Finnish Christmas Baking

Baking. I love baking and being my last week here in LA, I decied to bake some Finnish goodies for my co-workers as a good-bye. My friend and I baked Karjalanpiirakat and Joulutorttu. My mom helped with the ingredients. 

I found websites that had both ingredients & directions:

Karjalanpiirakat

Joulutorttu

Enjoy the pictures of our attempt. :)

My all time favorite is Karjalanpiirakat. It's a pastry that is made with rye dough and a rice filling made with whole mike. What makes this even better, top it with egg butter. YUM! 

Karjalanpiirakat (Karelian pies)

Rice filling

300ml water 4 cups whole milk 2 tablespoons butter 2.5 cups short-grain rice, or sushi rice 1 teaspoon salt Rye dough

300ml water

1 teaspoon salt

250g rye flour (extra to work with)

Basting

50g butter (melt more if needed)

4 teaspoon milk (optional)

Egg Butter

~6 eggs, hard boiled

4 tablespoons butter

Baking Time
425°f oven for 15 minutes

After the rice filling was finally made and was cooling, we started making the rye dough. Rolling out, not too thin, cut them into disk using a cup, this way everything is the same size. This will make them small. 

Bigger the rim, the bigger the piirakka you'll have once you shape it. 

Once you rolled them out, fill with a bit of filling and fold the 2 sides over so they lay flat, this is much easier when your making normal size piirakat, and take the thumb and index finger and lightly pinch to give the ripple design along the sides. 

We had to pinch upward since our filling was a bite runny, but not too bad for first attempt. I personally think it's all about the taste, as long as it taste like a piirakka, add the egg butter and everything will be tosi hyvää! (really good) 

Joulutorttu(Christmas Stars)

Again here is for the Joulutorttu website. 

Simple way to make the filling, I just took the dates(prunes) in a blender, few at a time and blended with water.

The best ready made pastry dough for the is Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry Sheets.

Lay the sheets out and make even squares. 

Slice the corners midway toward the middle. 

The best way so that your pinwheel doesn't pop open, add the filling on top, AFTER you take the corners and stick them in the middle, making a pinwheel. 

What more filling??? You can also put some filling in the middle before you fold in the corners to make the pinwheel, then add a bit more on top in the center. 

Enjoy ja hauskaa joulua! 

Thanks for reading!