Australians eat a chocolate Easter eggs. 2018 research suggests more than half of us eat chocolate eggs for on Easter Sunday.
Finnish people do not so much, according to Melbourne-based Finnish pastry chef . In fact, chocolate desserts aren't as popular all year round in Finland. "For dessert, surprisingly we do not really eat chocolate-based desserts," says Leinonen, who has called Australia home since 2016.
Instead, you'll find more desserts, such as mammi, a rye pudding with molasses and citrus that's normally served with cream and popular during Easter. Traditionally, you'd find it in boxes made from birch bark, but today it comes in cardboard boxes.
"I did love the Easter time in Finland as it's normally the promise of spring," says Leinonen. "Traditionally in Finland before Easter, families start to grow a rye grass called 'rairuoho' inside the house in a small plate or bowl and put little Easter chick figures [and] bunnies and eggs as decorations after the grass has grown."
While the country eats its of mammi during Easter, not everyone loves it. The origins of mammi date back to the 1600s, if not before, when people couldn't start fires (and hence, cook) on Good Friday. So people made large batches of mammi to last the whole week and shared them among family and friends in the lead up to Easter Sunday.
However, Leinonen doesn't like mammi as much as she likes quark buns. "For spring, my mum used to make sweet buns with quark, [an acid-set cheese]. Basically, it is a sweet bun dough made with flour, eggs, sugar, butter, fresh yeast and cardamom. Cardamom is very commonly used in Finland and gives a very unique taste for the dough."
The sweet buns were very nice (as I remember) and brought something sweet and fresh to our household during this time.
After kneading the dough, leave it to rise in a warm place for one or two hours. You can keep it as a big roll or divide it into buns before creating a well in the centre and filling it with a mixture of quark, egg and sugar.
"My mum loves everything dough-based and adding the quark mixture with some fruits makes it lighter and adds more of a spring vibe," Leinonen says. "The sweet buns were very nice (as I remember) and brought something sweet and fresh to our household during this time. Mum also used bright yellow and orange-coloured fruit, which is related to Easter."
Quark is a common ingredient in Europe, but not so much in Australia. It has a similar consistency to a thick yoghurt or sour cream.
Prepping quark buns for the oven. Source: Supplied
"The buns my mum made were normally topped with berries or canned fruit like peaches. They were baked in the oven so that the quark-egg mixture would set and become almost custard-like in texture," says Leinonen.
She says her mum's fruit-based desserts influence her work. "I was involved in cooking and baking in my childhood. Whether it was mixing dough or just licking the spatula after mixing some sugary products. The way I cook and make desserts are influenced in some ways from my childhood," she says.
However, do people in Finland eat any Easter eggs? Turns out they do. "Virpominen [or Virvonta] is a Finnish Easter tradition and is performed by children on Palm Sunday to wish other households well and welcome the start of Spring," says Leinonen.
"Traditionally on Palm Sunday, children disguised themselves as witches and walked from door to door knocking at neighbours' doors while carrying salix tree branches which were often decorated with colourful feathers. It is kind of a weird mix of Halloween meets Easter."
If the children are accepted into the house they recite a blessing: Virvon, varvon, tuoreeks terveeks, tulevaks vuodeks; vitsa sulle, palkka mulle! (I wave a twig for a fresh and healthy year ahead; a twig for you, a treat for me!). The kids then leave a branch as a gift and receive chocolate Easter eggs in return.
Good news for Aussies who find themselves in Finland during Easter: there are Easter eggs for breakfast after all.
Hanna Leinonen's spring bun
Makes 14-16
Ingredients
Dough
- 250 g milk
- 25 g fresh yeast or 11 g dry yeast
- 1 whole egg
- ½ tbsp ground cardamom seeds
- 1 tsp salt
- 85 g sugar
- 500 g all-purpose flour
- 100 g butter, melted
Filling
- 250 g quark (you can substitute with low-fat sour cream or 125 g each of low-fat sour cream and yoghurt).
- 50 g full cream
- 1 whole egg
- 85 g sugar
- 1 zest of lemon grated
- ½ lemon juice
- Fruit of choice: peaches, nectarines, mandarins and fresh berries
Finishing
- 1 egg
Method
- Heat the milk to around 30°C. It should still be comfortable for your hand to touch. Crumble the fresh yeast into the milk and whisk. Add egg and mix well.
- Add cardamom, salt and sugar.
- Begin adding the flour to the mixture in stages. You can do this by hand or with an electric mixer until it becomes a dough.
- Add melted butter then add more of the flour. Mix well then add the rest of the flour into the dough. The dough is ready when it starts to release from the edges of the bowl and is firmer.
- Cover the dough with a cloth and let it rest in a warm place until it has doubled in size. This will take around 1-1.5 hours.
- Divide the dough into 14-16 small pieces and roll them into balls. Divide the balls onto 2 baking trays, leaving enough room for them to rise. Cover with a cloth and let them rise for 30 minutes.
- Pre-heat oven to 200-210°C.
- Mix the filling ingredients in a bowl.
- Make wells in the middle of the risen buns.
- Mix 1 egg in a bowl with a touch of water. Slightly baste the edges of the bun rounds with the egg mixture.
- Spoon the filling into the wells of the buns and place diced or sliced fruit on top.
- Bake in the oven for around 10-15 minutes until the buns start to turn golden brown and the quark mixture sets.
