A topic that isn’t much talked about is Finnish pastries. Finland has got some really unique sweet recipes that you can’t find almost anywhere else in the world. In this blog post I’ll introduce you to a few of them.
Tippaleipä
Tippaleipä is a pretty odd looking pastry that you traditionally eat on May Day (1st of May). Tippaleipä is a funnel cake and the name means “drip bread” which refers to how it is made. You make them by dripping cake batter into hot oil and serve them covered with powdered sugar and sima, which is a lemon-flavored mead. Tippaleipä can be very messy to eat so be careful while snacking on it! 🙂
Lusikkaleipä
Literally translated as spoon cookie, lusikkaleipä is a fine textured buttery cookie that is filled with jam or marmalade and covered in sugar. The name of the cookie comes from how it is shaped; you press the batter into a deep oval teaspoon and form the who halves of the cookie.
Lätty and pannukakku
Lätty (also known as lettu or ohukainen in Finnish) is something you can find in almost every country but every part of the world makes them differently. Lätty is a thin pancake that is very popular in Finland. You could translate it as a crepe, but classic crepes are much thinner and made of a less buttery batter than hot the Finnish version is made. Pannukakku translates directly as pancake, but the way Finnish people make pannukakku differs from many countries; in Finland you fill the whole oven tray in batter and cook it in the oven.
Runebergintorttu
The Runeberg torte is a Finnish pastry that is flavored with almonds and topped with raspberry jam and icing. The pastry is named after the Finnish poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg (1804-1877) and are sold in Finnish grocery stores from the beginning of January to Runeberg’s birthday on February 5th when they’re traditionally also served in schools across the country. It is said that it was Runeberg’s wife Fredrika who created this desert and the very first version of it was made out of scraps she could find in her kitchen.
Korvapuusti
Korvapuusti is Finland’s version of cinnamon rolls and the shape of this pastry is unique to our country. Where some countries like to drizzle icing on top of their cinnamon buns, here we like to top them with pearl sugar. Fun fact: the 4th of October is the national korvapuusti day in Finland.
Joulutorttu
Joulutorttu, meaning Christmas tart, is a traditional Christmas food in Finland. The jam in the middle of the pastry is usually plum jam. The traditional shape resembles a star or a windmill but you can get really creative when making them.
There are many other varieties of traditional Finnish pastries (hint: google pulla and mokkapala for example, and don’t blame me if you start drooling). Why aren’t these sweets known around the world? I feel like Finnish people don’t really like to brag and and since we live so secluded from the rest of the world these pastries haven’t really been recognized in many countries. Promoting Finnish pastries is something we should definitely try to do more, go and tell the world about the greatness of pulla and korvapuusti!
I hope this post inspired you to do some more research about Finnish food or maybe try baking something yourself! All images have been found from Google’s image search. Didn’t bake any of them myself, sorry. 🙁
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