Mokkapalat, coffee brownies Finnish-style

These are the brownies that most Finns know ever since their mum made them (or at least those of my generation ;) : Mokkapalat! The bottom is very airy and the topping is wonderful containing real coffee.

Ingredients (quantities for a small oven):

-for the bottom:
3,3 dl wheat flour
3 eggs
2 dl sugar
1,3 dl milk
130 g butter or margarine
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1,3 teaspoon vanilla sugar

-for the topping:
2/3 package icing sugar
30 g butter or margarine
3-4 tablespoons coffee
1 tablespoon cacao powder
2 teaspoons vanilline sugar

Preparation:
Melt the butter meant for the bottom of the cake. Let it cool down for a while. Add the eggs and the sugar into a bowl and mix them with a mixer until they will have obtained a foamy composition. Take another bowl where you mix the rest of the dry ingredients together.

Take turns mixing gradually the milk and the dry ingredients to the egg-sugar foam. When you are done, mix the previously melted margarine into the foam.

Add baking paper on an oven plate and pour the foam on the oven plate evenly. Bake it on 200'c for around 15 minutes.

Melt the butter or margarine meant for the topping. Mix all the other ingredients together. At the end add the melted butter and mix. Spread the topping all over the cake, and don't be too slow or make pauses, because the topping is likely to become stiff soon.

If you like, decorate the cake with sprinkles.

Salmiakki Swiss roll

Swiss rolls (fi: kääretorttu) are a very common dessert in Finland. The crust can be made brown by cacao powder or it can retain a light colour. The fillings are many and diverse, and this one here is a rarity. A few friends of mine sounded astonished when they heard I was making a salmiakki Swiss roll. Fantasy, however, is a good quality! And since salmiakki (=strong salted liquorice, nh4cl) is inevitably the most fantastic candy in Finland if you ask me, I felt like trying this out! I recommend to use a kind of salmiakki that is easy to cut. Unfortunately I didn't and so I, to avoid excess suffering, left the pieces bigger.

Ingredients:

The dough:
3 eggs
1 dl sugar
½ dl wheat flour
½ dl potato flour
1 tl baking powder
2 tablespoons cacao powder
sugar
bread crumbs
baking paper

The filling:
1,5 dl whipped cream
1,5 dl vanilla flavoured quark (That's Dutch, and it's something like a very thick yoghurt)
salmiakki candies

Preparation:
Cut the salmiakki into pieces. Mix the whipped cream and the quark and add the pieces of salmiakki into it. Put the filling into the fridge to wait for the crust to be ready.
Mix the sugar and the eggs into an airy foam. Mix the flours together and add them carefully into the foam. Pour the dough on baking paper on an oven plate. Bake it in a 225 c oven for 7 minutes.
Take a sheet of baking paper and put it on the table. Dust some sugar on it. Set the crust, on its other side still attached to its baking paper, on the sugared baking paper. Remove the baking paper that was with it in the oven.
Spread the filling you previously prepared on the crust.

Roll the crust into a roll. The result is the best if you let the Swiss roll stay in the fridge overnight and serve it the next day.

Banana-chocolate muffins with a shade of lemon

Here's a recipe for muffins of sophisticated taste characterised by the richness of dark chocolate (although I don't use the darkest one possible), the sweetness of banana and the freshness of lemon.

Ingredients (x12 muffins):
150g butter or margarine
2 dl sour cream
zest of one lemon
2 eggs
1 ½ dl sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
3 dl wheat flour
1 dl cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
a pinch of salt
3 bananas
200 g dark chocolate

Preparation:
Heat up the oven to 175 c. Melt the butter and add into it the sour cream and the lemon zest. Mix together the eggs, sugar and vanilla sugar so that the final result is light and airy. Mix the sourcream-butter mix into it. Mix in another bowl the wheat flour, cacao powder, baking powder and salt and add this flour mix into the dough. Slice the bananas and cut the chocolate into pieces and add them into the dough. You can however set aside some pieces of clocolate in order to decorate the surface of the muffins with them.

Fill cake cups with the dough. Bake in the middle level of the oven for 15-20 minutes.

Apple pie featuring oats

Here's the recipe for a heavenly oat-driven apple pie. Yes, Finns use them even in apple pie. Comes out really good! I recommend it if you still haven't tried!

Ingredients (8 portions):
100 g butter
1 egg
1 ½ dl oats
½ dl sugar
1 ½dl wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

2-3 apples

On top:
50 g butter
½ dl sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
1 ½ dl oats

Preparation:
Mix the sot butter, egg, sugar, oats, flour and baking powder together. Apply butter on the surface of your baking mould. Press the dough onto the bottom of the mould and use extra flour to help. Peel and slice the apples and settle them on the dough.
For the topping: Melt the butter and mix into it the sugar and the oats. Dust the mix equally on the whole surface of the pie.
Bake the pie in 200 c for 25 minutes.
Excellent served with vanilla sauce or vanilla ice cream!

Carrot muffins

These are absolutely delicious muffins with carrot. Alike with the carrot cake, but in muffin form. Common in Finland.

Ingredients (12 cake cups):
around 300 g carrot
4 dl wheat flour
3 dl sugar
2 tl baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
3/4 dl crushed almonds
100 g margarine
3 eggs

For the topping:
200 g unspiced unripened cheese (for example Philadephia)
1 dl icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Preparation:
Mix all the dry ingredients with each other. Peel and grate the carrots. Melt the margarine and then let it cool down a little. Mix the eggs, margarine and carrots together.

Add the dry ingredients into the wet dough and mix. Fill the cake cups quite full with the dough. Bake in 200 c for 20 minutes.

Mix the ingredients for the topping. Wait until the muffins have cooled down before you spread it on them. You may even add some more decorative things on them, like we did by adding extra pieces of carrot.

Finnish-style pulla-pear dessert

This is a soft tasting fruity dessert improvised by me. I think the ingredients really suit each other, so I wanted to share it with you.

Ingredients (x2):
1 pulla (=sweet bun) (the 'korvapuusti' kind is ideal for that they have cinnamon!)
300 g vanilla ice cream
2 dl milk
a big pear or two small pears

Preparation:
Cut the pear into small pieces. Put the pieces of pear into mugs and pour milk on them. Cut the pulla or korvapuusti into "flakes" and add it into the mugs. Add ice cream on them. Mix.

Cakies with a warm chocolate heart

These little chocolate cakes in cake cups are great for giving your friends a good vibe when they come and visit you. Ideal with a hot drink like hot chocolate or espresso. What is special about them is that the inside is soft and really melts in the mouth. Also, there will be some strips of liquidy chocolate here and there. The minus is that you must do something else while they freeze up in the freezer for 3 hours before entering the oven.

Ingredients (7 cake cups):
100 g milk chocolate or dark chocolate
80 g butter
80 g sugar
20 g flour
3 eggs
1 pinch cinnamon
(icing sugar)

Preparation:
Mix the sugar and eggs in a bowl. Add the flour and dust it with a little cinnamon. Melt together in a pan the chocolate and the butter. Add the chocolate-butter into the dough you first were preparing. Mix until you obtain a pretty uniform colour. Butter the cake cups and sprinkle them with flour. Pour the mixture into the cake cups. Put the cake cups into the freezer for at least 3 hours. 3 hours passed, heat up your oven to 210 c, take the cake cups out of the freezer and put them directly into the oven. Bake them for 17 minutes. You can optionally decorate them with icing sugar when they're ready.

Banana and strawberries with white chocolate dressing

This is a perfect dessert for a summer evening. A delicious way to eat fruit, and if you are trying to cut down on your chocolate intake, this may be of help since the chocolate is only in the dressing!

Ingredients x4:
400 g strawberries
2 bananas
150 g white chocolate
a little cup of milk

Preparation:
Peel the bananas and remove the green part of the strawberries. Cut the bananas into pieces. Put the fruit into cups. Melt the white chocolate in a pan with just a little milk.

Once the chocolate and milk have formed a sauce, pour it immediately on the fruit.


Serve right away!

Balsamico apples

This is the first entry to start my cooking blog.
I will introduce you balsamico apples with ice cream, a very enjoyable yet easy-to-make dessert.

Ingredients x4:
½ dl sugar
½ dl aceto balsamico
3 apples
vanilla ice cream

Preparation:
Mix the sugar and the balsamico vinegar together in a pan. Let them boil for one minute (remember to mix). Slice the apples into pieces about one cm of width. Cook the apple slices in the balsamico, mixing all the time, for 2-4 minutes, until they have got soft.



Let them cool down a bit and serve them with vanilla ice cream.