Description
Finnish Cardamom Rolls – a delicious cardamom-infused sweet roll perfect for holiday gatherings, Christmas morning and holiday tea.
Ingredients
Units
Scale
- 1 cup milk or half and half, lukewarm (no warmer than 110F)
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoons vanilla
- 1 package active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
- 1 tablespoon cardamom seeds, toasted and crushed or 2 teaspoons ground cardamom
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 2 eggs
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
Filling:
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
- 1/4 cup butter, softened
- 1 egg, for egg wash, whisked.
- Turbinado or rock sugar, for sprinkling over the rolls, or regular sugar
Instructions
- Combine the warm milk, a pinch of sugar and yeast in a bowl, give a stir and let stand 7 minutes until yeast is frothy and active.
- Place the eggs sugar and vanilla in a bowl or a stand mixer, and beat until sugar has dissolved. Add the milk and yeast and 1 cup flour, beat til smooth, then add the soft butter, cardamom and salt. Mix well.
- Continue adding flour, 1/2 cup at a time until dough is soft but from enough to kneed. Switch to the dough hook and continue mixing, adding a little more flour until the dough separates from the bowl and forms a ball.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let it rise in a warm spot, until doubled in size, about 2 hours.
- Mix the sugar and cardamom together in a small bowl for the filling.
- Cover the work surface with flour. Punch down the dough gently and place it on your work surface. Cut the dough in 4 equal pieces. Working with one piece at a time, cover the other rolls so that they don’t dry out. Roll each piece into a rectangle about as thin as you can, should be about 12 inches by 18 inches. Brush some soft butter onto it. Make sure it’s nicely buttered. Sprinkle some of the cardamom sugar over the entire surface, as much as you want. Roll it into a tight log starting from one of the narrow ends. With the seam side down, line up the dough log in front of you and cut it on the diagonal, alternating up and down, so that the slices are fat ‘v’ shapes, with the point of the ‘v’ about 3/4 wide and the base about 2 inches wide.
- Place each on parchment-lined baking sheet and turn so the narrow tip of the ‘v’ is facing up to the ceiling.
- Preheat oven to 350 F degrees. Let the rolls rise again, doubling, 40 minutes. Don’t skip this step.
- Brush the rolls with egg wash and then sprinkle with coarse sugar.
- Bake for about 18- 20 minutes and check to see if cooked through (200 F) , and continue baking for a few more minutes if necessary. Let cool and store in air-tight bags to keep them soft.
- To serve, heat them in the oven for just a few minutes, and serve with butter.
Notes
To make a traditional Finnish braided loaf, go to “Finnish Pulla”.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 roll
- Calories: 160
- Sugar: 4.9 g
- Sodium: 63.1 mg
- Fat: 6.9 g
- Saturated Fat: 4 g
- Carbohydrates: 21.1 g
- Fiber: 0.7 g
- Protein: 3.4 g
- Cholesterol: 39.5 mg