A deli­cious sweet bread fla­voured with car­damom, this is Finnish bak­ing at its most tra­di­tional. Plus bak­ing these will fill your house with a heav­enly aroma that will make Finns think of their grand­moth­ers.

Ingredients:

• 500ml milk
• 1–2 eggs (depend­ing on size)
• 1500ml Flour (about 900g)
• 200ml Sugar  (about 200g)
• 200g Butter (at room temperature)
• 2 tsp dry Yeast
• 1½ tsp Salt
• 1 tbs ground Cardamom

Method:

Dough:

1. Warm the milk so that it feels slightly warm to the touch.
2. Dissolve the yeast in the milk, then mix in the eggs, sugar, salt and cardamom.
3. Stir in about ¾ of the flour, a little at a time.
4. Add the but­ter and mix well.
5. Stir in the remain­ing flour.
6. Knead the dough until it forms a ball and sep­ar­ates from the sides of the bowl. It will be very sticky at the begin­ning so use some flour to keep your fin­gers from stick­ing to the dough.
7. Cover the bowl with cling film and leave to rise in warm place until doubled in size (30-60min).

What to make from it:

Pikkupulla (lit. little pulla):

1. Roll the dough into small balls, slightly lar­ger than golf balls.
2. Place on a bak­ing tray to rise for about 30 mins.

Korvapuusti:

1. Roll the dough out to form a square, the thin­ner the bet­ter. This is easier to do if you do, say a quarter of the dough at a time
2. Spread some warm but­ter onto the dough.
3. Sprinkle lib­er­ally with sugar and cinnamon.
4. Roll to form a long sausage-shape.
5. Cut diag­on­ally into pieces, altern­at­ing the dir­ec­tion at each cut.
6. Place each piece onto a bak­ing tray, thin side up, and press down in centre right through to the bak­ing tray.
7. Set aside to rise for about 30 mins.

Pitko (plait):

1. Roll a por­tion of the dough into a long, thin saus­age, then cut into 2 pieces, one half the size of the other
2. Press the end of the smal­ler strand into the centre of the longer.
3. Plait together the three strands by altern­ately pla­cing the left-most, then the right-most strand in the centre.
4. At the end press together the ends and place on a bak­ing tray to rise for about 30 mins.

Baking:

1. Heat the oven to 200ºC.
2. In a cup, beat an egg.
3. Before pla­cing the pulla in the oven, brush each with some egg wash.
4. Sprinkle some sugar on the top.  (I’ve used large grained sugar which, as far as I know, is unavail­able in the UK, reg­u­lar sugar will work fine too)
5. Bake for about 10 minutes or until well browned.

Pulla are best eaten fresh, this is quite a big batch so if you don’t think you’ll get through the lot in a day or two, I’d sug­gest freez­ing some.