These little guys from Finland might be one of my favorite dishes I've made for this project. They're called laskiaispulla, and they're sweet buns infused with cardamom and filled with whipped cream and jam. So many beautiful things in one bite. These buns are traditionally made for Shrove Tuesday, as it generally coincides with the Finnish festival of Laskiainen, which is basically a winter sledding festival, which is kind of adorable.
The first step is taking some milk and infusing it with the cardamom and melting sugar into it. Then once the mixture is cooled to room temperature, a bit of egg is added to thicken it up.
The wet ingredients are then added to a bit of flour to make a loose batter. Then, more flour is added until a stiff ball of dough forms.
Then you add an entire stick of melted butter. Which was kind of weird to add at this step. I flipped back and forth between two recipes for this, and I'm realizing now that I could have added the butter before all the flour was added. I feel like that would have been easier. Trying to need an entire cup of liquid until an already cohesive ball of dough is a bit difficult. And messy. And just kind of weird.
But in the end it worked out into a nice soft dough that smelled amazing. I left that to rise until it doubled in size.
While my dough rested, I made the whipped cream. That part is simple, just heavy cream beaten with a bit of powdered sugar. The hardest part was filling a piping bag. For some reason I'm terrible at that.
After rising, the ball of dough then turned into smaller balls, which then had to rise as well. I put them on baking sheets and then brushed them with some egg to make sure they were nice and shiny coming out of the oven.
For the filling, along with whipped cream, I used a raspberry-currant jam which was delicious.
I cut each bun in half once cool enough, and scooped out a bit of the center so the jam and whipped cream would fit inside. I am not ashamed to say that I ate more than my fair share of "scraps" before I finished filling them. The smell of cardamom in a freshly baked bun is just too irresistible.
The jam goes down first...
Then a nice dollop of whipped cream covers it. I'm not sure why piping the whipped cream was necessary. Honestly, putting it on with a spoon would have worked just as well. It's not like you can see it that well once it's covered. Probably if you got a higher rise and were able to slice off just a tiny bit from the top, you could swirl it more like a pretty choux pastry. Did I mention I'm also terrible at piping?
These are the full assembled buns. Super cute, they're like little sweet hamburgers.
Once you bit into them, it gets a little messy, because the top of the bun pushes down on all that whipped cream and smooshes it out of the middle. Which is fine, as long as you eat it like an ice cream sandwich and lick around the sides.
I can't sing the praises of cardamom enough. It's just such a beautiful ingredient, definitely one of my favorite spices. Too much and it can definitely turn bitter, but the flavor in these was absolutely perfect. The buns themselves were honestly perfect on their own; I don't know if the whipped cream and jam really added that much too it. Don't get me wrong, I love both of those things, but I could eat the plain buns all day long. I also keep seeing a recipe for a matcha version of these that I may have to try one day!
Recipes Used: Laskiaispulla 1 // Laskiaispulla 2
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