White country-style bread

Nothing new about this recipe, but I thought instead of making people read through my endless blabla about the bread experiment, I will dedicate this post to the white bread. Deserves it.
There is one better thing than the smell of fresh bread coming straight from the oven: fresh bread topped with avocado, salt, pepper and lemon or balsamic vinegar.

Ingredients (preparation time ~24 hours, active time ~10 min)
450 g flour bread (1 pound), best results achieved with Costco bread flour (bleached unfortunately), Gold Medal, King Arthur, Red Mill (if you are in US)
1/8 tsp yeast
1 tsp salt
350 ml water (1.5 cups)

Serving
This time it was served with fresh avocado, salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar

In a bowl mix the flour, salt, and yeast, and add the flour mixing with a spoon until the flour clings together and detaches from the walls of the bowl. Do not mix further, it will stick back to then bowl and'll be very sticky.
Cover with a cloth and let is stay overnight, at least 12 hours, but preferably 16-24 hours.
Dump on the floured table, fold like you would fold an envelope until it forms a small ball.
Let is rise for 2 hours on the table, under a cloth.
Preheat the oven to 225 C (435 F) and bake in a pot with lid for 30 min. After 30 min remove the lid and bake for additional 20 min.
Wrap in kitchen towels for 1 additional hour to cool a bit.

Scoop some fresh avocado on top of the bread, sprinkle with salt, fresh ground pepper, and sprinkle with lemon. I had no fresh lemon at home, so I decided to spray balsamic vinegar on top. An absolutely hassle free lunch today :).

Suggestion
Do not cut the bread until still hot or the crumb will become gooey.

Pullataikina - Finnish bun dough

This is the basis for many types of Finnish pulla's, including the very simple one with no filling.
I think it deserves its own post :), not to mention how much easier it will be to just link it next time when I make some Dallaspulla..

Ingredients (makes ~16 buns)
500 ml milk (2 cups)
2 tsp (2 bags) dry yeast
1 egg
200 ml sugar (a bit less than 2 cups)
150 g butter (a bit less then 1 1/2 stick)
1 tbsp minced cardamom seed
1 tsp salt
~900-1000 g (~2-2.2 lb) all purpose (bread) flour,  1300-1500 ml (5-6 cups) depending on the type of flour used (it tends to be more towards the 1 kg with most bread flours)
1 tsp vanilla sugar or the seeds of 1 vanilla bean (optional)

Brushing
1 egg
1-2 tbsp water

Warm up 1 dl milk to ~hand warm, let the yeast to trot for couple of minutes.
Add to the rest of the milk, whisk in sugar, egg, salt and cardamom.
Stir in slowly the flour until you get a dough that starts not to stick anymore neither to the walls of the bowl nor your hands.
Melt the butter, knead it in the dough, and continue kneading until you get a smooth dough.
As usual, you should "work" some air in the dough, to be light.
Let it rise for 30-45 minutes, to about double size.

Depends what you'll do the rest might differ from here onwards at every recipe.

Korvapuusti - earslap - cinnamon buns

Yesterday  I made "korvapuusti" for the ladies' night, a friend's special request :).
Mot a mot translation of korvapuusti is earslap, however it is much more pleasant :D.
We had so much fun with the name, looking for the similarities between the Hungarian and the Finnish language.
A friend (trying to repeat the name to remember) called them kurvapusti :D, (kurva=bitch in Hungarian), so we couldn't stop playn' with the languages and further "translate" puusti to puszi (=kiss in Hungarian), and giggled like crazy thinking how she will go home in the middle of the night and tell hubby she brought him some kurvapuszi (bitch's kiss) in her pocket.
Soo, as you see our languages are really related, we could right away find some meaningful interpretation of korvapuusti in Hungarian.

Now back to the recipe, korvapuusti is not difficult to prepare, however as all yeast based goodies takes some time to rise.

Ingredients (makes ~16 BIG buns, roll it thinner and make a smaller roll with smaller buns and you'll get the double amount)
500 ml milk (2 cups)
2 tsp (2 bags) dry yeast
1 egg
200 ml sugar (a bit less than 2 cups)
150 g butter (a bit less then 1 1/2 stick)
1 tbsp minced cardamom seed
1 tsp salt
~900-1000 g (~2.2 lb) all purpose (bread) flour, 1300-1500 ml (5-6 cups)
1 tsp vanilla sugar or the seeds of 1 vanilla bean (optional)

Filling
50 g sugar (3 large tbsp, 4 smaller tbsp)
50 g butter (1/2 stick)
2 large tbsp cinnamon (for kids maybe more sugar and less cinnamon, as with too much cinnamon can become spicy).
if you made small buns and ran out of butter you'll have to use a bit more butter & sugar-cinnamon mix

Brushing
1 egg
1-2 tbsp water
pearl sugar (can be replaced with nubbly brown sugar)

Warm up 1 dl milk to ~hand warm, let the yeast to trot for couple of minutes.
Add to the rest of the milk, whisk in sugar, egg, salt and cardamom.
Stir in slowly the flour until you get a dough that starts not to stick anymore neither to the walls of the bowl nor your hands.
Melt the butter, knead it in the dough, and continue kneading until you get a smooth dough. Add more flour if needed until the dough does not stick to your fingers.
As usual, you should "work" some air in the dough, to be light.
Let it rise for 45-60 minutes, to about double size (if your room is cold, let it rise as long as it needs, it really makes a difference).
Divide the dough into 2-3 portions, easier to work with. Knead each part again to "get rid of" the air bubbles from the dough. Let is rise again for about 15 minutes.
On a silicon mat roll out the dough in a rectangle, about 0.5 cm thick (thinner for smaller rolls).
Melt the butter, spread on the dough just enough to have it covered well, sprinkle the sugar-cinnamon mix on top until the butter doesn't soak any more in.
Roll it up in a roll, and let it stay for 15 more minutes.

Now cut it in trapezoids, turn the pieces with the thinner side up, press the middle down with your finger, and let it stay for another 15 minutes.
Brush them with the water-egg mix, sprinkle pearl sugar on top, and place them in trays covered with parchment paper.
In a preheated oven, at 225 C (435 F), bake them for 15-17 minutes until light golden-brown.
Serve fresh, slightly warm are best.
They are a perfect snack for cold winter days, we took them with us to the ski slopes with a thermos of hot chocolate, and in the forest for our hikes..

Karjalanpiirakka - Karelian pies

Piirakka is one of the things we kinda got accustomed to in Finland and now we are missing them. They are not the top of gourmet, but a very good and filling snack instead of bread for a change. They suit very well a cocktail party with some add on and fresh salad. 
With a light crumbled egg on top is a perfect breakfast (traditionally hard boiled eggs mashed with butter, salt and pepper), and I will definitely make some variations tomorrow, but for now here are only the piirakka's..
Bad side: too much time to prepare, good side: freeze half of the portion and warm them up in the oven any time with butter (and ham and cheese) on top. Works perfectly fine.

Ingredients (makes ~20-25 half palm sized piirakka) time to make ~2 hours
380 ml rye flour
120 ml all purpose flour
200 ml water
2 tbsp oil
1/4 tsp salt

250-300 g (2-2.5 sticks) of butter for baking
extra milk for brushing

Rice porridge filling
0.4 l sushi or short grain rice(it should stick together not like the Basmati rice for example)
0.5 litre (2 cups) milk
1 litre (4 cups) water
1/5 tsp salt (adjust if needed, should be a salty rather than neutral taste)

Serving
scrambled eggs
ham, ham & heese
"munavoi" - alias hard boiled eggs coarsely mashed with butter, salt and pepper to taste 

Cook the rice in the water for ~10 min, then add the milk, season with salt and cook under lid over very low heat for additional ~25-35 min, until the rice is soft enough but not over boiled. It should be soft, easy to spread.
Let it cool under the lid, meanwhile prepare the dough.
In a bowl mix the rye flour with the salt, white flour, and water. It should be a rather soft though, barely dry enough to separate from the walls of the bowl.
Knead them together, roll it in a ~5 cm (2 in) rod, and cut ~1cm slices from the rod.
Roll the slices into small balls.
Half of the dough is enough to cut and roll at a time, or it will dry, and leave the dough you are not working with under a cloth all the time.
Now roll the small balls into circle-oval shapes (~10-12cm), quite thin, using a lot of flour on to and under not to stick to the table.
Place an oval shaped, flat scoop of rice in the middle (~7mm thick), leaving about 2 cm of though around the rice.
On the sides fold the dough on top of the rice,  and start lifting with your finger the rest of the dough and kinda folding it on top of the rice towards the top. Turn and repeat with the other side until it looks like the ones on the picture.
Place the piirakka-s in the tray. Melt some butter and spread on the piirakka, sides as well.
Bake them at 300 C, (550 F), for ~10 min on the top most rack, (or second top most), until bits on the top get a little golden-brown shade.
Meanwhile melt some more butter and mix with milk, approximately 2/3rd butter - 1/3 milk.
Remove the piirakka from the oven and spread the butter-milk mixture ALL OVER the piirakka, bottom, sides, top.
Place them under a cloth and let the piirakka soften.

Serve with chopped hard boiled eggs mixed with butter, scrambled eggs and many more...
We also placed a slice of ham & cheese on top, and let it in the oven for couple of minutes for the cheese to melt..
Enjoy!

OBS.
Cut the dough slices depending how big pirrakka you want. I cut about 22-25 g / piece dough and got half of a palm sized piirakka. Not the cutest cocktail piirakka :D, but at least no need to eat too many, 2-3 will have your tummy full.

Non plus ultra - tea linzer

Don't ask me where the name comes from, I just decided to rehabilitate Grandma's recipes and this is how she called them. I remembered that they melt in mouth and are just a bite each.. :)
It has again a linzer like pastry, with meringue on top, and I decided to adjust the sugar portion in the dough to make it less sweet, as originally had 150 g sugar. Huhh.. That would have been a real torture for me..
Even with the adjusted recipe is still VERY sweet however, so you want to have a sour jam inside to balance the flavor. Mine were very sweet, both the apricot and raspberry, but I was lucky to find the blackcurrant marmalade and they became edible sweet :). The kids preferred the ones with raspberry, so it is really up to your own preferences.
I also think with smaller scoops of meringue the sweetness was more tolerable (just a personal taste) than with large scoops, and when you ate them they really fit in your mouth in just one bite.
Large scoops looked better though :), if you like sweet cookies just go ahead and place a nice meringue scoop that covers the cookie, but be prepared that if you don't finish them in one bite when you eat the meringue will fall apart and make a mess :D.
Makes at least ~70 cookies (some halves were eaten unglued and uncounted..)

Ingredients:
300 g pastry flour (10.5 ounce), all-purpose flour is good, but NOT bread flour
200 g butter (7 ounces, 1 3/4 stick) (Grandma had 300 lard in her recipe, but I replaced the lard with butter and also reduced the amount, you can try with 300g if you wanna experiment or find the cookies too chewy)
2 egg yolks
100 g sugar (3.5 ounce)
1 bag vanilla sugar or 1 tsp homemade vanilla sugar

Meringue
2 egg whites, use eggs left at room temperature for ~ a day
130 g sugar
1/2 tsp vinegar (optional)

Serving
a sour jam/marmalade like apricot jam, (raspberry marmalade, blackcurrant marmalade)

Mix all the ingredients, roll it out very thin (~3mm) and cut roughly 3 cm (1.2  inch) circles. The dough can be quite sticky, add some flour if needed, and use flour beneath and on top when rolling them out (or a baking sheet).
Make the meringue from the egg whites with the sugar. If you want a successful egg white, start whipping the eggs and only when starts to thicken add slowly the sugar. Whip it well, until you remove the spoon and the peaks can stand up. Place small tops on each piece of cookie, easier if you use a piping (pastry) bag.
Bake them at 175 C (350 F) for 20 min. I suppose 180 works fine as well, take them out couple of minutes earlier.

Glue two of them together with apricot jam, let the jam soften the cookies overnight in a cold place (not the fridge though). Until the cookie softens and they get glued together the two cookies might slide, so watch how you place them on the plate.
Enjoy.

Looking at my recipes I think if someone would describe the Hungarian cake-cookie delis it would definitely have one of the following: plum marmalade, apricot jam, sour cherry, walnuts or chestnuts :). Exception is maybe the madártej.

Ile flottante - madártej

It is the kids favorite. It was mine too when I was a kid... but I never got the chance to make it with anybody, so I just had to start doing it on my own, without any proper guidelines.
I always thought it must be difficult to make as people were sayin' you should be very cautious about not to over boil the egg yolk, or it will taste like an omelet floating in milk. Yak.. And surely I DID manage to over boil it once, and it did taste like an omelet, but that wasn't the problem, the problem was I always made ~7 litres at once, so there you go, hush, 5 litres of milk, 0.5 kg sugar and 50 eggs going down the toilet. :(
However I learned how not to over boil it ever, anymore.
It became the easiest dessert one can make, the only difficulty we still have is waiting for the cream to cool down. Just takes waaaaay to long (unless one is risking ruining the freezer and puts the cream in it). I call it cream, but it is liquid, like a maple syrup, or something, if you wanna compare the texture in your imagination..
Madártej is "bird milk", suggesting that you have the little white birds sitting in a cup of yellow milk :). In french is "floating island", where the egg white is the island. You call it as you wish..

Ingredients (makes 4-6 portions), preparation time 20 min (+cooling time)
1 litres (4 cups) whole milk
10 eggs yolks (keep the eggs at room temperature for at least 0.5 day)
100-150 g sugar (3.5 - 5.2 ounce), icing if you have, but castor is good too, (I like it less sweet)
1 vanilla bean
1/2 tsp rum aroma (optional) 

For the birds (islands)
~3-4 egg whites
0.5 litre (2 cups) milk 

Edited to add: add about 15-20 g of sugar to the egg white to achieve stiffer meringue

Separate the egg yolks, and save the egg whites...
Whisk the egg yolks well together with the sugar, except ~1 flat tbsp sugar. We will use that to make a harder egg white. Use a bit larger bowl than needed, you'll see why later..
Cut the vanilla bean in two, scratch out the tiny seeds, keep the husk.
Bring the milk in a pot to boil with the vanilla seeds, and the husk. When boiling remove it from the heat (remove the vanilla husks), lower the heat, start pouring slowly! the hot milk into the egg yolk-sugar mix, stirring continuously. When nice and smooth pour the cream back in the pot, put it back to the low heat and let it thicken for ~5 min, stirring continuously. DO NOT BOIL IT anymore.
Yeah, I know, takes a bit of stirring, but not to worry about, is all done in 10 minutes :). DO NOT keep it on the fire until you find it thick enough, it will further thicken while it cools down.
After 5 min remove from heat, add the rum aroma if you chose to add (I don't add 'cause my kids don't like it), and let it cool down, stirring occasionally not to have the skin formed on top.
Meanwhile beat the egg whites with the 1 tbsp sugar (beat them until they look almost good without the sugar first, it will be better, should be a hard whipped egg white), bring the milk to boil, start scooping nice oval shaped egg whites into the boiling milk. As soon as you drop them in the milk let them "cook" for 5 seconds, turn them to the other side, boil for additional 5 sec, remove to a plate with a spoon (with holes, preferably), carefully not to take milk with the "birds" or they will moisten in the plate.
Let them dry on the plate until the cream ("bird milk", the "ocean") is cold enough for serving.
Serve the cold cream (the "bird milk") with one "bird"  floating on top. Enjoy.
Usually one "bird" is not enough to finish the cream, so keep some more on the table..

The French serve the "ocean" with the island floating on top, and pour strains of caramel syrup and roasted almond slices. I ate Ile flottante a la French in Paris, but I didn't like the caramel on top, 'guess one just sticks to what Grandma used to make :).
I have some other optional flavor add-ons instead that I prefer, come and taste my variations in my own kitchen :) or even better, experiment with your own.

Suggestion
1. Do not try to boil the whole bunch of egg whites, after scooping several nice birds you'll have some left on the sides of the bowl that can't be so nicely scooped. You choose whether you have some scrambled birds (nothing wrong with the taste), or just stick to the nice ones and wash the leftover egg white away. 
2. You can strain the milk used to boil the birds and use it for a hot chocolate, or if you choose so you can make the birds first, strain the milk and use it for the cream.
I actually never do. I make at once few "birds" only, store the milk (egg whites, and the leftover cream) in the fridge and just reuse it next day to make more birds, as the birds can not be stored for long. They either get hard or collapse, depends how much you cooked them..

PS. Sorry for the poor pic, I just couldn't make any better, the camera was always out of focus Maybe next time..

Csöröge - kinda donut

OK, the ball is very high for my patience to fry proper fánk, so I usually cheat. Just a tiny bit ;).
I make csöröge. It's a relaxed way to enjoy the "szalagos fánk" without the stress of having proper ribbon.
The dough is exactly the same, what differs is the shape in which is cut, folded and fried. As a result the dough gets in contact on a larger surface with the hot oil, which guarantees, that unless you screwed up the leavening, the result will be great. And I don't have to worry about putting the lid, removing the lid... Phew..

The csöröge should be made without yeast, and therefore the name csöröge = csörög(e), (rattling "donut"), but my hubby doesn't like any rattling "rattling donut", so I don't make it. OK, only very rarely, 'cause my daughter likes the rattling csöröge. I probably should fry "rózsafánk" for her, but that's a different story. Now the csöröge.
First make the dough based on the recipe from donut dough.
Roll out the dough ~0.5 cm thick in a round shape. Start cutting the dough in diagonal at about 3 finger distances. Then do the same thing in the other direction, until you get rhombus shaped cuts.
Make a small, 3cm (~1 in), cut in the middle of every rhombus, bring one corner of the rhombus through the cut, a bit "shake it" to get the right shape.
Let them stay for 10-15 minutes under a table cloth.
Fry in hot oil on both sides and remove them on a plate covered with kitchen paper. Serve with icing sugar and/or jam.

1.5 litres oil for frying (the csöröge should not reach the bottom).
Frying pan

Serving (all optional)
~100 g icing sugar
raspberry jam
apricot jam
whatever is you favorite jam :
Last I had them with blackcurrant jam, and hmmmmmm.... Yammi.