The Autumn Larder: Korvapuusti, Lingonberries, Rowan Jelly, and Apple Rings
In late summer, we filled the larder with what the bright months left behind, Light Kitchen. Autumn finishes the work. This is the last gathering of the year, done with cold fingers, and what goes into the jars now is what the household will taste in the blue depths of January.
The Nordic larder has always been a practical matter. But stand a child on a chair to stir a pot of lingonberries and you are doing something older than practicality. You are keeping a little of the light.
Four recipes carry the autumn kitchen, and all four want a child's help.
Raw-stirred lingonberries
The simplest preserve in the Nordic kitchen and the best first one for a child, because there is no hot pan. Puolukkasurvos in Finnish.
500 g fresh or thawed lingonberries. 200 g sugar.
Tip the berries into a bowl. Add the sugar. Stir until the sugar dissolves. That is the recipe. The berries' own sharpness does the preserving, and a covered jar in the fridge keeps for two months. A jar in the freezer keeps for a year.
The stirring takes longer than a child expects, and that is its value. Ten minutes of red circles, with a result they will eat on porridge in February and remember making.
Rowan jelly
The rowan is the tree children already know, because its berries are the brightest thing in October. Pihlajahyytelö in Finnish, bitter-sweet, the colour of the month it was made in.
1 kg rowan berries, picked after the first frost (or frozen overnight to cheat it). Water to cover. Sugar to match the strained juice, weight for weight.
Wash the berries and put them in a heavy pan with enough water to nearly cover. Simmer for an hour until the berries are very soft. Tip the lot into a jelly bag suspended over a bowl and leave to drip overnight. Do not press the bag, or the jelly will go cloudy.
Measure the juice in the morning. Return to the pan with an equal weight of sugar. Bring to a hard boil, then cook until a small spoonful set on a cold plate wrinkles when pushed. Jar while hot.
The straining bag dripping overnight into a bowl is the closest thing the kitchen offers to slow theatre. A child will check on it twice an hour.
Apple rings on a string
The simplest of all. A preserve a child can run entirely alone.
Eating apples, cored and sliced into rings about half a centimetre thick. Cotton string, kitchen-grade.
Thread the rings onto the string with space between each. Hang in a warm, airy spot, a kitchen window that catches the afternoon, or any corner where the air moves and stays dry. Leave for a week.
The rings dry into leathery sweets that keep for months in a tin. The threading, the daily inspection, and the strategic sampling that thins the string before winter properly arrives are all part of the recipe. The loss rate is part of the recipe, too.
Korvapuusti
The cardamom-and-cinnamon bun whose smell calls children indoors more efficiently than any voice. Korvapuusti (slapped ear) for the shape, blunter than its Swedish cousin and prouder of it. Where the kanelbulle is tidy, the korvapuusti is generous, lopsided, and gone by four o'clock.
What separates it from every other cinnamon bun is cardamom, and not a polite amount. The dough itself is heavy with it, freshly crushed if the household is serious. Cardamom is the smell of the Nordic kitchen in the dark months, and the korvapuusti is its main vehicle.
Bake it with the child, obviously. The dough is forgiving, the rolling is the fun, and the pressing of each ear is a job that can be done badly with complete success.
For the dough (makes 12)
250 ml milk, warmed to body temperature.
25 g fresh yeast, or 7 g dried.
85 g sugar.
1 teaspoon ground cardamom, more if you mean it.
Half a teaspoon of salt.
1 egg.
450 g plain flour.
75 g soft butter.
For the filling
50 g very soft butter.
2 tablespoons sugar.
2 tablespoons cinnamon.
To finish
1 egg, beaten. Pearl sugar.
Method
Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk, then stir in the sugar, cardamom, salt and egg. Work in the flour until a soft dough forms, then knead in the soft butter until the dough is smooth and leaves the bowl. Cover and let it rise somewhere warm for an hour, until doubled. This is the child's waiting lesson. The dough cannot be argued with.
Roll the dough into a rectangle about half a centimetre thick. Spread it to the edges with the soft butter and scatter the cinnamon sugar over everything. Roll it up tightly from the long side. Cut the log on alternating diagonals to make trapezoid pieces, then stand each one on its narrow base and press down firmly through the middle with two fingers, until the cut sides flare into ears. A child's two fingers are the correct tool.
Let the buns rise on the tray for twenty minutes while the oven heats to 225°C. Brush with egg, scatter with pearl sugar, and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until deep gold.
They are best within hours, which has never once been a problem.
Why the larder matters
The work matters more than the yield. A jar of lingonberries costs three euros at the supermarket, and nothing about the purchase stays with anyone. The same jar made on a Saturday afternoon holds the whole day inside it. The cold fingers, the stained chopping board, the stirring song that got invented and will now be demanded annually. When it is opened in January, in candlelight, the household is eating in October. That is what a larder is for, and it cannot be bought.
Label everything with the date and the child's name as the maker. The jars will outlast the season. The habit, with luck, will outlast childhood. Part of our guide to a Nordic autumn. Much of it begins with foraging with children.
The current Seasonal PlayBook is a companion for exactly this point in the year. View →
