What is a munkki?
It's very similar to a doughnut, but it's a bit different. It's a deep-fried sugar-coated sweet bun. It can be plain or it can be filled with jam, but this time I decided to make a few caramel filled sourdough munkki's.
Munkki is usually eaten at first of May, when we celebrate "Vappu", a celebration for the working class and those who have studied in a gymnasium. This is the one day when most of Finland is having their munkki and this is why I'm calling it a munkki through this whole post.
These are perfectly tasty even without the caramel sauce, so you can skip them and only bake the munkki's.
Sourdough munkki, 50 pcs:
400 grams of active sourdough
500 grams of milk
2 eggs
200 grams of sugar
5 grams of salt
15 grams of cardamom
1 kg of wheat flour
150 grams of molten butter
Caramel filling:
300 grams / 3 dl of whipping cream
250 grams of brown sugar
Also required:
Sugar
Neutral flavored oil for deep-frying
Here we go, we start with your active sourdough starter. It needs to be active!
If you're reading this before you've started your baking, you can start feeding your sourdough starter earlier and give it a bit of sugar with the water and flours. Make sure you've fed the sourdough enough, as you don't want any sourness in the munkki's.
Add sugar, eggs, spices...
Just don't add the butter yet. Everything else can be added.
This is easier when you're kneading with a machine, as these are softer when you've given them a proper kneading. A machine lasts longer than the man.
But knead it, the typical rule is to knead until the dough stops sticking in the bowl. I have never truly understood what this means but I've done quite good.
The butter is added closer to the end of kneading. I waited until it looked that it's probably not sticking in the bowl anymore and poured all the molten butter in the dough. Then I continued a little while until all the butter had disappeared.
This is what it looked like after the knead. I left it to room temperature for 4 hours, then covered it with a lid and lifted to the fridge for 16 hours.
The next day, the dough had risen. If your dough had not risen, something might be wrong, but you can help the dough to rise by putting it in a warm place. Filling a sink with warm water and putting the bowl in the sink might give the yeast a boost.
Just make sure the water will not get in the bowl.
I added a small layer of flours to make sure my dough won't stick, but my munkki-dough was super solid and easy to handle.
I was able to rip off pieces of dough and rolled them into small balls. They truly need to be small, because they'll grow bigger as the munkki's rise. It's easiest if you try to make approximately similar sized munkki's so it's easier to make sure they're properly baked. If you get one right, you know how to get rest of them right.
With this recipe, I made 49 munkki's. That's a lot.
The munkki's are left to rise for 4 hours again and then put to the fridge for 8-12 hours, so they can be baked next morning.
What you'll need for the baking is...:
And you'll need a holed ladle, which will make the munkki handling a lot easier.
The munkki-ladle is an efficient tool. You can put munkki-dough to the hot oil and you can lift the finished munkki's with this. The hot oil will drop down from the holes, but the munkki's will remain in the ladle.
The oil has to be 180 degrees Celsius. You can heat it a bit above 180 degrees Celsius, as the cold dough balls will cool the oil a bit.
Carefully put munkki dough in the kettle and let them cook until the bottom has a beautiful brown color. Then flip them over and let the other side cook.
When they all have a beautiful brown color, lift them up and put them on the paper-plate so the extra oil will go to the paper. While the hot munkki's are resting, put the next batch of munkki's in the oil.
As soon as they have cooled down so you can touch them, roll the munkki's in the sugar. The sugar will stick on them much better when they're still as warm as possible. Roll the munkki properly so it will be completely sugared.
As the munkki's are ready, the next batch should be ready in the oil and you can continue baking them.
Repeat until every single munkki has been finished.
If you want to make your own caramel filling, add the whipping cream and the sugar in a kettle. Cook them using a medium temperature and mix it well to make sure it will not burn. The caramel filling will get a nice brown color and will get thicker as you cook it. This usually takes 20-30 minutes.
There are different ways to test how ready the caramel filling is, but I'm usually taking a little bit of the caramel on a spoon and cool it down for a while. The hot caramel is extra running but as it cools down, it'll become more solid. If you cook too long, it'll be super hard instead of soft and tasty.
When the caramel filling is finished, let it cool a bit before you use it.
You'll need a piping bag with a sharp piping nozzle. Fill the bag with caramel, push the narrow nozzle in the munkki and put a bit of caramel in it.
The caramel-filled sourdough-munkki's were a great success. I gave away most of them to friends and family, who all hoped to get more of them in the future. I had only 7 of them myself and felt a bit sick afterwards.
