Hedgehog buns

1 egg
raisins

1. Start by making some buns.

2. Let the dough rise until double in size. Then push the air out by kneading the dough few times.

3. Make round buns and twist a nose for the hedgehogs. I used raisins for the eyes.

4. With scissors, cut the spikes on hedgehogs' backs.
 
5. Let them rise for 30 min and spread some egg on top of them.

6. Bake in the oven in 200'C for 15-20min until golden brow.

7. Enjoy as they are or cut them in half and spread some jam and whipped cream between. :)

Strawberry-cream profiteroles

First time doing these! They tasted really good! :)

2dl water
80g butter
1 ½dl wheat flour
3 eggs

1. Quickly boil water and butter in a pot.

2. Add the flour and mix hard until the dough loosens from the pot edges.  (This happens quite quickly.)

3. Put the dough to different bowl and let it cool down until it's room temperature.

4. Add the eggs one by one and mix with mixer until the dough is even and smooth.

5. Put the dough in a piping back and pipe little lumps on a baking tray covered with baking paper.

6. Bake them middle in the oven for about 20min in 200'C until they have risen and have nice color on them. Don't open the oven until they are done!

7. Let them cool down before you put the filling in.


Filling:
2,5dl whipping cream
200g vanilla quark
2tbsp powdered sugar
1,5dl  strawberry jam (this should be smooth if you are going to pipe it in the profiteroles, otherwise it will get stuck in the pipe)

1. Whip the whipping cream until light and fluffy. Add all the other ingredients.

2. Pipe the filling into the profiteroles.

Sprinkle some powdered sugar on them. Enjoy. :)

Wholegrain bread rolls

We made some bread rolls with my friends few days ago. They tasted good so I decided to put the recipe here :)

500g wheat flour
500g wholegrain flour

22g dried yeast
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salt
650ml warm water
different seeds and nuts (pumpkin, sunflower...)

1. Mix the dry ingredients together. (flour, yeast, sugar, salt)

2. Add half of the water and mix with hands. Add rest of the water and knead the dough with your hands (e.g. 7min) until it does not stick to your hands and is nice and smooth and soft.

3.  Let the dough rise under a cloth for 30 min until it has doubled its size.

4. Knead the dough for a while and add the seeds and mix them in.

5. Made the bread rolls on a baking tray. Let them rise 30min under a cloth.

6. Stroke some water on them and put some seeds on top of the rolls.

7. Bake in 180'C for 15-20min depending on your oven or until they are golden-brown. (You can get even crispier rolls if you put a heat proof bowl in the oven filled with water.)

8. Enjoy when they are still warm and crispy :)

Rowan berry jam

In Finland rowans are producing berries now and it's good time to make something out of them. People usually leave them on the trees and let then go bad, and so do I. But now I thought that I'd be nice to try something out of them.

Rowan berries can taste quite sour and bitter so it's not easy to come up with recipes. In the old days Finnish people used to dry these berries and eat them during hard times so that they could get their vitamins. In fact, rowan berries contain three times more vitamin C than oranges.

It was my first time trying this, so I ended up doing just a little test. I picked the berries from my nearest forest (two minutes walk).

300g cleaned rowan berries
1dl water
2dl jam/jelly sugar
2tsp vanilla sugar

1. Clean the berries from dirt and branches.

2. Put the berries and water into a pot and start boiling until steam rises out of them. Add the jam and vanilla sugar.

3. You can crush some of the berries using e.g. fork. Boil the jam about 5 minutes and mix at times. Separate the foam forming on top of the jam if you want to.

4. Boil with medium heat 5 minutes more.

5. Take the pot away from the heat and let it cool down a bit.

6. Can the jam in a clean and hot jar.

7. Let the jam cool down. Preserve the jam in the fridge.

Buns (no egg)

Long time no see. Hello again. :) I've been baking quite a lot but for some reason I haven't had time to update my blog. I'll try to be more active in the future.

There is no egg in this recipe.
~36 buns
Time: dough 10min + raising time 30min +20min
baking 10-15min
oven 200'C

2 bags of dryed yeast (1 bag ~11g)
~1kg of wheat flour
1 1/2dl sugar
1tsp salt
cardamom to taste
0,5l milk
150g melted margarin

on top of the buns:
water-sugar mixture
grain sugar

1. Mix the dry ingredients together (yeast, ~4dl flour, sugar, salt and cardamom)

2. Heat the milk in a pot to be little warmer than your hands (~42'C)

3. Pour the milk into the dry ingredients and mix well to be smooth.

4. Melt the margarine ready.

5. Add flour to the dough and mix together with e.g. a wooden spoon. When you've added about 2/3s of the flour start mixing the dough with your hands.

6. Add the margarine and mix it in the dough with your hands. Add flour if needed.

7. Knead the dough until it doesn't stick to your hands or to the bowl.

8. Let the dough rise in a warm place under a cloth about 30mins or until double in size.

9. Make buns.  Let them rise 20min. Preheat the oven to 200'C.

10. Spread the water-sugar mixture on the buns and sprinkle sugar on top.

11. Bake the buns about 10-15mins depending on your oven / until golden brown.

Spinach crepes

These crepes make me go back to my childhood when my mom used to make these. I absolutely love them and they are super easy.

~20 big crepes

8 dl milk
2 eggs
3 tsp salt
4 dl wheat flour 
2 tbsp vegetable oil
300g frozen spinach 

normal salted butter for frying

1. Defrost the spinach. Mix the ingredients together.

2. Let the mixture rest at least 15min.

3. Bake the crepes on a buttered frying pan.

Enjoy the crepes with lingonberry jam for example.

Crispy oat and sunflower seed bread

I decided to make my own bread today instead of going to the grocery. :)

1 bread:

9dl flour 
1 sachet of yeast (11g)
2,5 tsp salt
25g almond chips (or other seeds/nuts)
1,5 dl oat flakes
handful of sunflower seeds
3dl water 

1. Mix the dry ingredients together.

2. Add the water and knead the mix until the dough becomes firm and does not stick to the bowl or to your hands.

3. Let the dough rise in size for about 20 min.

4. Knead the dough on a floured table and form a bread from it.

5. Put the oven to heat to 240'C and let the bread rest a little on a baking tray while waiting for the oven to heat.

6. Put the bread in the oven (You can also put a small water filled cup next to the bread - this makes the bread crispy.) for about 20-30min.

7. Take the bread from the oven and let it rest a while.

I enjoy my bread with plain butter - yum. :)