Korvapuusti (Pulla Rolls)

Chris went to Finland recently and loved some of their breads and pastries. In particular, he was enamored with the various cardamom breads. Among these were korvapuusti, which means "a slap on the ear" or some such (named, I assume, because of how you cut them; they look a like an ear).  Korvapuusti are a rolled pastry with lots of cardamom, both in the dough and in the filling.

Naturally, we decided to try to make these at home. We adapted a recipe from Kinfolk, though they just call the recipe Pulla.

Korvapuusti
makes 8

Ingredients:

For the dough:
1 tablespoon yeast (~10 grams)
8-7/8 ounces of milk (250 grams)
17-1/2 ounces ap flour (500 grams)
5-1/4 ounces sugar (150 grams)
1/2 tablespoon cardamom seeds (I did 3 grams ground cardamom)
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter, softened

For the filling:
9 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar (100 grams)
2-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon (7-1/2 grams)
1-1/2 teaspoons cardamom (3 grams)

To top with:
1 egg, beaten
Pearl sugar (or regular if you don't have pearl)

Directions:
1. Warm the milk to about 95°F (warm but still touchable)

2. Add the yeast to the milk and let stand about 5 minutes

3. Mix in the flour, sugar, cardamom and salt

4. Add butter, then knead until smooth, elastic and only slightly sticky, at least 10 minutes by hand

5. Cover and let rise until doubled (1 hour)

6. Mix the sugar and spices for the filling together, then beat into the butter until creamed

7. Lightly flour a surface, if necessary, then turn out the risen dough and roll into a 10" by 16" rectangle (should be ~1/4" in height)

8. Smooth the creamed butter out to the very edges of the dough

9. Beginning with the 10" side of the rectangle, roll the dough into a tight cylinder

10. Position the flap at the top of the roll (you'll be pinching it closed or placing it on bottom in a moment, to make sure it will stay closed during baking), and cut into 8 triangles (scalene at the sides, isosceles in the middle of the roll...and well, mostly triangle I should say, because you want to leave the outer most roll layer attached to itself, so really, a trapezoid with one edge really tiny...)

11. Pinch the top point of the triangle and bring toward the center (the bottom of the triangle ends up on the bottom of the korvapuusti, and the top gets pushed down into the center so that it really quite looks like an ear)

12. Cover a baking tray with parchment paper, and place the korvapuusti ~2" from each other; cover and let rise until dough is doubled

13. During last 15 minutes of rising, preheat oven to 400°F

14. Brush the korvapuusti with egg and sprinkle with sugar

15. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown