Okay that title might be going a bit too far, but that essentially is what these are, or at least look alike. So. There are like bazillion sweet snacks out there, candies, chocolate, cookies, etc, etc. But the amount of salty snacks are really limited. I was trying to figure out what to do when I want something salty to snack on.
There’s a type of dough here in Finland called “voitaikina” (lit. butter dough) that apparently does not have an equivalent in English. The closes is “lehtitaikina” (lit. leaf dough) that ‘translates’ to “type of dough used in puff pastry” (really? there’s no name for that dough at all?). Anyway, “voitaikina” is close to that, but it’s not “puffy” when it’s done. It’s close to “pastry dough” though, but not exactly. Anyway, these are sold frozen in grocery stores, in 500g packages, ready to be rolled out and baked.
The ingredients for this are dead simple, just a pack of that dough, a pack of sliced ham (for sandwiches), butter, salt and an egg.
Pre-heat oven to 175-200C, it’s not that exact and depends on the type of oven.
Take the dough, let it thaw a bit and then roll out flat, long rectangle makes many small ones, while a square makes fewer larger ones. Your call. When the dough is rolled, slightly cover it with butter. I must emphasize not using too much butter, just a tiny thin cover, and you don’t have to be so thorough, here and there is enough. It’s just for taste (you can actually leave it out altogether if your ham is greasy, mine was more of a dry variety). Then sprinkle salt all over, again just a tiny amount, but be consistent, don’t make piles.
Take the ham slices and cover the whole dough with them.
(When you’ve done this and know how they taste, this is the time to start modifying the recipe. You can slightly smear the ham with mustard for example, to give it more of a “kick”. Our you can sprinkle some chili powder on top. Or season however you like. And you can of course replace the ham with chicken or turkey or anything. Just use thin slices.)
From the bottom up, began wrapping the whole thing to a roll (it will look like a weird Swiss roll in the end). Be gentle and careful. The beginning might be hard and depending on how wide your dough is, you might want to have another hand to help, or cut it in half and wrap separately. Once you get it going it’s easy though, just let it roll by gently guiding it with your hands.
Then take a knife and cut in alternate diagonals. So they’ll end up being small triangles, like this:
Take a baking tray, cover it with baking paper. Transfer the cut pieces from the table to the tray, putting them the long side down, leave the “top of the pyramid” looking upwards. Push downwards from the top of the pyramid to “squeeze” them flatter.
(If you want, you can now wet your finger and “close” the end of the dough to the side spot where it is. Just use a bit of water as a “glue” to fix the ends of the dough so they’re not freely hanging. It’s not necessary to do that, but this might help them to keep together and not open up in the oven.)
Take an egg, break it into a cup and mix well. Take a brush and generously brush the tops of the ham rolls with egg.
Put into oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the surface is nice and golden-brown.