Traditional Finnish Recipes

Tippaleipä – Finnish Funnel Cakes

Finding Feasts | Finnish Funnel Cake — Click image for Tippaleipä – Finnish Funnel Cakes recipe

Tippaleipä – Finnish Funnel Cakes… Every year I have been meaning to get these up on the website and every year I miss the 1st of May by a day. But not this year! Here it is, finally.

The 1st of May is a huge event in Finland; it marks the beginning of spring (amongst other things) with large festivities in the towns and cities. Lots of drinking and lots of food is consumed from May Day Eve (it’s as big as Christmas for the Finns). It’s a time for friends, family, students, workmates to get together and party.

These deep fried fritters are consumed by the truckload and are perfect street food. One hand holds a fritter, the other hand holds a glass of Sima – a Finnish fermented lemon drink. With their slightly crispy outside, they are soft and warm inside with a dusting of icing that looks like snow sitting on an odd shaped snowflake.

But who needs a party?… These take but moments to whip up and only moments to devour.

Happy Vappu! Blondie 🙂

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Lanttulaatikko – Swede Casserole

Lanttulaatikko aka Swede Casserole — Click image for recipe

Lanttulaatikko – Swede Casserole is just one of four traditional Finnish casseroles served at Christmas time. The other three are carrot, potato and liver, all unique and equally as important as the roast meats.

Mum makes this every year along with the potato and carrot casseroles, although it’s been many years since we have had the liver casserole. But don’t fret, I will be making it this year… oh yes, I will!

This casserole has a slight bitterness, which is offset by the golden syrup and is the perfect accompaniment to your Christmas dinner… plus makes excellent sandwiches with all the leftovers!

Hyvää Joulua, Blondie 🙂

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Finnish Christmas Ham – Joulukinkku

Finnish Christmas Ham – Joulukinkku… Hi, My name is Katriina and I have been a Christmas addict for over 40 years. There, I said it!

The food, the movies, the songs, the lights, everything gets pulled out and celebrated from the 1st of December, although the food prep starts earlier… I live and breathe Christmas for the entire month.

My sister and I now do the ham, she gets the most amazing Smoked Leg of Ham from The Free Range Butcher here in Sydney. It gets delivered to my house along with other meats to last for a few months. The aroma from the Smoked Ham is unbelievable, truly heaven. It is pricier than standard ham but the benefit of having such well kept, happy animals and the preparation of the meat after is that this ham freezes so well. After Christmas dinner has finished we divide the leftover ham between the 3 families and freeze the large chunks. We are happily eating ham for a couple of months after and it’s still as good as it was on Christmas Eve.

The traditional way is to cook the ham yourself and then assemble the crust (Falling Cloudberries by Tessa Kiros) but being in Australia there isn’t much joy in having the oven on all day, unless you have air conditioning! Using a smoked leg of ham means you are just prepping the outside, but it also means the oven is free to cook all the other roasts and necessary accompaniments such as the casseroles (Swede casserole) and vegetables.

This ham is outstanding with its crunchy, sweet and hot crust protecting the glorious, smokey, juicy meat on the inside. I like to decorate with cute little characters but this year I will try to get a proper photo of the finished ham, before it’s devoured that is.

Finding Feasts - Finnish Christmas Ham

Merry Christmas! Blondie 🙂

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Joulutorttu – Finnish Prune Tarts

Finding Feasts - Finnish Prune Tarts - joulutorttu — Click image for recipe

One of the most traditional of traditions for a Finn is the making of joulutorttu – finnish prune tarts.

These are a labour of love if you choose to make your own jam and dough. The pastry needs to be made the day before and left overnight in the fridge. The Prunes in Port and Spice Syrup can be made weeks prior… just make sure you make enough so you can have them on ice cream!

You can use any jam of your choice but traditionally it’s a prune jam.

These are wonderful and festive, Christmas just isn’t Christmas till these come out.

Have a very Merry Christmas everyone!

Blondie 🙂

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Korvapuusti – Pulla aka Finnish Cardamom Scrolls

Finding Feasts | Pulla Sweet Finnish Cardamom Bread — Click image for recipe

Pulla – a cardamom laced, sweet Finnish bread – that is devoured by the truck load by the Finns! Eaten with coffee, this bread is as traditional as Karelian Pies.

There are 3 main ways of having them… round like a plain bun, plaited into a loaf which is sliced (grandpa’s favourite, along with a very thick slathering of butter on top, dipped into his strong coffee) and finally the scrolls with sugar and cinnamon rolled through it. The later is my favourite way of having them, along with every kid who ever gets a chance to try them.

I have done two recipes for this Pulla, one for hand kneading and one if using a bread maker (coming up shortly). They are slightly different, but both work beautifully.

I also have another recipe coming up – Pulla bread and butter pudding – after burning my first batch of hand kneaded Pulla. There was no way I was going to let all that effort go to waste!

Enjoy!

Blondie

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Karjalanpiirakat – Karelian Pies

Karjalanpiirakat – Finnish Karelian Pies are a delicious, creamy rice filling encased in a thin rye bread and then topped with an egg and butter mixture. I realise that it may not come across as particularly inviting, but they certainly are a joy to eat.

Karelian Pies are one of the most traditional of Finnish dishes and are in fact a protected dish by the European Union.

These pies are eaten at most gatherings that my Nana holds, with a friend of hers now the designated Karelian Pie maker for her and probably a majority of the Finnish community in Canberra.

I have only just come to learn the reason that Nana doesn’t make them herself, and that is because the first time she did made them, Grandpa had said to her, “If this is the best you can do, then don’t bother making them again”.

My husband is amazed that he lived past that point!

The number one key to making these is to make the rye base as thin as possible… and then go thinner.

Number two is to make sure there is enough salt in the rice mixture otherwise it will be just too bland.

These are a process of love, enjoy it – Blondie 🙂

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