Form the pulla bread peices with your palm against the table until its a ball. Cover with a towel once more and let this rest for about 15 minutes. Brush the buns with beaten eggs and sprinkle some nib sugar on top. Bake the Finnish cardamom breads for about 10 minutes at 225°C. Done and enjoy with coffee or on its own!
The star ingredient in Pulla is cardamom seeds. In this recipe, you can use the seeds, or if pressed for time, ground Cardamom is a great substitute. It is a very ancient spice originating in Southern India where it still grows wild.
This soft bread, traditional in the Scandinavian region, is called pulla in Finland and bulle in Sweden. Its traditional name was actually “nisu”, an old Finnish word that is still used in some dialects to refer to this recipe even though its meaning is simply “wheat”.
Each Christmas, my mother would make a Finnish bread, called Pulla, a subtly sweet braided loaf, speckled with fresh ground cardamom seeds, soft and buttery and topped with course sugar. Sometimes she would add raisins and sliced almonds. When it came out of the oven, the whole house smelled happy -its aroma whispering of exotic faraway places.