TWD: Finnish Pulla

 With the Finnish Pulla we finish (haha) this 2012-TWD-year.

When I saw the picture I was afraid it is one of these very much time consuming, almost not possible to knead with a hand-mixer brioche breads.

Well, it's not. It takes some time for resting and rising, but compared to other yeasted breads the rising times are not too long (two times 45 mins), so you can easily do it in a half a day.
And the dough is not so extremely dense as a brioche. Additionally, you can easily knead it with your hands. What is, after all, a nice experience.

The Pulla (is it simply called Pulla? or Pulla Bread?) is a basic recipe, not too much fuzz, and still a bit exraordinary due to the cardamom in it. The almonds and sugar on top makes it look very lovely.

I made only half the recipe, so my strands were not long enough to make a circle. But the book also gives a picture of a "loaf" so I guess it's ok to shape it like I did.

All in all, this is an excellent recipe for a brioche-like bread! And: Although I like to bake seasonally, I am also very thankful for having a recipe this week that is NOT overloaded with sugar, almond paste, cinamon and nuts. I was in the need of a break. Seriously.

For the recipe, head over to Erin's blog The Daily Morsel or have a look at pp 106/107 in Dorie Greenspan's book.

TWD: Gingerbread Baby Cakes

I am moving - so this is my last post from my old kitchen.  I am used to cooking with gas what is not possible in the new house. No idea if I will ever get used to the induction cooker. I love the gas stove :o[
I'm going to miss it, as my whole apartment. However, the new one is wonderful. And I am going to get used to my new kitchen, too.
And: The new baking oven comes with pyrolysis (self)cleaning - so much looking forward!

Anyhow, the real topic today are Gingerbread Baby Cakes. I had to make some changes and adaption for this:

First, I have no baby-cake mold. And the flour-leftover I had was not enough for a whole recipe. So I made about 60% and filled the batter in pretty paper molds, more like for baby-pound cakes, but that was what I had (still) at hand. Calculating baking time was very difficult due to the different form and amount of batter in each mold. In the end it took about 45mins.

Than I had to sub the molasse as it is very uncommon in Austria. I used 3/4 maple syrup and 1/4 corn syrup, just what I had at hand. Hope it comes near what it should be.

I switched to ordinary sugar so I didn't have to open a new bag of brown sugar four days befor I move. I guess brown sugar is better, but the ordinary sugar did no harm.

I topped the cakes with "schudde buikjes" - a bread topping I recently buyed in Amsterdam. They come with speculos taste at this time of the year. Perfect match!

These cakes are very easy to make. The coffee taste is a bit more dominant than I am used to, maybe because there is no chocolate in it and most receipes I know use the coffee to support chocolate taste. The second unusual experience is that it is a bit spicy due to the black pepper and fresh ginger.

It is a bit uncommon, but really good and very seasonal.

For the recipe, have a look at Dorie Greenspan's book on pp. 247/248or head over to our host's blog Karen: Karen’s Kitchen Stories.