Karelian pie

If someone asks from Finnish people, what is the most traditional and iconic Finnish food, I bet most of the answers would be "Karelian pies". These are rice porridge filled rye pasties, eaten with Egg Butter or butter, -and they are amazing. Nowadays people doesn't bake these at home so often than few decades ago, because more or less every store sell these. The quality of the pies varies a lot in stores, but still many think these are way too challenging to make by themselves. I know quite many people who haven't even tried to do these, not even once.

I can't brag about my skills either, since this was the first time for me too. But anyhow, I think I can still give some compliments to myself, because these pies turned out to be pretty nice looking. Or what do you think? The taste is usually easy to get right, but the looks... Oh dear, that's the hard part. Everyone has their own handwriting, and there is even saying in Finland about shape of these pies compared to bakers privates... But I'm not go to that... :D

Karelian Pie
24 pcs
For the crust
1 ½ dl of water
1 tbsp canola oil
3/4 tsp salt
3 dl rye flour
1 dl all-purpose flour
For the filling
2 ½ dl of water
2 dl uncooked rice 
7 ½ dl milk
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
For brushing
Melted butter and milk

Prepare the filling first. Stir rice into boiling water and cook for 10 minutes. Add the milk and let the porridge simmer for 30 minutes. Leave the filling, lid on, for 10 minutes. Season with salt and let it cool. Stir the egg in the cooled porridge.

For the crust: Mix cold water, oil, salt and flours with a wooden spoon. Knead the dough until smooth and solid. Sprinkle on the table rye and wheat flour mixture and pour the dough onto the flour. Shape the dough into a log and cut into 24 portions and shape each into a round. On a lightly floured board, roll out each round into a 10-12 cm circle.

Spread filling evenly on each round. Fold two opposite edges of the pastry over the filling and crimp the edges of the dough toward the center to make an oval-shaped pastry, allowing about 1 cm of the crust to overlay the filling and leaving the center of the filling exposed.

Slide the pies on the prepared baking sheet and bake the pies 275 C for about 10-15 minutes.
In a small bowl, stir together the melted butter and hot milk and brush on the pastries. Pile the pies in a bowl and cover with parchment paper and cloth.
Serve with butter or preferably with Egg Butter

Coffee & Chocolate bars - "Masaliisa"

During the 80's, there was no party where this confection wasn't served. Or was there? This pastry is, Mokkapalat or Masaliisa, to my mind, the most iconic pastry of that decade. I forgot this for years and years, until my husband mentioned this once. Name "Mokkapalat" is more common with Finns, but In Pori area they call it "Masaliisa". Even I'm not from that area I found the name so amusing, I startet to use it instead of "Mokkapalat"

To me, the best part of the pastry is the frosting, and there never enough it. So why not put it in to two layers? I kind og a made cake using this bar, and this way I managed to get more frosting into my piece of bar. 

Coffee & Chocolate bars "Masaliisa"
For 4-6 person
For the cake
3 dl sugar
5 dl all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 dl water
200 g butter
4 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 dl strong coffee (with milk)
2 eggs
For the frosting
50 g butter
500 g icing sugar
5 tbsp strong coffee
1-1½ tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

Mix all dry ingredients together (sugar, flour and baking powder)  Put butter, water and cocoa powder intoa a pan and bring to a boil. Combine the flour mixture and cocoa mixture. Addt 1 dl (milk) coffee, and let cool. When the dough has cool enough, stir in the eggs. Spread on cookie sheet and bake at 200 degrees for 20 minutes. Let cool. Then split the cake in half.

For the frosting, melt the butter in a saucepan and mix with other ingredients. Mix until smooth. If the mixture seems too stiff add a little e.g. milk, and if it seems too loose, you can add more powdered sugar. Keep the mixture warm for the frosting. Spread the frosting evenly over the both cake pieces. Lift the other part of the on cake over the other.
Sprinkle with nonpareil, and just Enjoy!

Rye Sourdoug bread

I'm not much of a baker, but this bread I can make, and I have never ever manage to ruin it. It is the easiest, yet the most delicious, bread what I have baked. The basic version contains only all purpose flour, but my version has rye flour as well. But effect using the rye flour is, that the dough gets very loose. So you might need to add 0,5 dl all purpose flour extra.

After the bread has cooled just enought I can handle it, I enjoy a bit of it with butter. Nothing else, just a knob of butter on top of the warm bread... 

Rye Sourdough bread
1 bread
6 dl all purpose flour
1 dl rye flour
1/4 tsp active dry yest
 4 dl warm water
1-1,5 tsp salt

In a big bowl mix the flour, salt and yeast together. Pour water into the bowl and using a spatula or a wooden spoon mix it until well incorporated. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit on your counter for 12 to 18 hours. Add your cast iron pot, lid next to the pot, to the oven and preheat oven to 225 C degrees. After oven reaches the temperature, let it set 15 minutes.

Flour your hands really well and also sprinkle a bit of flour over the dough. With your floured hands gently remove the dough from the bowl and roughly shape it into a ball. Take the ball of dough and drop it into the pot. Cover the pot with the lid and place it back in the oven. Bake for 30 minutes with the lid on, after which remove the lid and bake for another 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Remove the bread from the pot and let cool before slicing into it and serving.

Chewy gingerbread cookies with pistachios, cranberries and white chocolate

A while ago I invited few of my friends to our place for some glög. Nothing special, but small get-together. Just before that, I found interesting recipe by accident and wanted to try that. Except, I wanted to add some extra, and I did. Original recipe was only for cookies, I added the decorations.

Pistachios are my favorites and cranberries goes nicely with them, and nothing beats the white chocolate. So perfect combination. But, I have to honest, and tell you that I wanted to use cherries, but I couldn't find those dried from the store. But some day I will try that combination...

Chewy Gingerbread cookies
about 30 cookies
160 g butter, softened to room temperature
240 ml granulated sugar
60 ml molasses
1 egg
480 ml all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
0,5 tsp ground cloves
0,5 tsp ground ginger
0,5 tsp salt
Decoration
150 ml melted white chocolate
100 ml pistachios
100 ml dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 190°C.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, beat together butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy.  Add in the egg and molasses, and beat on medium-low speed until combined. Gradually add in the dry ingredient mixture and beat until combined.  Cover and refrigerate dough for at least 30 minutes, until it is chilled.
Roll the dough into small balls, about 2 cm in diameter. Fill a small bowl with sugar, and roll each ball in the sugar until it is completely coated.
Place on cookie sheet at least  2 cm apart, then pop the entire cookie sheet with the dough in the refrigerator for an extra 10-15 minutes before baking.
Bake for about 8-10 minutes, until the cookies begin to slightly crack on top.  (They may crack more while cooling.)  Remove from the oven and let cool for a minute or two. Then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

For the decorations:
Roughly chop the pistachios and cranberries into smaller pieces.
One at a time dip the tops of the cookies into the white chocolate and place on a wire rack.
Before the white chocolate sets, sprinkle the cookie with a mixture of cranberries and pistachios.

Original cookie recipe Gimme some oven

Beaujolais Nouveau meets Rustic onion tart

Yesterday it was that certain day of the year, -third Thursday of November. After work I went to buy bottle of this year's Beaujolais Nouveau, and after that it was time for cooking. Earlier we have eaten cold cuts and cheeses with BN, but this year I wanted something with onion. After long search I found very nice recipe of onion tart from the Food&Wine. And I made that! It was delicious, and went nice with the wine. I'm pretty sure, that this tart shall be done many times in my kitchen in a future as well.

For the tart, I made only ½ portion of the dough from original recipe, because I prefer thin crust and wanted onions to shine.

Rustic Onion Tart
For 4 persons
Dough
125 ml all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
45 g unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and chilled
35 ml ice cold water
Filling
50 g butter
1 kg sweet onions, thinly sliced
2 gloves garlic
6 thyme sprigs
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon of milk

In a bowl, whisk the flour with the salt. Using your fingers, rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Drizzle the water over the flour and stir gently just until incorporated; gently press to form a dough. Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 1 hour.
In a skillet, melt the butter. Add the onions and thyme and cook over moderately high heat, until softened, about 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to moderately low and cook, until the onions are golden, 20 minutes longer. Remove from the heat and discard the thyme, season with salt and pepper. Let cool.

Set a pizza stone on the bottom of the oven or position a rack on the lowest rung and preheat the oven to 190° C. On a floured work surface, roll out the dough to a 30 cm round and transfer to the baking sheet. Spread the onions on the round, leaving a 3 cm border. Fold the edge of the dough up and over the filling and brush the edge with the egg wash.

Bake the tart on the stone or on the bottom shelf for about 40 minutes, until the dough is richly browned on the bottom.
Transfer the tart to the top shelf and bake for about 5 minutes longer, until the top of the crust is browned. Transfer the tart to a rack and let cool slightly. Cut the warm tart into wedges and serve.

Original recipe: Food & Wine