Finnish Blueberry Rooster - Mustikkakukko - Rättänä

 Mustikkakukko (Mustikka=blueberry, kukko=rooster) is a traditional Finnish dessert from the Savo region.  It is also called Rättänä which is totally impossible to translate! It's very simply and only a few ingredients are needed. In other words: a perfect dessert for busy people. What's great about it is that no wheat is needed either. The almost only "bad" thing for you in it is the sugar...well OK maybe a bit much butter too...  I know that some people make it without the sugar and they use 50 grams less butter so if you want a version with a little less calories, feel free to cut down the butter.  I could see it working like that too. But I still added the sugar and the whole amount of butter! :D Serve this fresh from the oven with whipped cream, ice cream or vanilla sauce or eat it just like that. Delicious in every way!

For the crust:

250 grams (8.819 oz) butter

140 grams  (4.938 oz) sugar

300 grams ( 10.582 oz) rye flour

1 tsp baking powder

For the filling:

250 grams (8.819 oz) frozen or fresh blueberries

80 grams (2.822 oz) sugar

(2-3 tbsp potato flour)

1. Melt the butter.
2. Mix the flour sugar and baking powder and add the little cooled butter with them. Mix well.
3. Take 8 ramekins, butter them lightly and cover the bottom and the sides of the ramekins with the dough. Don't add too thickly.
4. Mix the blueberries and sugar. If using frozen blueberries add 2-3 tablespoons of potato flour and mix. Add the blueberry mix on to ramekins.
5. Sprinkle the rest of the dough on top of the little "roosters". (I added a tiny piece of butter on top of each one before I put them in the oven.)
6. Bake in 200°C (400°F) for about 25-30 minutes. Or if you make one large one appr. 22 cm (9-10 inch) diameter then you need to bake it about 45-60 minutes or so.

Rhubarb Strawberry Pie

Rhubarb is probably the first plant in the garden you can see in the spring. It comes up from the ground with spring flowers and I think it looks like a flower when it's small. People tend to use these a lot in spring time but seems that most people forget that rhubarbs grow all summer!

In Finland people make pies, kissel, juice and lots of other things out of rhubarb - but maybe kissel and pies are the most common ones. There are lots of variations of rhubarb pies.

Rhubarbs are wonderfully sweet and sour. When you add strawberries with them the whole experience changes more sweeter. I especially love the rhubarbs which are beautifully red. I could swear they even taste better! I have that sort of rhubarb growing in my garden. I took the plant from my childhood home before it was sold about  5 years ago. It's a nice memory of childhood's care free days when we used the big rhubarb leaves as hats.

The rhubarbs in our yard are big and they grow really well but even though we have them quite much, I am still planing to plant more of them next summer. There are just so many things you can do with rhubarb. This pie and rhubarb rice porridge are my two favourite ones.

Soon the rhubarb season will be over. The autumn is coming eventually but a few more weeks we will still have summer.  After that it's  time to enjoy all those frozen rhubarbs I have in my freezer - the little memories of the summer past.

The pie batter:  (Pan size 30cm x 20 cm / 12 inch x 8 inch)

4 eggs
190 grams (6.702 oz) sugar
400 grams (14.110 oz) all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
2-3 tsp vanilla extract  ( *This is my favourite one* )
200 grams (7.055 oz) water 
200 grams (7.055 oz) melted butter

1. Whisk the eggs and sugar
2. Add the vanilla extract
3. Mix the baking powder and flour together
4. Add water and flour mix into the batter. Mix gently.
5 Add cooled, melted butter and mix again gently.


For the topping /crumble

200 grams (7.055 oz)  frozen or fresh strawberries chopped
250 grams (8.819 oz) chopped rhubarbs

130 grams (4.586 oz) all purpose flour
90 grams (3.175 oz) sugar 
4 tsp vanilla sugar
70 grams (2.469 oz) butter

1.Mix the flour, butter, vanilla sugar and sugar with your hands.

Pour the pie batter into papered baking pan. Add the rhubarb and strawberry pieces on it and finally add the crumble on top of them. Bake in 200 °C (400°F) about 30-40 minutes or longer if needed.  Test with a toothpick.

This is wonderfully moist pie if you don't over bake it. And with this pie it's very fine line between over baked and just wonderfully baked so keep your eyes on the pie!

Blueberry-Ricotta pies

Platter "Linnea" by Arabia 

These little pies are definitely lovely to make. My whole family loves cheese cakes/pies. Mostly those unbaked ones but I haven't yet  seen that any baked cheesecakes would not be eaten in this house. This recipe is for a baked cheese  pie. Make taller or smaller - which ever you prefer.  I made small and not so thick ones so everyone gets his or her own little pie on a plate.

The greatest thing is that I used the Rolled Oats biscuits for the bottom. That way I didn't need to buy any biscuits form the store. I usually never buy any sorts of biscuits since I like to bake those myself and if I need some sort of  crust for a pie or a cake I use the Rolled Oat biscuits. When I bake them for the crust alone I use less butter since I need to add butter again when making the crust so it doesn't really matter if biscuits are little more drier. I  crush the needed amount of biscuits, add some butter and mix it. So easy, so quick and tastes good too! I used loose base tart tins since I simply hate that perfectly good pie gets stuck on the tin. Loose bottom is best if you ask me.

This a recipe that I like quite much. Originally it had whipped cream and lots of different ingredients but I needed to change it since most of the time I had no such ingredients in my fridge. So this is what I came up with. So far people have enjoyed it quite a bit. It is not that sweet as many other cheese cakes or pies I have tasted and I think that is a good thing. It also tastes lighter and more fresh than the heavier and more creamier cheesecakes.

FOR THE  CRUST 
This makes 6 small pies (10cm) and one large one (25cm) 

600 grams (1.323 lb) rolled oats biscuits

250-300 grams (8.819 - 10.582 oz) soft butter

1. Mix butter and crushed rolled oats biscuits well together.

FOR THE FILLING:

3 eggs

150 grams (5.291) oz sugar

750 grams (1.654 lb) ricotta cheese

appr. 460 grams (1.014 lb) yoghurt ( or crème fraîche)

2 tsp vanilla essence

zest of one organic lemon

3 tbsp lemon juice

3 tbsp all-purpose flour

1. Whisk eggs and sugar into a light foam.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix lightly.

FOR THE CRUMBLE

100 grams (3.527 oz) all-purpose flour

75 grams (2.646 oz) demerara sugar

90 grams (3.175 oz) melted butter

150 grams (5.291 oz) blueberries (fresh or frozen )

1. Mix flour and demerara  sugar

2. Add the melted butter.

3. Add the blueberries in the very last minute if you use the frozen ones. 

Put the proper amount of the mix into each tin or use just one larger tin with higher sides for making a cake instead of  pies.  For  10cm diameter tins I used about 40-50 grams of the biscuit-butter mix.

Add the filling on to the crust and the crumble on the top. Add some more blueberries if needed. 

Bake in the 175°C ( 350°F) for about 30-35 minutes if you make small pies - bigger pie needs about 60-90 minutes. Cake most definitely that 90 minutes.   Once the pies have cooled enough put them in the fridge for at least 4 hours, best if they stay in the fridge for over night but the pies taste so nice that it's going to be hard to stay away from the fridge that long.