1 post tagged “baking”

I've mentioned previously (in a terribly long winded post, my apologies) that I was trying my hand at baking for the first time.  Not a big deal, I know, but try to picture a tall, slightly clumsy and inept man getting covered in flour in the kitchen and you get the idea.  Happy to report that the first attempt at plain old bread turned out really well, good crust and all, followed by similarly successful efforts at foccaccia and naan bread - so I've got meal accompianments sorted.

Having had some luck with those, and now being familiar with the techniques involved, I thought I'd finally have a go at traditional finnish coffee (as in having with coffee) bread, pulla.  More accurately, a type of korvapuusti as I've added dried fruit and spices.  After a quick consultative phone call with mum I was ready to go, here are the photos:

Make the dough and, thanks to the cooler weather and a cool house, put outside in the sun for about 4 hours to rise.  Bring it back in and start to knead it again.

At this point, "someone" decides they'd rather like my attention please (note the Meg and Mog book left artfully on the floor to press the issue).  That taken care of, dough gets rolled out, then the good stuff is added on top.

Rolled in before cutting into rounds, then check that The Boy is still happily distracted (thank you Play School! - not something I ever make a habit of, mind), leave it to rise again for a while before it's ready to go in.

The finnished product

You wouldn't believe the number of times I've heard that particular pun on "finnish".  Turns out that I put it in for a touch too long at a touch too high a heat considering we have a fan-forced oven, but the outside was "good" crispy and the inside was lovely and soft.  So yeah, it worked out really well.

It also happens that I baked it in time for K and her mum to arrive home to a sugary, cinnamonny-smelling house - extra brownie points for the son-in-law! 

So that's that done, I've made a few adjustments to the recipe which I'll use in future, next one will probably be a straight out braided one without all the fruit added.  Happy to share the recipe upon request, maybe in comments or something.

After I get my confidence up a bit more, I'll look at trying my hand at some dark, chunky rye breads and, much harder but another that I've been wanting to make for ages, karjalan piirakka, a type of pastie from eastern Finland that has all these Proustian-level associations for me.