Finnish Cardamom Bread

 

Hi good-looking, you have such a fine crumb…want to hop in the toaster and heat things up?  No?  How about hot dipping in some coffee?    Or drawing a lovely egg bath before a quick fry in some butter?  Yep, this bread can handle it all.  It is a spice-scented, coffee-hinted bread at home with a thick schmear of butter, a quick toast to enhance its flavor, or as the perfect bread for soaking up lots of eggy goodness for french toast.

Think of this bread as the hipper, slightly exotic Nordic cousin of Hawaiian bread.   It is often called Nisu in Finland or other Nordic countries and the details change, but in general, the requirements are that it be a cardamom and coffee sweet bread.  This recipe makes 3 loaves.  It is a lot.  I know.  Also, the original recipe I made lied to me.  It told me it would take 4 hours of rising split between two rises.  While everything about the recipe is lovely, I was in a bit of despair the first time I made it.  I thought I had managed to break bread (snicker), but the second time through confirmed it.  This bread is a slow process.  As in, I made it over the course of a couple of days and it was leisurely or would have been if I hadn’t thought I ruined it.  The second time through was a weekend and a bit of an easier go.  I say follow my lead on the first time and spread it over a few days with loads of hands-off time.

Slightly adapted from this recipe.

 

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Finnish Cardamom Bread

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 tablespoons yeast
  • 1 1/4 cups lukewarm milk
  • 2 teaspoons ground cardamom
  • 4 eggs beaten
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/4 cups sugar plus more for sprinkling
  • 1/4 pound butter (1 cube) plus more for greasing
  • 6-8 cups white flour
  • Strong black coffee

Instructions

  1. Dissolve yeast in the warm milk. Add the cardamom to the beaten eggs along with the salt. 

  2. Cream the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the cardamom/egg mixture to the creamed butter and sugar, and mix well. Next, add the milk and yeast and mix until combined. Add the flour one cup at a time until you can knead the dough on a floured breadboard, continuing to add flour until the dough is soft and satiny to the touch, with no stickiness.  Be careful not to add more flour than you need, as the dough is pretty dense and that definitely leads to longer rise times.

  3.  Place the dough into a large, buttered bowl. Let it rise until it’s doubled in bulk.  You can also put the dough in the fridge at this point, and leave it until the next day.  Because the dough is pretty dense, the dough won't really rise too much in the fridge, but you can take it out the next day and let it come up to room temperature and then rise until doubled in bulk. 

  4. Deflate the dough, then divide it into three equal parts. Take one of the three sections and divide it again into three parts, rolling each piece into a rope about 12-15 inches long. Once you have three equal ropes, braid the loaf, tucking the ends underneath when you’re finished. Place in a buttered and floured loaf pan and repeat with the other two sections. Let the braided dough rise in the loaf pans until doubled in bulk.  Again, I found this to be a several hour process.  If it is cool, someone suggesting I left it out overnight without an over-proofing issue would not be out of line.  But the second time I made it, I let them rise near a pretty warm oven and it took closer to 2-3 hours.  

  5. Preheat oven to 350° F. Bake loaves for 35-40 minutes until lovely and golden.  The bread should feel hollow when you thump it. Remove from the oven and turn out onto cooling racks that have been placed on a sheet of waxed paper (for easier clean up in the next step!). If the bottom feels too mushy, put back in the pan and give it a while longer.  

  6. Brush the bread with the strong black coffee and while it is damp, sprinkle the top with sugar. Let cool and enjoy!