Nesting Nut

Upon returning home from a three week trip to Scandinavia, I came across a newspaper article with a recipe for a Finnish Pulla. Although I had not tried the sweet roll while in Helsinki, conveniently I had picked up a small bag of cardamom seeds………..still in my unpacked suitcase!

Cardamom Seed Pods from Estonia

Piia Lintunen writes about her life in Finland, known for it’s coffee consumption, and sharing a family recipe for Finnish Pulla. I saved the article for a future memory invoking baking session.

Today was a cold and snowy Sunday……..a perfect day to warm up the kitchen to allow rolls to raise.

Cardamom is a fairly expensive spice, native to India.  Norwegians have commonly used the unique aromatic spice in baking.  I have made cardamom spice cookies several times before, and they were tasty.

Using my mortar and pestle, I crushed the seeds into rough pieces.

I used my stand mixer to make the yeast dough, and placed the covered bowl in a warm spot to raise……..I haven’t always been successful in my past bread and roll baking, but I was hopeful.

When I travel I almost always bring home something consumable.  Usually it’s wine, liqueur or coffee!  We enjoy attempting to recreate meals or foods we’ve tried while traveling.  I prefer these kind of “souvenirs” to factory made trinkets.

My rolls didn’t brown up like the photos in the article.  But the warm rolls were tasty with a cup of coffee on a cold snowy day……this time the coffee was locally roasted, but a toast to Finland nonetheless.

Finnish Pulla