Blueberry pie - Mustikka rahkapiirakka

This pie uses rahka, a kind of Finnish quark. It is a bit sour like yogurt. I love to use rahka firstly because it is healthy, and secondly its taste can balance the sweetness of the pie but still creamy. The Finnish people like to use rahka in their many desserts. I searched for a while the recipes and chose one from Arla, I think it turned out pretty well. I brought the pie to my friend house and they all like it. The recipe is in Finnish, I tried to translate it into English. Probably it isn’t the best translation but hope to give you the main ideas of how to do it.

Into the woods

In Luukki

Ingredients

Serve 8

For the dough

2 1⁄2 dl flour

100 g butter (I substituted by 72 g margarine)

3⁄4 dl sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. baking powder

Filling

1 dl milk

250 g quark (I used 200g)

1 egg

1 dl sugar

1 tsp. vanilla sugar

Topping

2-3 dl fresh blueberry

Directions

1.     Mix the egg, sugar and melted butter/margarine together. Combine the flour and baking powder, and then add into the egg-sugar mixture. Mix the battle evenly. Press the crust to the bottom and the edges of a greased baking dish (24cm).

2.     Mix the filling ingredients until smooth. Pour it over the base. Bake the pie at 200-degree oven for medium level for about 40 minutes. Decorate with fresh blueberries on top of the finished cake.

I added a handful of blueberry into the mixture just before baking.

Tips

To get the pie a festive look, use ordinary blueberries to decorate instead of highbush blueberries.

In my opinion, it would even better to serve with vanilla ice-cream, aren’t blueberry pie and vanilla ice-cream best friends?

mustikka-rahkapiirakka

Blueberry pancakes

One day in summer, I went to Luukki with my friends for picnic, we played cards, enjoyed the sun, ate pork buns, and the cool breeze. Suddenly, I found out there were a lot of blueberries, so the picnic had turned out to be blueberries picking day, which was totally unexpected. I found myself immersed in blueberries picking activity despite the mosquitoes bit me, one friend helped me to pick up blueberries, another used a hat as a tape hand fan to dismiss the mosquitoes.

We walked for a while and then stopped to pick up blueberries when sawing many beautiful, precious berries alluring underneath the green leaves on two sides of the road. It was so tempting because it was in your hand reach, right next to you, whenever you went. Blueberries season! My friends had took turn to stop me, trying to say that was enough, but  ”I couldn’t hear anything but blueberries calling”.


Not stopping there, a week later, I went to Luukki again. This time, I went alone to pick up as much as I wanted, and as long as I wanted. I am not the only one. Many people had brought the big buckets with them on that day, I’m nothing compared to those levels, but the friends kept calling me blueberry addict.

Truly speaking, I don’t like to eat blueberries on its own because it’s so sour to my taste. But when I mix with banana, honey, and yogurt to make smoothie, I think it’s excellent. Moreover, I usually make blueberry kissel to eat with porridge in the morning for breakfast. I also used blueberries to make face mask (by mixing blueberries, honey, and plain yogurt) and it’s one of my 2 favorite face masks so far, another one is avocado & milk.

Since the berries were so fresh and pretty, I decided to make blueberry pancakes, American version which I think they are fluffy & cute. They tasted pretty good. Also love the violet pansies I grew in summer.

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from http://allrecipes.com/recipe/21014/good-old-fashioned-pancakes/

I made about 2/3 of original recipes

1 cup cups all-purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons white sugar (to satisfy my sweet tooth)

3/4 cup milk

1 egg

3 tablespoons butter, melted (I used oil)

2 tbsps. quark (optional)

Directions

1.     In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk, egg and melted butter; mix until smooth.

2.     Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

I use eggs ring to create the shape for pancakes