The Nordics and the Baltic · Volume 24, The Swedish Crown, the Gulf of Bothnia and the Reindeer North
Mämmi
Finland
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 7 hours
- Researched
- 13 sources cited
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Documented from the eighteenth century, probably originating in south-west Finland and Häme, and only nationally known from the 1930s onward. The old-style version uses no sugar or syrup at all, only rye malt itself providing the sweetness once its enzymes have done their work.
As tradition built it
Serves 6 to 8. About 4 hours, plus several hours' setting.
Ingredients
- 1 litre boiling water
- 100 g rye malt (mämmi malt)
- 150 g rye flour
- 1 orange orange zest, optional, traditional in some households
- 1 to 2 tbsp dark treacle, optional, for a sweeter modern version
Method
- Whisk the boiling water with the malt and rye flour until smooth.
- Hold the mixture in a warm place, or a very low oven around 50°C, for a couple of hours, stirring occasionally: it must reach and stay above 60°C for the malt's enzymes to convert starch to sugar properly, but must never be allowed to boil, which kills the enzymes before they finish their work.
- Once noticeably sweetened and thickened, stir through orange zest or a little treacle if using.
- Transfer to a shallow dish and bake at a low oven, around 150°C for 2 to 3 hours, until dark and set to a dense, spoonable pudding.
- Cool completely, then chill.
- Serve cold, with cream and a little sugar or golden syrup.
What a modern chef changes
The one step this dish has always actually asked for, given the precision it deserves.
Rung 5
Method
- Hold the malting stage in a sous vide bath at exactly 60 to 65°C rather than an oven set to "low", for reliable, repeatable enzyme conversion every time, precisely the discipline this dish's own traditional method was always reaching for without quite having the equipment to hit it consistently.
- Dehydrate a small portion of rye malt separately and grind it fresh as a finishing dust over the set pudding, for a concentrated, toasted malt note on top of the dish's own base sweetness.
- Serve with a quenelle of properly whipped cream rather than pouring cream over, treating the dressing as a real component rather than an afterthought, the same discipline this atlas asks of a plain Belgian waffle elsewhere.