Vegan Cupcakes

There were more..... I think 128 in total...

Those on the left are really banana bread.... my personal favorite.

I've been excited about vegan baking lately. Especially since I've discovered a cheap trick to avoid buying expensive egg replacers. I borrowed this recipe idea from CHOW, who borrowed it from 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World' (Moskowitz and Romero)- What a fun title :P

I wanted to make something special to contribute to our friend T's 30th birthday surprise party, that his lovely wife G organized in a large warehouse, complete with DJs and almost 160 guests. Congrats G on an awesome party no one will ever forget, least of all T. 

1 cup soy milk

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla sugar

1 cup flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1. Preheat the oven to 175C. Line a cupcake tin, or I used these reusable, yet disposable individual tins.

2. Stir the vinegar into the soy milk and set aside for a few minutes. This causes the milk to curdle a bit, and is the magic to eggless baking (and a lot cheaper than buying egg replacer). 

3. Add the sugar and oil to the milk mixture. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients. I never used to understand why this was an important separation, but cocoa powder is much finer than regular flour, and doesn't absorb so much liquid, so unless you mix dry together before wet, you're going to have a heck of a time de-clumping those little bits of cocoa powder that stick together.

4. Mix the wet and dry ingredients well.

5. Pour into the lined cupcake tins, half full (or half empty, your call)

6. Bake about 18 minutes, or until a knife inserted comes out clean. (after my 6th batch I had it down to an exact with my stopwatch, but every oven is different.)

The icing or frosting (whatever you like to call it) can be made in a lot of different ways. Since I was making quite a lot, I made two crucial decisions.... Not to ice the cupcakes until they'd arrived at their final destination (unless you consider tummy.... toilet.... am I taking this too far?) The second was to spare myself the hassle of covering them completely. Most people I've met that are not ::ahem:: American, don't like sugar overload, so just a dallop will do ya....

Therefore, this is the rough version of what I did with the icing: 

3 dl vegan margerine, softened

about 3 cups of confectioners (powdered) sugar

a tsp (tlk in Finnish abbreviation) of soy milk (or vanilla soy milk)

You can of course play with this, add cocoa powder, coloring, or follow a vegan butter cream recipe like this one, from CHOW.

I also made some of the cupcakes without cocoa, for those weirdos that don't like chocolate, and even a few cupcakes that I made with a vegan banana bread recipe. (I'll post that recipe in just a bit and add the link). 

That's me and Seyhan, making sure the crowd gets their fill. 
(Picture by Kevin Pollard)

Zucchini Bread

Now that I've been making the transition into a vegan diet, baking is posing a new challenge. Most of my friends will attest to the fact that I do not back down from a challenge. Learn Finnish? Bring it on. Learn German in Finnish? Ok, then. Make an entire buffet spread for my moving out party that is vegan and everyone will love? Done and done.

The menu of this particular party included homemade pita chips, a lentil and carrot curry dip, this zucchini bread adapted from Hell Yeah It's Vegan (I used less sugar but more oil), peanut butter and cocoa squares (I would have taken a picture if these weren't eaten so fast!), amongst other basics (veggies and fruit, etc).

Most people did not realize there was zucchini in this bread. People knew they liked it and kept asking me what it was, but were shocked to hear that there were vegetables inside. Something good for you? Ok, there is a lot of sugar in this recipe, so I won't go calling it 'health food', but it's a nice treat this time of year. Doesn't come close to my mom's zucchini bread (she makes dozens of mini loaves to give away every year and everyone loves it), but at least this version is vegan!

I still had quite a bit leftover, however, and ate the rest for breakfast with a little plain soy yogurt and fruit. But afterwards I got lots of ideas how to reuse leftover zucchini bread.... toasted with agave syrup drizzled ontop....layered in a cake..... with raisins....

Bagel Favorites

I wanted to share some pictures of my favorite bagel topping combinations. As I am now making bagels all the time, I'm sure I'll be posting more of these bagel topping posts and I'd love to hear some feedback about your favorites as well :)

Sunflower seed bagel, hummus, lettuce, cucumber, tomato slices and bean sprouts.

Lox and shmear: kirjolohi, cream cheese, 1 slice tomato each, diced red onion, capers...

The Accidental Hedonist has a few notes on the perfect lox and capers bagel. He has an air of haughty, self-proclaimed expertise on this subject, especially when taste buds are rather subjective. But nevertheless, he provides some good culinary advice if trying this for the first time.

Pizza Dough

Better than delivery, making your own pizza is rewarding because it saves you money and you can personalize it as much as you want. Making the pizza dough is rather easy if you are familiar with making bread. Pizza dough flour is available rather easily, but regular flour would be just fine. To be honest I don't know what the difference with the pizza dough flour. But I've used both and never noticed the difference.

Soft Pretzels

I love soft pretzels: at a baseball game, the movies, the mall, on a warm summers day, or any other of these special occasions that a soft pretzels invokes in my memories. They're good covered in sugar and cinnamon, rolled with raisins, sesame or poppyseeds, or jalopeno peppers, garlic, and a number of other 'flavors' that are now popularized by places like 'Auntie Annes'. But the real classic is just plain kosher salted.

And I like mine with plain yellow mustard on them, and later, with spicy dijon. I remember when being in Berlin's Weinachtmakt, trying the 'real thing' for the first time. When I kindly asked 'senf, bitte' (mustard, please?) the kioskee looked at me with a look of either language barrier confusion or just plain horror that I would adulterate such a pure and honest to goodness German basic with something meant for 'Weisswurst' with 'Kraut', not for 'Bretzeln'! It didn't matter, I paid for my Brezel and then walked from Kiosk to Kiosk looking for one that would loan me a squirt or two of mustard. When I finally took that first bite: euphoria.

What people usually don't realize about pretzels, is that the only 'real' pretzel is the 'Laugenbrezel', or the pretzel that's been given a bath in lye before being baked. It's said that the pretzel was invented this way by accident, when a baker dropped the pretzel into the bucket of lye water used for cleaning utensiles. In any case, I won't be using sodium hydroxide (lye) but rather sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) which is much more readily available :)

1 1/2 cups of warm water

1 tbs sugar

1 package active dry yeast (about 7g in packages in the US, but if you're buying packages in Europe they come in packages of 11 grams, so don't use the entire thing)

5 cups of flour (approximately, will depend on how absorbant your flour is)

half a stick of softened butter (2 ounces or 60 grams)

2 tsp kosher salt

5 cups of water

1/3 cup of baking soda

1 egg yolk beaten with a tbs water

vegetable oil or butter for greasing the pan

kosher salt for sprinkling (I used karkea suola)

1.) Combine water, sugar, salt and yeast in a large mixing bowl and stir briefly. Let it stand for about 10 minutes to proof the yeast, or until the yeast is frothy.

2.) Add the butter and flour, slowly, half cup at a time until well incorporated and the dough pulls away from the bowl. The dough should be soft, but no longer sticky. Knead for about 5 minutes (I use my bare hands the good old fashioned way, but if you have a stand mixer the dough hook will save you the wrist action)

3.) Remove the dough from the bowl, clean out the bowl, lightly grease it with vegetable oil, and put the ball of dough back into the bowl and lightly cover it with a clean dish towel or plastic wrap. Allow it to rise to double its size in a warm place, about 50 minutes depending on how warm the place and how active the yeast)

4.) Preheat the oven to 230C (450F). Prepare the greased pans and start the 5 cups of water with the baking soda boiling on the stove.

5.) Cut the dough into 12 equal sized pieces. One by one, roll the pieces out like a snake on a well floured surface to about 2 feet (about half a meter). Taking the ends of the 'snake' pull the dough into a 'U' shape and then cross the ends over one another and press them into the bottom of the 'U' to get a traditional pretzel shape.

6.) One by one, drop the pretzels gently into the boiling soda water. They should be left for approximately 30 seconds each and removed with a large, flat spatula, preferably one with slotted holes to allow the water to drain off. Place boiled pretzels on to the greased baking sheets. You'll notice that the bagels grow in the boiling water. If you think this is too big or too small for your preferences, readjust the size of the preboiled pretzels accordingly.

7.) Brush the boiled pretzels with the egg yolk and water mixture and sprinkle with the salt. Bake the pretzels for about 15 minutes or until a nice brown color has emerged.

8.) Cool about 5 minutes before eating (I know it'll be worth the wait).

Buttermilk (Disco) Biscuits

These have got to be the most simple biscuits one can ever make. Also, some of the most delicious because of how buttery and soft they are. They're not yeasted, so there's no rising time involved. The only slightly 'work' part to it is rolling out the (slightly sticky) dough and cutting out the circles (with a cup, for example). But you don't even have to do that, you could just roll up balls and flatten them on the surface of your baking sheet.

Best part was that I made a ton and froze some unbaked. This I did by laying them flat on a baking sheet and putting the whole sheet in the freezer. When the unbaked biscuits were frozen, I took them off the sheet and bagged them and put them back in the freezer. (Bagging them before they're frozen will result in them all sticking together into one big biscuit)

Then, when you have a craving for the biscuits, just turn up the oven to 200C and pop them in there, still frozen. No need to preheat the oven. Just wait about 15 minutes and you'll have freshly baked biscuits without without any mess or prep. This is especially convenient for making a special breakfast. I used these when my family was in town the other week and whipped up some vegetarian gravy to pour over them. I also love to make eggs benedict when there's the occassion. I would never make the hollandaise sauce for myself, but with company it's soo nice. So I think the buttermilk biscuits are the best thing to serve eggs benedict on.

To the recipe finally?

2 cups flour

4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons butter, chilled and cubed
1 cup buttermilk, chilled (in Finland this is known as Piima and is a common drink option in lunch cafeterias, as well as homemade beer and other milk)

1.) First mix the dry ingredients.
2.) Mix in the butter, with your hands if you like, it goes faster that way. Work fast so that the butter doesn't melt. Mix until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.
3.) Into a small well in the center of the mixture, pour in the buttermilk and mix in just enough that the dough all holds together.
4.) Roll out onto a lightly floured surface into about 1'' thick.
5.) Using a wide cup or cutter, cut out rounds of about 3'' in diameter (or however big you want your biscuits, but remember they will rise quite a lot!) Re-roll and re-use the scrap dough and make as many biscuits as you can.
6.) Bake in a preheated oven 200C for 15-20 minutes (or freeze some if you like). They should be tall and golden by then.

Dutch Caramel Cashew Praline Cookies

I have posted about these cookies before on my other blog. The blog is known as 'Make Yourself' and features my adventures in crafts, do-it-yourself projects, ramblings on books I've read and Buddhism, and of course, cooking and baking. You can read the full post on these cookies here.

They're so simple and they turn out perfectly every time. I made them again for my friend J's visit. He was only in Finland briefly before going back to Brussels, but I'm certain that when B finally has her baby, they'll both be back for good ;)

Rhubarb Apple Pie

Since rhubarb is also in season, I bought some last week just to see what I could do with it. Apparently rhubarb goes well with strawberries, since I found a lot of interesting recipes that pair them. Though for simplicity I just went with apples this time.

Since my dinner guest was 'watching the waistline', I ended up eating this entire pie in 4 days by myself. Great. It makes a great breakfast though ;)

pie crust

500 grams rhubarb, chopped

4 apples, peeled, cored and chopped

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup corn starch

2 tbs lemon juice

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 cup flour

4 tbs butter

1 tsp cinnamon

pinch nutmeg

1. Preheat the oven to 200C. Bake the pie crust for 12-15 minutes until golden.

2. Mix the rhubarb, apple, sugar, 1/2 cup brown sugar, lemon juice, and corn starch thoroughly in a large bowl.

3. Pour rhubarb mixture into the pie crust.

4. Mix walnuts, flour, butter, 1/2 cup brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg in a bowl with hands until a coarse crumbly mixture is attained.

5. Sprinkle the crumbles over the entire pie and bake for 45 minutes.

6. Allow to cool slightly before serving. Good with vanilla or strawberry icecream!

Bagels!

I don't know what came over me. I just got a craving this afternoon and HAD to make bagels. In many places outside of the East Coast of the US, it's very difficult to get the perfect bagel. In Finland, we have Arnold's, but I don't believe they boil theirs. As I've heard from others in the bagel industry, an unboiled bagel is 'just a roll with a hole'. My first real job was at Einstein Bagels in Severna Park, MD. I was lucky enough to work with my good friends, N, M, and D. We didn't really make the bagels ourselves back then, nor did we take the job seriously, but we did eat a lot of bagels. (I was 15 and a 3 season athlete back then so carb loading wasn't as dangerous at that time.) It's a dangerous thing, making bagels alone. No one there to moderate how quickly you eat them ALL (ok, I ate 3/8 the first night). Time to go for a long run to work off all the carbs. But first I'll tell you how I made them.

4 cups all purpose or bread flour (or you can also trade some all purpose flour for rye or whole wheat, but then you need to pay more attention to the dough consistency as these flours can absorb more/less water than all purpose.)
1 1/4 cup warm water
1 tbs vegetable oil
1 tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp instant yeast
water and a few tablespoons of sugar for boiling
toppings or extras: I tried black sesame seeds, dried garlic flakes, organic sunflower seeds, and poppy seeds, but I would also recommend regular sesame seeds, dried onion flakes, cheese, jalopenos, or dried fruits within the dough, like raisins or blueberries.

1.) Mix the water, oil, sugar, salt and yeast in a large mixing bowl. Add the flour half a cup at a time incorporating well after each addition. Add until you have an almost firm dough.
2.) Place on a large kneading board or a floured counter surface and knead together with the remaining flour for 10 minutes. You may add flour to help the dough not to stick to the surface (which is why I advise to mix until 'almost' firm in the previous step).
3.) Cut the dough into 8 equal pieces. I usually cut my ball of dough like you might a pie, so that I'm sure all pieces are roughly equal. Then I have triangles which I make rounded between my palms into little balls.
4.) Allow the balls to rest 10-20 minutes.
5.)Preheat your oven to 225C. While the oven is heating, rolls the balls into snakes just a bit longer than the width of your hands together as you roll. When it reaches that length, wrap the snake around your dominant rolling hand, placing the ends side down on the rolling surface and roll a little until the ends of the snake are merged. They might not look perfect or pretty at this stage. It takes practice. They'll still taste amazing.
6.) Allow the rolled bagels to rest another 20 minutes. In the mean time, prepare a large pot of boiling water, filled about half way, with some sugar dissolved in it (3 tbs to 1/4 cup will do sufficiently). I've also heard of people using syrup for this, maple or otherwise. This gives it the chewy glaze on the outside. I've heard people brushing with egg whites or whole eggs before baking, but the sugar technique is simpler and more efficient in my book. I'm going to cover the bagels in toppings anyway!
7.) Boil bagels 1 minute on each side. I put 2-3 bagels in the pot at a time and set my phone's stop watch for one minute, flipping with a spoon. Remove with a slotted flat spoon after the two minutes are up, and allow to drain a bit on a baking cooling rack for one minute.
8.) After 1 minute, you can dip the 'top' side of the bagel into a bowl of your topping of choice.
9.) Place all bagels onto a lightly oiled baking sheet.
10.) Bake for 10 minutes on one side, flip the bagels and bake for another 10 minutes.
11.) Remove from the oven and allow about 10-20 minutes for them to cool a bit.
12.) Enjoy with a number of combinations.

My favorites have always been:
1.) Runny egg and melted cheddar with a scant bit of plain or garlic cream cheese on an 'everything' bagel.
2.) Hummus, cucumber, bean sprouts on a pumpernickle rye bagel.
3.) Strawberry cream cheese and strawberry jelly on a toasted poppy seed bagel.
4.) Honey almond cream cheese on a cranberry bagel.
...... the list goes on and on. More suggestions welcome!

Easy Chocolate Cake

When ice cream just isn't enough, but you don't have enough time for a fancy dessert, this is one of the easiest cakes you can whip up and it requires only ingredients that you're more than likely to already have laying around- Hence, why I made this cake.

2 cups sugar

3 cups flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

1 tbs vanilla sugar

1 cup vegetable or grapeseed oil

2 cups water

1 tbs vinegar

1. Preheat the oven to 175C. Grease a cake tin and lightly dust with flour.

2. Mix all the dry ingredients together first.

3. Mix in the wet ingredients, make sure to de-lumpify as best possible.

4. Bake for 40 minutes or until a knife/toothpick stuck in comes out clean.

Normally I'd like to make some kind of easy fondant or other icing to go with this cake. But that requires both time and ingredients, which for this I didn't have. But if you have ice cream, which I always do, then it goes perfectly with this cake. For my friends and I, the cake came out of the oven minutes before it was time to eat dessert. The contrast of the cold ice cream and warm cake really hit the spot. I'm still amazed at baking things without yeast or eggs....

Naan with PoppySeed and Garlic

In its classic tear drop shape, soft doughy inside, and gentle garlic poppy taste, this is absolutely one of the best parts of eating out at an Indian restaurant. Wouldn't it be great to make it at home easily?

Well I've got good news for you- you can.

I start this bread out like most other standard bread doughs, only use a bit less yeast and add something to flavor it. Adding a little plain yogurt gives it a soft, doughy, stretchy consistency.

• 
  
  1 cup warm water
• 
  
  1 tbs sugar
• 
  
  1 tsp dry yeast
• 
  
  3 cups all purpose flour
• 
  
  2 tbs plain yogurt
• 
  
  2 tbs poppy seeds
• 
  
  1 tbs garlic flakes
• 
  
  salt and peanut oil to garnish

1. 
   
   Dissolve the sugar in the warm water and add the yeast. Let the yeast mixture proof in room temperature for about 10 minutes or until foamy. (If it doesn't foam, the yeast is inactive and you will have to start again with fresh yeast.)
2. 
   
   Stir in 1 cup flour until well combined.
3. 
   
   Stir in seeds, garlic and yogurt.
4. 
   
   Stir in another cup of the flour until the dough starts to come together.
5. 
   
   Knead the last cup of flour into the dough, little by little, kneading consistently for about 6 minutes.
6. 
   
   Cover and allow to rise (either 1 hour in a warm place or over night in the refridgerator, like I did)
7. 
   
   Cut the dough into 4 equal pieces and roll each piece out into a tear drop shap. Make pock-marks with your knuckles.
8. 
   
   Sprinkle with a bit of oil and salt and cover and let rise in a warm place for another 20 minutes.
9. 
   
   Bake at 240C for 5 minutes. I did mine in two batches. The second I left for more than 5 minutes to get a little browned on top, but then realized that this would make it a bit dry. Especially if you aren't eating it immediately out of the oven.

This really doesn't even take that much time (excluding the rising process), so if you think ahead before making your meal you can easily enhance the experience. And to me, food it more than just nourishment- it's an experience.

Cloudberry and Lingonberry Custard Pie

I literally dreamed this pie up Friday night. Maybe I was hungry. Maybe Finland is finally getting under my skin. Maybe I just needed to have my fix of sweetness.... Whatever the reason, it was still in my head after I woke up. After I had brunch at Fanny Goes to Hollywood on Bulevardi, I was all the more inspired to do some cooking of my own.

• Basic pie crust
• 2.5 dl cooking cream
• 1.5 dl milk
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 2 dl sugar
• 1 tbs vanilla sugar
• pinch of orange zest
• 1.5 dl lakkahillo (cloudberry jam)
• 100 g puolukka (lingonberries) dusted in flour

1. Bake the pie crust at 175C for about 15 minutes.
2. Whisk together the eggs, milk, cream, sugar, vanilla sugar, and orange zest.
3. Heat cloudberry jam in a small pan until it becomes runny.
4. Fold in warm jam into egg mixture.
5. Pour egg and jam mixture into pre-baked pie crust.
6. Sprinkle lingonberries all over the pie.
7. Bake for about 45 minutes or until set.

This turned out well, although a little more egg-y and a little less sweet than I had hoped. I think I will try this recipe again, using more sugar, or more jam (or more of both), and perhaps some orange flavored cream cheese, to make it a hybrid between a custard and a cheesecake. In my dream of this recipe, I also melted some white chocolate and lined the pie crust with it once it had cooled. During execution of the recipe, I wanted to keep things simple and practical, so I omitted the white chocolate- maybe next time. We'll see how it goes. I'm always up for some experimentation!

Basic Cookie dough and variations

Another recent dinner invitation by J & F! I always ask them if I can bring anything and they always say 'no'. Haha, don't they know I'm always dying for an excuse to help out with cooking? This time finally they said 'Cookies!' I was able to arrive a little early to the dinner party to whip up the cookies together. I think doing things like that together is a good way to exchange ideas. And as soon as possible, I am getting the recipe from J of her delicious broccoli pie! So sweet of them to always make vegetarian options to eat every time I come over.

I use a basic cookie dough that is used for good old standard Tollhouse chocolate chips, that goes roughly like this:

• 3/4 cup of sugar
• 3/4 cup of brown sugar
• 1 cup of soft butter or baking margerine
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla sugar (or other extracts with variations, like orange or almond extract)
• 2-2 1/4 cup of all purpose flour (will alter the consistency, depending on your tastes)
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• optionally any of your favorites: walnuts, almonds, cashews (any kind of nut really), candies (J requested M&M's), raisins, etc.

1. Preheat the oven to 175C.
2. The best way to mix them is with a blender, but if doing it by hand your life will be made easier by this simple order of mixing. Butter and sugar, then eggs, then dry ingredients, until a stiff dough is formed.
3. Mix in the additional stuff by hand, otherwise the blender will chop them up and it won't look as pretty. (although it'll still taste great)
4. Drop spoonfuls or roll a small ball of dough and lay about a dozen per baking sheet, either greased or lined with parchment paper.
5. Bake 8-12 minutes, supervised, so they don't get over cooked (or else you'll miss the chewiness)

Of course, if you vary your dough, you'll vary the end effect. If you like a crispier, thinner cookie, add more white sugar and less butter. If you like it chewier, add more butter. Butter and margerine have a different effect in the baking as well. Real butter is ideal for a chewy cookie.

Some of my favorite variations are those with homemade Dutch caramel and cashews and anything with lots of extra chocolate, like these Double chocolate cookies with peanuts.

This time, I made chocolate cookies with almonds and walnuts, and M&M cookies. The M&M cookies had more flour and I rolled them before placing on the backing sheet, so they turned out a bit more like cake-puffs. The chocolate cookies I spoon dropped onto the sheet, so they had a bit more rustic look to them. For these I added about a quarter cup of cocoa powder into 2 cups of flour.* The dough was not as firm as the M&M cookie dough, so the result was a bit chewier cookie.

*Tip: When adding cocoa powder to dough bases, it's best to add them to the dry ingredients first before adding to the rest. Otherwise, it is so fine that it tends not to mix evenly with the other ingredients.

Laskiaistiistai: Shrove Tuesday Buns

So instead of Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday! Ok, so it might not be as exciting as a parade with plenty of semi nude drunken people, but it's still a fun holiday nonetheless!

Reminiscent of most cultures' 'Fat Tuesday' preceding Lent, food on Laskiaistiistai was meant to be fatty, to symbolize the fattening of the pigs and a good harvest for the coming season. But since Reformation, Lent is not so strongly recognized or practiced in Finland. Instead, we make a point to go sledding with families or friends, eat pea soup, and eat Shrove buns.

I did go sledding with friend in Coffinpuisto off of Bulevardi, nearby a friendly yet trendy cafe, Fanny goes to Hollywood. We had a little picnic of 'pulla' (or buns), drank some warm beverages, and took turns sledding down the hill.

Shrove Tide Buns

• 1 cup warm milk
• 25 g dry active yeast
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3-4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp cardamom crushed coarsely (cinnamon is an acceptable, yet non traditional substitute)
• 1 egg, separated
• 1/2 cup soft butter
• almond flakes or sanding sugar for garnish (optional)
• Whipped cream
• Jelly or sweetened almond paste (marzipan)

1. Preheat the oven to 175C. Proof the yeast in warm water with sugar for 10 minutes until foamy.
2. Add the butter, egg yolk, cardamom, salt and 2 cups of flour and mix well.
3. Add more flour, gradually, until the dough is still soft and somewhat sticky, but comes off the bowl easily enough.
4. Knead for several moments to firm the gluten in the dough and eliminate lumps.
5. Let the dough rise for about an hour covered in a warm place, or overnight in the refrigerator.
6. Punch down dough and form into approximately 12 small balls, and place evenly on a baking sheet. Brush with egg whites for the glaze, and sprinkle on any additional garnish. Let rise for about another half an hour.
7. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown on top.
8. When cooled, cut off top third of the bun and layer jelly (strawberry or raspberry work best) or marzipan, then whipped cream.
9. Replace top third of the bun.

Hyvaa ruoka halua!