so-called paleo eaters and low carbers. By hand, it required some work, but the idea seems so great I'm seriously considering to buy a new kitchen gadget just to make sure I'll prepare this more often from now on.

- 1 large rutabaga (the bigger you can find the easier this gets)
- 2 tbsp canola oil

- 200 g frozen peas
- 1 dl roasted and salted pistachios, peeled
- 1 orange
- black pepper

Peel the rutabaga. Then take your peeler, a cheese slicer or a dedicated kitchen gadget. Try to carve out as long stripes out of the rutabaga as you can. When the whole of the yellow root is spaghettisized, steam the stripes a few minutes to get them half done. (If you prefer your spaghetti a little al dente, you can skip this step.) Then fry them on a pan with oil just enough to get some delicious browning on the edges.

You can finish the spaghetti with any of your favourite pasta sauce, but for this version, simply peel and cut the orange and then add the pieces into the pot, together with peas and pistachios. Stir. The dinner is ready when the peas have fully melted.

Nutritional values / 1387 g:
energy 987 kcal
fat 59 g
protein 35 g
carbohydrates 76 g
fiber 32 g