Rye bread must be the most common food to eat in Finland. We love it too and lately we have trying to make it on our own. We started it by making a mother dough. In Finnish it's called 'taikinajuuri', dough with roots. Quite a nice word. A farm with a long history and roots should definitely have an own dough. Water and flour are the only ingredients needed. The process takes about five days until the dough is ready. However at the beginning our bread was quite flat. It needed many tries, baking and testing. After one month we had enough experience and maybe the time did its magic too. A dough for a bread with a perfect texture and airiness.
Making the sourdough:
Day 1. Mix 100g flour with 100ml warm water in a large bowl and place it in a warm place covered with a plate. After 12 hours stir the dough briefly and let it rest.
Day 2. After another 12 hours add 50g flour and 50ml warm water to the dough and mix it well. Cover the dough again and put it back in the warm place. This time, let the dough rest for 24 hours. You can already smell, that the dough is evolving and it has some bubbles.
Day 3. After 24 hours add again 100g flour and 100ml water to the dough and mix it well again. Cover the bowl and put it back in the warm place, stir the dough again after 12 hours and let it rest again.
Day 4. After another 12 hours add 100g flour and 100ml warm water to the dough and stir the dough. Cover again and put back in the warm place and let the dough rest for another 24 hours.
Day 5. The dough is ready to use for baking. Store the dough in a fridge in closable glass jar.
Now the actual bread. Our favorite ingredient, which gives a nice flavor to the bread is caraway. Otherwise you can add come seeds to bread or just make it pure only with the sourdough, water, rye flour and salt.
Add a cup of mother dough.
Mix it with water, around 300ml.
Add rye flour, around 500g. Add the flour in small parts, feel the dough. Sometimes it needs more flour, sometimes less.
If you like add some sunflower, pumpkin or flax seeds. And for the nice flavor, add caraway.
Don't forget to add a little bit salt.
Remember to feed the mother dough with new flour and water after using it for baking.
Let the dough rest couple of hours before making the bread.
The dough is ready to become a bread.
After forming the bread it needs to rest again about an hour. Cover it up with a kitchen towel.
When the bread is ready for the oven, put the oven to a temperature of about 225 degrees (electric oven). Bake the bread for 20 minutes and then lower the heat to about 200 degrees. Continue baking for less than an hour. The bread is ready when knocking the bottom has a hollow sound.
Our tasty bread is ready! The tiny bread has the shape of a traditional Finnish rye bread, made from the rest just for fun. Unfortunately our oven is currently broken and the baking has to wait. But we have also good news! The renovation is getting further and the second floor will be completely renovated before summer.
Finally a renovation post! We have been finishing our living room and bed room. This post is about the renovation process of the living room. The interior is not completely ready yet. Some finishing touches like a carpet or curtains are still coming. However the living room is now in use. Some of the furniture that were originally in the room stayed there, like the shelf and the table. The overall view is still quite retro. We wanted it this way to reflect the time, when the house was build. On the photo above is an old photograph, which we wanted to have on the wall to respect the roots of farm. The couple is Susanna's great-grandparents and the photo was found from the farm. It has to be almost 100 years old.
This was the starting point for the renovation. The biggest change was to remove the door between the bed room and the living room. The door was never in use. By removing it, we also have more wall space to use.
One of the coolest things are the messages from the past, when you are renovating an older house. As we were removing the old floor baseboards we noticed, that Susanna's grandfather had written there: "Parempi kammari", which means a better room. This room was earlier used only for guests and on special occasions like birthdays or anniversaries.
We continued making the same procedures to walls in the living room as we did in the dining room (see the post Let's make it bright).
First with the help of Susanna's father we placed thin plasterboards on top of the old wallpapers. Then we painted the ceilings. Finally we placed the fibreglass wallpaper, which was this time way faster because we knew already what to do. Our cat Luigi was also giving a helping paw. When the wallpapers were fixed, we painted them white like in the dining room.
For the floor we chose a prefinished oak parquet floor. Main reason was the old plastic coated flooring, which we kept underneath the new floor. The removal of the old floor would have required a specialist and an isolation, because of the asbestos glue that they used to attach the old flooring. The prefinished parket floor was a safe, inexpensive and goodlooking choice. It also has a good durability in a long run.
Placing the floor was quite fast and easy. Now screws or glue needed.
For the ceilings we made the same crown molding as we have in the dining room. We used white painted pine, that had the same profile as the crown molding of the room originally.
The retro look comes from the furniture, that date back to 60's and 70's. This sofa and armchairs are from a Finnish manufacturer Asko. We got them from our favorite retro shop in the town – Retro&Romu (see the post Retro trip). The table was originally in the room and stayed exactly in the same place. Tobi sanded and oiled the surface of it and repaired it by adding a new layer of veneer on the side of the table. The old painting on the wall is our farm and the old main building. Some other buildings of the painting are still existing.
The shelf is also on its original place. We only painted the handles black, so it would suit better to the rest of the room. The picture on the wall is an old hand drawn map from the farm.
That is all for now. The next step with the renovation is the restroom and the corridor in the main floor. Then we are finished with the main floor. We will keep you updated, when the things are going further. We also have to show our bed room, which is also almost ready. Stay tuned and enjoy the last days of Autumn!
It's already mid October. The whole summer and also the early autumn just passed by. We have been quite busy with our company and the farm and other projects. The past months have been challenging. There has been a lot to do and almost no time to relax. The summer was cold here and the few warm days we spent at the workshop.
The biggest project at the farm was to fix the barn or the upper part of it. We wanted to have our wedding celebration there. It was at weekends project, that began in May and continued till the day before the celebration. Mostly it was about cleaning and emptying. We removed 30 years old hay and other abandoned things. The floor had some damages from the broken roof and the rain water. We repaired the floor from these parts. Tobi also built a fence, that the people wouldn't fall after a few glasses of wine.
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| Photo: Judith Hirsch |
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| Photo: Judith Hirsch |
With many helping hands the barn turned out better, than we could have imagined. We are grateful to have such a friends and family. The process was emotional and we were quite tired on the celebration day, but happier than ever.
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| Photo: Özlem Gün |
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| Photo: Marco Menestrina |
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| Photo: Marco Menestrina |
Our own vegetable garden gave us lot to eat, but also a headache. However it gave also a good reason to detach from the work, go outside and let the hands get dirty. And at the end, now we can survive from the loooong winter.
Little digging was again done. In the beginning of July new electric cables were installed for the water pump and also for other buildings, the barn and the sauna house. Later in autumn our porch got a new isolation, so that the workshop underneath would stay warm. That ment also new layer of concrete. Maybe next year, we will put tiles on the porch floor, but first it needs to try about two months.
In all the hectic we missed a lot from the surrounding nature and suddenly it was already autumn. Early summer days we saw baby squirrels playing around an old silver willow at our yard. In the Midsummer we saw the first double rainbow here. Late summer evenings there was often a fog above the crop fields. A few memorable views captured with the camera.
At the moment when the days are getting shorter and darker, the same is happening in mind. We are waiting, that the stress will turn into a success and we could have a couple of care free days. Whatever happens, after winter comes always spring.
Spring is early this year. Yesterday we were swimming in the river without going first to the sauna. It was so hot day! The renovation is going further. We are finishing the main floor (the floor where we are sleeping and eating) by renovating the corridor and restroom. The amount of light is already mesmerizing. It gives its own boost to get things ready. We want to have the main floor ready before summer and it's also going to happen.
The walls in the corridor had the same treatment as almost everywhere in the main floor (see the post Let's make it bright). Susanna's father helped us to place thin plaster boards on top of the old wallpapers. Then we fixed fibreglass wallpapers and finally we painted them white like in the dining room, living room and bedroom.
The nature is like a big green explosion. Every here and there are blossoming.
Luigi has been curious to get to know new flowers and how they smell.
The cranes have returned among other birds.
The preparations for the fields have started. Our neighbor is taking care of our crop fields.
The birches are early this year with the leaves. What a intensive yellow green color!
Tobi did again great work with the toilet by laying tiles on the walls and on the floor.
For the walls we used light gray and blue tiles, which both were left overs from another construction. The seems aren't done yet, but they will have a dark gray color.
We wanted also tiles for the corridor floors, that it is easy to keep clean when it's rainy and muddy. The chosen tiles are gray brownish with a little texture, so that they are not slippery. There's coming a new post, when the corridor is completed.
Next week is the first of May and we have prepared us by making Sima. Sima is traditional Finnish drink, which belongs to the 1st May celebration. Our plan is to relax a bit and enjoy the nature's wonders. Spring is a amazing time to follow and explore the growth of everything. We wish you sunny and happy spring days!
