We had a baking day with the kids. We made pulla!
It's a traditional Finnish coffee bread with gardamon.

have a bite!

You need:

5 dl milk
50 g yeast
1 teaspoon salt
2 dl sugar
1 table spoon ground gardamon
1 egg
about 12-14 dl white flour
150 g butter or margarine


Melt the yeast to lukewarm water. Add salt, sugar, gardamon and egg. Add flour little by little, beat until the dough is smooth and elastic. Add soft butter or margarine in the end. Kneed well. Don't make the dough too hard. You can also leave some of the flour to mix it in when you bake.

can you see how it's cut?

Cover and leave to rest/rise in a warm place until doubled (20 min). Knead the dough to get the air out. And bake what ever shape buns you want. Let the buns rise in a warm place until doubled. Brush with egg and sprinkle with sugar.
The big round one I made is filled up with butter and sugar and rolled , then made as a loop. Then made cuts with scissors every one or two cm and bended the pieces left and right, left and right.. etc.. Lol maybe yall need a drawing  :D

Bake at 200-225 'celsius (about 400F) for 20 to 30 minutes. Check occasionally because the bottom burns easily.

the kids made these ♥ i let them use their own imagination :P

this is how to fill up for the loop or for sister pulla

sister pulla before oven

sister pulla

braid pulla

What a winter..

It's been a while since I'ne been posting. It's been kinda busy winter.. We have a lot of snow and the kids want to play out every day.. Today is so cold though, that I think we will stay in.

The kids are doing good alhamdulilah. Donjana is on the second grade and has good marks at school and Deena is enjoying pre-school and is about to learn how to read. I can't believe she is going on the first grade in the autumn this year. Nader is still at home, but I'm planning to put him to day care for half day next season.

Here's some pictures of what we've been up to the last couple of months:

We love to put some candles in the snow

We've been sledding.. The kids are a bit bored to do it lately though. This winter is tooooo long!

We made a masjid from ginger bread

We really have a lot of snow this year.

We've been ice-skating a few timess. We should go more often..

Had some fireworks

The kids have been skiing.. I havent: my gear is at mom's summer house. It's almost 30 years old anyway.. I'm not so into skiing anymore :D

We have made snow men, snow horses, castles..

Nader turned 5 and had some friends over. I made him this cake.

InshaAllah I will be back soon to post more about our lives! I need to get on the posting mood again! Winter is making me lazy, but spring is coming inshaAllah!

Tiinaish tea bread & cooking with kids :P

We've been baking and cooking with the kids a lot these days. Yesterday I made apple pie.. While I made the dough Donjana peeled apples. Nader and Deena got to arrange the apple pieces on the pie. I forgot to take pics, but mom has tons of apples in her garden so I'm pretty sure we will make another pie soon :P .

Today Donjana made tuna casserole. I only helped by emptying the water from the macaroni after it was boiled and taking the casserole out from the oven. It was so delicious.. Deena and Nader washed carrots and cucumbers and cut them (together with me) and made the salad. MashaAllah it's fun to cook with kids..

Tonight I made kinda english tea bread my style. Maybe I should say Tiinaish Teabread :D

it's very simple recipe:

3dl white flour
1dl oats (grain)
½ tsp salt
(½tsp sugar)
2tsp baking powder
50 g melted margarine or butter
2 dl milk


mix the dry ingredients first and then add the milk and butter and mix well. that's it..

this makes two round flat breads that fit on one oven tray. make a few holes with fork and that's it :D
bake in 225○C for 10-15 minutes.

if you want to try the recipe, but don't know dl, ○C or those, use this converter http://www.convertworld.com/en/volume/dl.html.

And now.. I'm off to eat :P

Baking day! With a treat!

I had a baking day! The weather was a warm and sunny alhamdulilah, so dh took the kids to the beach and I had a chance to work in peace lol.

It was so fun to have the whole house for myself! Normally I would have taken the chance and lifted my feet up, but I had been planning to make pita bread for a long time, so that's what I did! I don't like to bake it if dh is at home, because then he would just be behind my back telling me how his mom used to do this and that.. ;).



After I finished this part, I had a long coffee break in the garden, while the dough was 'resting' or 'rising' or what ever you people call it :P . The weather was perfect, and I really enjoyed reading my book all by myself. Then I rolled the bread.



*place another coffee break here* lol :P



So, I made pita bread




and mana'ish..




And a few sweet breads for the kids with sugar on the top.



MashaAllah everything turned out quite nice!

tuna pie! my favorite!

this is something that can be done sooo many different ways and it always comes good. i never measure a thing, so yall have to try your luck if you want to try this. the under part (what you call it?) has only butter, white flour and a drop of cold water.



the filling has two cans of fresh cream (=soured cream, it can also be one can fresh and one normal cream), big cup of grated cheese, 2 eggs and spices.. and a can of tuna of course. instead of tuna it can be also shrimps, smoked turkey, veggies , for example tomato slices, etc.. some of the cheese can be replaced with feta cheese.

roll-cake (swiss roll)

i made kääretorttu today! it's very simple and you can fill it up with many different ways!

here's the recipe:


3 eggs

1 dl sugar

2 dl white flour

1 tea spoon of baking powder

(some vanilla if you like, but it's not a must. i use 1 spoonful of vanilla sugar)
½dl milk or low fat cream



whip eggs and sugar. mix the baking powder to the flour and add to the egg-sugar foam. mix well and then add the milk/cream.

place baking paper on oven tray and fold from corners (about 30cmx40cm) spread the dough on paper and bake in 250○C for a couple of minutes until it get a little colour

then place a piece of baking paper on the table (bigger than the cake lol) and whip some sugar on it. take the cake from the oven and turn it on the sugar coated paper so that the top side comes under. remove the paper that was under the cake in the oven

spread jam on the cake (you can also add whipped cream or cream cheese (like philadelphia) or butter cream or mashed fruits or berries). leave about 4 cm from the other side clean. roll the cake using the paper under it. make as tight as you can. put to the refrigerator for a while.

cut to slices and enjoy

as special addition you can add whipped cream, sprinkles or candy on the slices.