If you follow Mattilan talo on Instagram, you may remember the rather fast-paced reel I filmed from the back of an ATV at the end of September? If you don’t, you can go and have a look once you’ve finished reading this story.

Here in Impiö, a few of us local entrepreneurs have joined forces to offer visitors staying in the village a chance to take part in local life. Just ordinary everyday things, whatever happens to be going on and available at the time. We’ve been making notes for each other about the kinds of tasks and activities guests might be able to join in with at our homes. Then our visitors can decide for themselves whether they’d be interested in seeing what ordinary life is really like in our little corner of the world.

On the last weekend of September, a group of four Germans arrived at Alexandra and Stefano’s cottage, Mökki Tikka, on the shore of Lake Koirajärvi. Juha from Monipalvelu Impiö looks after Alexandra’s cottage and is something of a jack-of-all-trades, so on Saturday morning Juha pulled into Mattila’s yard on his ATV and I hopped on the back. Off we went to Mökki Tikka, where Juha could introduce the guests to the ins and outs of the wonderful cottage, while I got to meet the visitors with whom we had already arranged our first get-together. On their very first evening in Impiö, Ronja, Lisa, Joe and Roland came to Mattila, as agreed, for a traditional home-cooked meal. Sitting around the same table gave us plenty of time to get to know each other and chat. Our conversation wandered from the story of Saint Nicholas to protein bars, so we went straight in at the deep end. That’s fairly typical in Mattila’s Pirtti.

A few days earlier, my daughter Maria had asked if we could bake korvapuusti, Finnish cinnamon buns, over the weekend. So I asked our German friends if they would like to join us and learn how to make these traditional Finnish treats. Of course, I am well aware of my own particular characteristic as a cinnamon-bun baker: I have NEVER managed to make neat, modestly sized, beautifully shaped buns that actually stay that way. When I was young, my mother taught me the term korsupulla. As I understand it, the name has something to do with the former Korsubaari in Ranua and the rather substantial pastries they used to sell there. Perhaps someone who knows more about this could tell us the story in the comments!

But my korsu... I mean, my korvapuusti have always tasted absolutely delicious, and that’s what matters. One principle that has always delighted the family when they’ve come asking for freshly baked buns is: “You can take one from the ugly end.” Let’s just say there has never been a shortage of choice.

Naturally, I gave our guests fair warning about all this, but they thought homemade baked goods were supposed to look homemade. Otherwise, you might as well buy them from a shop or bakery. A very good point.

And so, with German punctuality, the group arrived at Mattila on Sunday morning, and we got straight to work. I had translated the recipe into German for them, but even AI had failed to spot one small cultural difference in the world of recipes: in Germany, litre-based measurements are only used for liquid ingredients. So seeing flour and sugar measured in decilitres caused some bewilderment, and quite a bit of amusement when Roland declared that measuring ingredients in decilitres was simply far too imprecise. “Typical Deutsch! You are even more punctual than us Finns,” I said. We had a good laugh about that, more than once.

It was great fun working together in the kitchen. Our guests and Maria made their own doughs, happily working side by side and helping each other whenever needed. Our guests said the experience felt wonderfully homely to them. It reminded them of being at their grandparents’ house. How lovely to hear that. Those are exactly the kinds of experiences and memories I want guests coming to Mattila to have.

We carried the bowls of dough into Pirtti to rise in front of the still slightly warm fireplace, and meanwhile went exploring around the house. I told them about Mattila’s history and shared stories about my own family and relatives. After we had also enjoyed some coffee, the men decided that instead of getting involved in the actual cinnamon-bun rolling, they would be quite happy to do some work outside, if I happened to have anything that needed doing. They had been a little disappointed when I told them about the firewood miracle that had taken place earlier in the summer. You can read more about that in my other blog post, “The Mysterious Frequencies of Impiö.”They would have happily chopped and stacked firewood. But of course, around an old house in autumn, there is always something to do. The men gathered up the small spruces and tree trunks I had cleared from the forest during the summer and carried them to the place I showed them, where they could wait for further attention. That job didn’t take them long, so next they picked up rakes and tidied the roadside part of the yard, which I’ve decided to leave as a natural meadow. The birches along the road had already dropped their leaves, so it was a good time to clear them from the area.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, work on the korvapuusti continued. Ronja and Lisa each made their own buns, and Lisa’s choice of filling for cinnamon-free korvapuusti turned out to be excellent. Instead of cinnamon, she filled them with sugar, cocoa powder and coconut flakes. Bounty buns! Both of our guests’ batches came out of the oven looking beautiful and holding their shape perfectly. Maria’s and mine, on the other hand... well, let’s just say you didn’t need to eat very many of those treble clefs at once to satisfy a serious cinnamon-bun craving. But every single one of our creations tasted heavenly, and that’s the most important thing!

At the end of a lovely, busy day, our guests packed up the treats they had baked and set off on foot back to Mökki Tikka. After all, it’s only about six kilometres away. Autumn nature, fresh air, and homemade korvapuusti for the road. Our new friends had a lovely start to their holiday in Impiö.

Tintti