I’m willing to bet that your home does not smell nearly as good as mine does right now. Why, you may ask, does my apartment smell so amazingly good at the moment? I’ll tell you– because J baked bread today.

The last time J’s parents came to visit, they brought along a few boxes of J’s old stuff, and one of those boxes contained this cookbook, which his parents had given him when he first moved out and was living on his own.

Otava is the name of the publisher– it means the Big Dipper in Finnish– and suuri keittokirja means big cookbook. It is a big book, with lots of clearly-explained recipes, and J was eager to cook from it again. Today he decided he wanted to bake whole wheat rolls, or Grahamsämpylät.

The recipe. Did I mention it’s in Finnish?

Estonian Graham flour (whole wheat flour).

I find the various face parts on the bag odd. The bag also has a little description of who Sylvester Graham was on the back, but it fails to mention his theory that a vegetarian diet would prevent unpure thoughts.

Dough.

Risen, unbaked, topped with poppy seeds.

Final result. Perfect chewy but light insides, a nice crust around the outside. Flavorful enough to eat on its own. Yum.

And, like I said before, the place smells heavenly. Perfect for a Sunday night. Say, honey… that big cookbook of yours has a lot of different bread recipes… how about you do this every Sunday?