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.