Last: nordic brown
Next: i've lost my sense of scale
February 06, 2005
cake off
You know what it's like, you wait all year for a holiday celebrated with cakes, and then two come along at once. Not only was yesterday Runeberg Day in Finland, but next week is Fat Tuesday.
Finns yesterday woke up to the national flag flying on every street corner - Runeberg Day! Runeberg is the national poet of Finland, and wrote the national anthem. To celebrate his birthday, rather than the normal tradition of declaring a national holiday (and closing everything), the populous are bestowed Runebergintorttu, or Runeberg cakes. The myth is that Mrs. Runeberg created the cakes, but it seems more likely that it was his daily breakfast; a dry cake moistened with schnapps and strawberry jam.
As the above suggests, the cakes vary from dry through to wet - sometimes too wet. The improbable tower shape, and delicateness of the crumb means transporting these cakes is a careful proposition. A colleague commented that this makes you enjoy them all the more, after the effort taken to get them home intact. Definitely worth making your own (though Stockmann had sold out of the special cake tins needed).
The upstart cake on the block is laskiaispulla - a pulla bun halved, the middle scooped out and filled with whipped cream and marzipan. Pretty nice - the cream cuts through some of the spices in the pulla, which can be a bit too much for me. Also known as semlor in Swedish, and
fastelaven in Norwegian, this pan-Nordic treat is apparently a Roman invention, arriving in the 16th century. Traditionally this bun is eaten today, the Sunday before Fat Tuesday, followed by kids going out and sledding all day.
Next food holiday (although I will be maintaining the British tradition of pancakes on Tuesday) is, I think, Easter Sunday, and it's time to unleash Mämmi.
Trackbacks
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.anti-mega.com/cgi-bin/mt/addmttb.cgi/1139
