I wanted Hawaiian bread. That soft, slightly sweet, pull-apart stuff that makes excellent toast and even better French toast. I had a bread machine, I had a recipe, I had enthusiasm. What I did not have, apparently, was the ability to measure liquids correctly.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Attempt 1: The Brick

The recipe called for pineapple juice, butter, and milk. I had none of these things, because I live in the Finnish countryside and sometimes you just work with what’s in the house. So: homemade apple juice instead of pineapple. Oivariini (a Finnish butter-margarine hybrid, about 60% fat) instead of actual butter. And ruokakerma – Finnish cooking cream – instead of milk, reasoning that the extra fat would make up for what the Oivariini was missing.

Reader, it did not.

What came out of that bread machine was… bread-shaped. It was edible. My family ate it without complaint, because they are kind people who know better than to criticize free carbs. But it was dense. Tight crumb. More sandwich loaf than Hawaiian cloud.

I texted my baking buddy. “It’s dense,” I reported. “What did I do wrong?”

And this is where things went sideways.

The Research Phase (A Tragedy in Three Acts)

My baking buddy and I are both the type of people who, when faced with a problem, want to understand why. This is usually a good trait. This time, it was our downfall.

“It’s probably the fat ratios,” my buddy said. “Oivariini has less fat than butter, and you’re using cream instead of milk, so you’ve got this weird imbalance…”

“Finnish flour is different,” I added, because I’d been living here long enough to know that things just are different sometimes. “Higher protein content. It’s basically pulla flour.”

“PULLA,” my buddy exclaimed, with what I can only describe as excessive enthusiasm. “Finnish sweet bread needs more hydration because of the flour! That’s probably it!”

We were very pleased with ourselves. We had theories. We had understanding. We were going to nail this.

Attempt 2: The Crater

Armed with knowledge, I made adjustments. Different fat ratios. Attention to hydration. Confidence.

The bread rose beautifully in the machine. I could see the dome through the little window. And then, somewhere in the baking phase, it just… gave up. Collapsed inward like a failed soufflé. The inside was soggy. The crust had divorced itself from the crumb and was just sort of hovering there, a sad roof over a sadder interior.

“It’s worse,” I reported.

“HOW IS IT WORSE,” my buddy replied.

We troubleshot. We theorized. We discussed protein content and gluten development and enriched dough cycles. Finally, my buddy offered:

“It probably still tastes fine, just… architecturally challenged.”

Attempt 3: Getting Warmer (But Also Colder)

We regrouped. More research. We talked about gluten development. We talked about Finnish dairy products at length – the differences between laktoositon maitojuoma and actual milk, the water content of various butter substitutes, whether the enzymes in pineapple juice actually mattered for texture. We were practically writing a thesis.

“Houston, we have a problem?”

Another collapse. Another crater. BUT – and here’s the thing we should have paid more attention to – the actual texture of the bread, in the parts that weren’t underbaked soup, was fluffy. Light. Exactly what I’d been going for.

“It’s so close,” my buddy said. “The texture is right, the structure just can’t hold it. We need to reduce the liquid.”

“But I already reduced the liquid from attempt two…”

And then, finally, after three loaves and approximately nine thousand words of troubleshooting, one of us said:

“Wait. What does the recipe actually call for?”

The Revelation

My buddy put it best, later:

“At least we figured it out before attempt 7 when you’d already written the blog post blaming Finnish flour protein content and I’d created a whole conversion chart for American dairy to Finnish dairy that was TECHNICALLY CORRECT but COMPLETELY BESIDE THE POINT.”

Because that’s exactly what happened. The bread was screaming at us the whole time:

Bread: I’M WET

Us: Hmm yes but is it the gluten development or perhaps the enriched dough program that’s causing—

Bread: I’M SO WET

Us: —the structural instability, you see Finnish hiivaleipäjauho has approximately 11-12% protein whereas—

Bread: I AM LITERALLY SOUP

Us: Fascinating, let’s try a different flour.

The recipe called for about 300ml of liquid total. I had been using 430ml.

No wonder it kept collapsing. I wasn’t making bread, I was making batter.

To summarize:

• 1.0: Learning
• 2.0: Learning harder
• 3.0: Learning while drowning
• 4.0: BREAD

Attempt 4: Actually Reading the Numbers

I measured the liquid. The actual amount. 300ml. I put everything in the bread machine and closed the lid and my baking buddy and I held our collective breath for three hours.

The dough looked different from the start – smoother, tighter, not the shaggy wet mess of the previous attempts. An actual ball of dough, pulling cleanly away from the sides of the pan. When the baking phase started, the smell was incredible. Buttery and sweet.

It faceplanted on the cooling rack when I tipped it out, because of course it did, but WHO CARES. Look at that dome. Look at that color. Look at that actual, structural integrity.

It’s soft. It’s sweet but not too sweet. It squishes like Hawaiian bread is supposed to squish.

My husband ate two slices before I could even put it away. My kid ate it like it was from the store, and not like he was doing me a huge favor by consuming my failures. Which is the only review that matters.

What I Actually Learned

So here’s the thing: all that research wasn’t wrong, exactly. Finnish flour IS higher in protein. Oivariini IS different from butter. The dairy substitutions DO matter. I now know a lot about adapting enriched bread recipes for Nordic ingredients, and that knowledge will be useful next time.

But none of it mattered because I hadn’t done the basic thing first.

It’s very easy, when you’re living somewhere new and everything feels slightly unfamiliar, to assume that your problems must have complicated explanations. Of course my bread isn’t working – Finnish ingredients are different! Finnish flour is different! I need to understand the system before I can succeed!

Sometimes, yes. And sometimes you just need to measure the milk.

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The Recipe (As It Actually Works)

For the bread machine, 750g loaf, sweet bread setting

ADAPTED FOR FINNISH INGREDIENTS

Original recipe inspiration: https://www.behappyanddogood.com/super-soft-bread-machine-hawaiian-bread/

Ingredients:

• 3 cups puolikarkea vehnäjauho (9-10% protein – NOT hiivaleipäjauho!)
• ~180ml fruit juice (apple, pear, or pineapple)
• ~120ml dairy (100ml Eila 1.5% lactose-free milk + 20ml ruokakerma)
• 1 egg
• 57g butter, room temperature
• 50g sugar (¼ cup)
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp instant yeast

Total liquid: ~300ml. This is critical.

Add wet ingredients first (juice, dairy, egg), then butter, then dry ingredients with yeast last in a little well. Run the sweet bread cycle. Check the dough after 5-10 minutes – it should form a smooth ball pulling cleanly away from the sides. If it looks like batter, you have too much liquid.

Remove from pan IMMEDIATELY when done. It will probably faceplant. The structure holds anyway.

For American bakers: you can probably just follow the original recipe. This adaptation is specifically for Finnish ingredients.