Finnish cuisine is full of different kinds of delicious “pulla”s. These are basically buttery buns with cardamom, which is the most Nordic ingredient ever. Some also have cinnamon, some have more butter than the others, some have extra sugar on top, some have cream in between… Their common characteristic is that they are all extremely delicious and they all look very elegant.
These “butter eye” pullas are maybe one of the most elegant ones. Even though just thinking about the amount of butter that goes into these buns give me a headache, I like to eat (or bake) one every now and then. I mean, there is a lot of butter in the dough already, but then there is extra butter put right in the middle of each bun (hence the name butter eye) before they are baked. Oi! Luckily butter makes everything better!
I adapted this recipe from K-rhymä. I made a bit of adjustment with the ingredients and I added the pearl sugar on top because they look so much more elegant this way. Most of the time I saw no extra cardamom in the buttery filling in the middle when I bought these buns from bakeries. But in the original recipe I adapted from, there was cardamom both in the dough and in the filling and I liked the idea much more as I absolutely love cardamom.
These lovely buns grow forever! The ones I made here are quite a big portion each (92 gr.) and one batch of dough makes 20 buns. You can perfectly make half size, 45-46 gr. buns and have 40 buns. In some cases the big buns are too heavy because of the size.
Enjoy your butter eyes! And remember to have some more exercise when you eat one (or more) of those!!
—
Ingredients:
Difficulty: ★★☆ (Medium)
(makes 20 big buns, each about 92-93 gr. Make 40 smaller buns if you like, each 45-46 gr.)
Printable PDF-recipe (no photos)
For dough:
5 dl. lukewarm milk
1 package / 50 gr. fresh yeast
200 gr. butter
2 dl. granulated white sugar
2 tbsp cardamom
1 egg
2 tsp salt
16 dl. / about 1050 gr. all-purpose flour
For filling:
100 gr. butter, very soft
4 tbsp granulated white sugar
2 tsp vanilla sugar
2 tsp cardamom
1 egg to wash
granulated white sugar to sprinkle on top
pearl sugar to sprinkle on top
—
1. In a large mixing bowl, put lukewarm milk and crumble fresh yeast into the milk. Whisk a little and let it sit for about 10 minutes.
2. Melt butter in a pot and let it cool.
3. Add sugar and cardamom into milk mixture and whisk a little.
4. Add egg, salt and melted butter and continue whisking. Butter will be still quite warm so be sure to be constantly whisking while adding it, otherwise you might accidentally cook the egg.
5. Add flour little by little while whisking in between each batch.
6. After adding all the flour (or almost all the butter) continue kneading by hand. Dump the dough onto a floured surface and continue kneading it for 5-6 minutes until you get a soft and not much sticking dough. If the dough sticks on the surface, add just a little bit of flour to help you keep kneading, but do not add too much dough at a time. When you have the good consistency of dough, put it in a slightly floured clean bowl and cover it with a stretch film. Put the bowl in a warm spot in your kitchen and let it rise to be double in size (takes about 45 minutes / 1 hour).
7. While you are waiting for dough to rise, make the filling. Add sugar, vanilla sugar and cardamom to soft butter and mix them all using a fork or a spoon to get a smooth cream.
8. Put the buttery cream on a piece of stretch film and shape it into a thin log. Put the log in the freezer until you need it.
9. When the dough is doubled, take it out of the bowl.
10. Lightly flour your work surface. Transfer the dough gently onto the surface and cut 92 (or 45 gr.) pieces. You can think of 92 gr. as a quite small orange or a large mandarin. Make balls out of cut pieces.
11. Put the balls on baking trays with baking sheet on. Cover with clean kitchen towels and let them proof for 30 minutes.
12. Take butter filling out of freezer and cut equal size pieces (20 or 40, according to the number of your buns). Put it back to freezer so that they don’t get too soft.
13. Preheat the oven to 225C.
14. When the oven is ready and dough balls rise for 30 minutes, prepare them for oven: using your thumb, make a deep well in the middle of each bun. Press hard 1 piece of butter filling into each hole.
15. Brush the surface of the buns with beaten egg. Sprinkle about 1/4 tsp granulated white sugar on top of butter filling. Also sprinkle pearl sugar on the rest of the bun. Put the buns in the oven, in middle rack and bake for 12-15 minutes, until they nicely brown. Serve / eat warm with some coffee or tea. Enjoy!
My Dear Kitchen in Helsinki 
Wow! They look amazing and delicious! Love cardamom too and your step-by-step photos are great! Super post! :)
Thank you!! ☺️
Lovely! Thank you for sharing. You’re inspiring me.
Great to hear that!! :)
Hello again ^^
I have tried your Laskiaispulla recipe and really love it. Now I attempt at making this one. I always have my dried yeast at home (the same brand as yours in the previous recipe), I am not so familiar with the fresh yeast (have never tried it before).
Can I use the dried yeast for this recipe and how many grams should I use to replace the fresh one?
Thank you so much! 😀
Hei. Lovely to hear. You need to use half amount of yeast. Make sure your milk is warm – not boiling hot, but hot enough for dry yeast to activate. Enjoy!
Bir suredir instagramdan takip ediyorum ama nedense bloga hic goz atmamisim, kendime yazik etmisim :D
Mukemmel oldu!
Super! ^_^
Please help me in my ignorance. I read 50 grams of yeast, here in USA that would equal 13cup of yeast. What am I doing wrong please help
Oh wow ok it’s not 13 cups of yeast. That’s a lot of yeast! :) Or did you mean 1/3 cup maybe and not 13??
Here is a useful link to make conversions: https://www.traditionaloven.com/conversions_of_measures/yeast_converter.html
So according to this 50 gr fresh yeast should make about 1/3 cup of yeast.
I had typed 1/3, but auto correct must have deleted it. Yes my question. I’m I supposed to use 1/3 cup of yeast?!! Wow that’s alot — usually don’t use more than a couple of tablespoons–
Yes, it seems like it converts to 1/3 cup so you’ll use that much. Though I always personally prefer weighing than cup measurement. And there is quite a lot of flour in the recipe and it yields to a good amount of buns so this is a big portion of dough. :) And just to remind you, the measurement is for fresh yeast and not dry yeast.
Pingback: Voisilmäpulla (Finnish Butter Eye Buns) - Tara's Multicultural Table
I visited Finland last year and loved these rolls. Are they the same as the cinnamon rolls just without the cinnamon? Or do I think of them as two different pastries? Thanks.
Hmm the base of most of the buns is about the same – called “pulla” which means bun. But cinnamon rolls, korvapuusti, has a little different dough.
Pingback: Voisilmäpulla (Finnish Butter-Eye Buns) and Memories of Helsinki - Wonder & Sundry
I was chasing these ever since I left Finland , this page is really helpful thank you so much !!!!
Great!