Laskiaispulla – Finnish Shrove Buns

In a small bowl, combine the warm milk and the yeast. Let sit for about 5 minutes.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment whip the egg, egg yolk, and sugar together until pale and yellow.

Add the salt, 3 ½ cups flour, and cardamom, and replace the whisk attachment with a dough hook. Pour in the yeast/milk mixture. Slowly knead the dough until it’s combined nicely, about 2 minutes or so.

In a small bowl, whip the butter with a hand mixer until light and fluffy. Add the whipped butter to the stand mixer and continue kneading. You will have to scrape the sides down and help the dough quite a bit in the beginning. Knead on a low speed until you can pull a piece of dough upwards without it breaking. It will be at least 10-15 minutes of kneading in the stand mixer. The dough will feel sticky during this process and you may be tempted to add more flour, but you likely don’t need to *see note. If at the 10 minute mark of kneading it’s still sticking a lot to the sides of the bowl then you can add a bit of flour at a time. It will get less sticky as you knead longer. Because this is an enriched bread dough (meaning it has eggs, butter, and milk in it), it takes quite a bit more kneading than doughs with just water and flour.

Once your dough is kneaded, remove the dough briefly to your hand or a clean counter, and spray the bowl with cooking spray. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put in a warm location until it doubles, about 1 hour- 90 minutes.

Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper, set aside, and Preheat the oven to 425 F.

Turn the dough onto the counter, do not flour the counter. Knock the air out of the dough gently and divide into 16 even pieces. Roll the dough into balls, much like you’d roll a ball of dough to make dinner rolls. Put the balls on the baking sheets and let them rise in a warm place for about 45-60 minutes.

Whisk the egg and water together to make the egg wash. With a pastry brush, gently and lightly brush the top of the rolls right before placing in the oven.

Bake for 10-14 minutes till the tops are medium golden brown (watch them every few minutes to make sure you don’t over-bake). Remove from oven and let cool completely before continuing on a wire cooling rack. Leaving the buns to cool on the baking sheet will make them over-cook so make sure to remove them off the hot baking sheet as soon as you pull them out of the oven.

While the buns are cooling, make the whipped cream using a hand mixer by mixing the cream, powdered sugar and vanilla extract until stiff peaks.

Once the buns are cooled, cut about 1/3 of the top off and set aside. Using your fingers or a fork, rip out some of the bun making a well about 2 tablespoons in size. Continue on all the buns. Fill each bun with about 1 tablespoon almond paste and 1 tablespoon of jam.

Preferably pipe (or just spoon) the whipped cream on top of the bottom half of the bun and filling. Replace the top 1/3 of the bun on top of the whipped cream. Dust the tops with powdered sugar, if desired, right before serving.

Eat immediately or refrigerate for up to about 3 days.