Buckwheat Bread Rolls for Breakfast

Everybody loves freshly baked bread rolls for breakfast. These are easy to make, just mix the ingredients together in the night, shape into balls and bake in the morning.

Here in Finland buckwheat is mostly used as a gluten-free alternative to wheat, rye and barley, but I’d like to see this tasty grain used more among non-coeliacs too. I like to make these bread rolls with combination of buckwheat and wheat, but I’ve added a gluten-fee option to the recipe too.

Breakfast Bread Rolls

3 dl cold water
12 g yeast (1/4 package)
pinch of salt
1 dl buckwheat flour
1,5 dl buckwheat flakes
3,5 dl wheat flour

In the night before: dissolve the yeast and salt into water. Stir in buckwheat flour and flakes. Add enough wheat flour to make soft dough. Make 9 balls and put them on a baking sheet. Cover with a towel and transfer to the fridge.

In the morning: Put the baking sheet into the cold oven and turn it to 225 Celsius degrees. Bake until golden brown, 20-30 minutes. The baking time can be shorter or longer, depends on how quickly your oven heats.

Gluten free option: Use gluten free flour mix instead of wheat flour. Make sure the mix is vegan, some gluten free flour mixes include milk powder. The bread rolls won’t rise as nicely as with wheat flour, so consider patting them flat in the first place.

Tomato Thursday: Hummus

I love traditional hummus, but sometimes I like to make something different. Herbs, olives and even cooked vegetables are an easy way to provide variation to your hummus. This time I used sun dried tomatoes and basil.

Hummus with Sun Dried Tomatoes

4 dl cooked chickpeas
1 big garlic clove
6 sun dried tomato halves
1 tbsp oil from the tomato jar
3 tbsp tahini (optional)
2 tsp red vinegar
1-2 tbsp chopped basil (or 1-2 tsp dried)
salt, pepper

Blend chickpeas, garlic, tahini, sun dried tomatoes and oil until smooth. Add vinegar and basil and season with salt and pepper.

Flat Bread from Iceland

Flatkaka is a panfried rye flat bread from Iceland. They’re tasty, healthy and quick to make. That would make them ideal for breakfast too. I used this recipe. I found dipping the fried breads in water difficult, next time I’ll try brushing them lightly with water.

Flatkaka

3,5 dl rye flour
1,5 dl wheat flour
0,5 tsp salt
0,5 tsp baking powder
2,5 dl boiling water

Mix the dry ingredients together. Add the water and mix to form a dough. Divide the dough in six balls. Roll them flat, use wheat flour to prevent the dough sticking to the rolling pin. Poke some holes with fork. If you want to make perfect circles use a plate to cut the edges.

Fry the flat breads on hot dry frying pan, about a minute on both sides. Dip the fried breads in water (or brush them with water) and cover with a towel. Serve with margarine.

Lingonberry sandwich

Lingonberry sandwiches are a little like French toast, but less sweet. (Actually, I’ve never eaten French toast, only similar Finnish dessert called poor knights.) We had these for breakfast, but they’d be also a nice snack, and they’re sweet enough for even a dessert.

Lingonberry Sandwiches

sour rye bread or setsuuri
margarine
lingonberry jam

Slice the bread. Melt the margarine in a frying pan and fry the bread slices until nicely browned. Spread lingonberry jam on top and serve.

Rice Porridge

Porridge making couldn’t be easier. Just mix everything and keep in the oven until it’s ready to eat. Porridge that is made in the oven is different from the one that is cooked on the stove, but I wouldn’t say either of them is better than the other. Rice porridge can be served with berry soup, but I prefer mine with sugar and cinnamon.

Baked Porridge

margarine
1 l soy milk
2 dl porridge rice or broken barley
0,5 tsp salt

Grease an oven proof dish with margarine. Mix milk, rice and salt in the dish and bake in 175 Celsius degrees for 1,5 hours.

Pink Porridge

Whipped lingonberry porridge is commonly eaten as dessert, but it can also be served for breakfast or as a snack. And it’s vegan. Similar porridge can also be made of red currants or other berries or fruits, but lingonberry is the most popular. The recipe below is for 2 or 3, but you can make a bigger batch, it stays good in refrigerator for days.

Lingonberry Porridge 

5 dl water
0,75 dl wheat semolina
0,5 dl sugar
1 dl crushed lingonberries

optional: soy or oat milk and sugar for serving

Bring the water to boil. Whip in the semolina and cook about 10 minutes. Add sugar and lingonberries, mix well and allow to cool. Whip (with electric mixer) until soft and light pink.

Porridge without berry skins: use 2 dl whole lingonberries instead of 1 dl crushed. Bring the water to boil, add the lingonberries and slowly boil them 20-30 minutes or until the juice comes out of them. Sift the skins out, bring the juice to boil again and make the porridge as described above. My mum uses this method, but I don’t mind about berry skins so I use the easier method.

Luxurious Breakfast

Usually my breakfast is only a cup of coffee and couple of slices of bread. Sometimes on weekends when you don’t have to hurry anywhere it’s nice to have a bigger breakfast. Today I had vegan tortilla Española (Spanish omelet), soy yogurt with strawberries and muesli, carrot bread I baked yesterday, juice and coffee. Now my stomach is so full that I think I don’t have to eat anything before dinner.

Tortilla Española

2-3 tbsp oil
3 potatoes
1 small onion
2 dl chickpea flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp parsley
0,5 tsp turmeric
0,25 tsp paprika (only for colour)
salt and pepper
2 dl cold water

Peel the potatoes, cut in half and slice thinly. Chop the onion coarsely. Heat the oil in a pan and put the potatoes in it. Be careful, the oil can splatter and burn your hand. Fry few minutes. Stir often to avoid potatoes sticking together. Add the onion and continue frying until both potatoes and onion are soft and lightly browned. Remove from heat.

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add water and whisk until well mixed. Add fried potatoes and onion. You can let the mixture sit 10-20 minutes, but it’s not required. Heat the pan again, add more oil if needed. Spread the mixture to the pan and fry on medium or low heat until the surface is dry and bottom is browned. Flip and fry until the other side is browned too.