Showing posts with label Finnish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Finnish. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Finnish Oven Pancake

A Finnish Oven Pancake is a rich morning treat made from pantry staples. Try this recipe with eggnog for a festive holiday breakfast. It's also perfect for a lazy Snow day.



image of a Finnish Oven Pancake in a round cake pan on a snowy lawn



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I love a good snow day. 
It's Mother Nature giving you an opportunity to pause, 
catch your breath, and take in the beauty of the world.

What's the best breakfast to make on a snow day?


To me, this Finnish Oven Pancake is the perfect Snow Day breakfast. It's made with common ingredients (eggs/flour/butter/milk) and it takes a while to bake--something I wouldn't normally do on a busy weekday morning.

Do you need a recipe to use up some eggnog?


During the holiday season I have eggnog on hand so I'll switch things up and make this using eggnog for a special treat. Try it with any flavor of eggnog you've got!


Pin for later!

A Finnish Oven Pancake is a rich morning treat made from pantry staples. Try this recipe with eggnog for a festive holiday breakfast. It's also perfect for a lazy Snow day.


While living in Virginia I started our family tradition of the Finnish Oven Pancake Snow Day Breakfast.


You may know this as a Dutch Baby, but I've seen many Dutch babies (Thomas and Emily come immediately to mind) and while I'd love to nibble on chunky baby thighs, they didn't look a thing like this.

Monday, December 15, 2014

Finnish Pulla {Cardamom Coffee Braid}

This is a recipe for Finnish Pulla, a cardamom-spiced lightly sweet braided bread. It is delicious plain or with butter, served alongside tea or coffee, or as an after school snack. The recipe makes three loaves which is terrific for gift giving during the holidays. 

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http://www.farmfreshfeasts.com/2014/12/finnish-pulla-cardamom-coffee-braid.html


Baking: art or science? Discuss.

When I first saw this bread being made it was all art: building the fire in the wood stove, mixing the ingredients until the dough looked right then braiding, decorating, and finally baking the bread. To my young, fresh-out-of-college eyes Eila Akkanen's ability to create this bread was purely magic. [Looking back on that summer, Eila was doing her weekly baking in the the farmhouse kitchen where she'd raised her family and had probably performed that 'magic' thousands of times.]


http://www.farmfreshfeasts.com/2014/12/finnish-pulla-cardamom-coffee-braid.html


I think baking used to be considered an art, or perhaps more accurate, a series of crafts. Building a fire to the proper baking temperature is as much a learned skill as kneading dough or even beading bracelets. Nowadays I don't need to know much about building a baking fire--I use the keypad on the oven to type in the precise temperature I'd like, and double check it with my oven thermometer. I could re-learn the chemical equations which describe the reactions of a pile of ingredients turning into a loaf of bread, but I don't need to know how it works--just that it does.


http://www.farmfreshfeasts.com/2014/12/finnish-pulla-cardamom-coffee-braid.html
I braid one side towards the middle, then the other, then finish by pinching the end pieces together.

My approach to this recipe is a mixture of science and art. Because my kitchen temperature averages 60 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter, I use my bread machine to mix the dough [don't worry if you don't have a freezing kitchen and a bread machine, I'll provide directions for mixing the dough]. When the machine is finished, though, my experienced eye takes over and shapes the dough until it looks right.


http://www.farmfreshfeasts.com/2014/12/finnish-pulla-cardamom-coffee-braid.html


The inspiring recipe came from Beatrice Ojakangas' book Fantastically Finnish. Instead of starting with whole cardamom pods I use the ground spice, and because I first had this while working on a dairy farm I like to use a richer milk. I have made this bread using all cream--very rich dough, very tender crumb, great way to use up 2 cups of heavy cream--as well as half & half and even 2% milk. Normally I'll say 'use what you have on hand' but if you've only got fat free milk please go grab a pint of half & half before making this. It is the holidays after all. 


Speaking of holidays, I'll be sharing sweet recipes each day during #ChristmasWeek. Tuesday I'll be sharing 3 lessons learned making Pecan Brownie Bites for a Cookie Drive, Wednesday it's back to Scandinavia for Fruit Soup, Thursday we're keeping things simple with Toffee Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Friday I finish getting my ethnic on with My Mother's Norwegian Lefse
If you're not into sweets, check out my Visual Recipe Index for more savory ideas for what to do with the produce from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, farmer's market, and garden.