Don’t know why they call it Finish sticks but they are superlicious origin Swedish pastries. These cookies taste like butter cookies and are very simple to bake. With the same batch of dough I will bake Finnish sticks and will also make Raspberry Caves for some deli variation. If you prefer one type, then you can skip the other ingredients.
Baking time: 20-25min + 30min dough resting time, serves approx. 40-50 cookies
Ingredients & Tools
200gr butter on room temperature
1dl sugar or lesser
1Tblsp vanilla sugar
4,5dl all purpose flour
1x egg
Optional: handful pearl sugar
Optional: handful crushed almond nuts or any that’s your favourite
Optional: raspberry jam or any jam you like
Baking paper and baking tray
1x big bowl
1x baking brush
1x teaspoon
1x fork
What to do?
Put all ingredients in one big bowl. Knead by hand or in a baking machine until its smoothly mixed. By hand it takes between10-15min.
Split the dough in 2x plastic bags eg sandwich bag and flatten the dough.
Put the bags in the fridge for 30min.
Pre-heat oven on 175°C at conventional heating (oven symbol stripe on top and bottom).
Beat the egg in a small bowl with a fork to use as egg wash for later.
Take the dough out of the fridge. Break a piece and make a ball with your hand palms.
————- Make Finnish Sticks ————-
Roll the dough on finger thick size strings.
Cut stick pieces for about 4cm width.
Brush a bit of egg wash over the stick pieces.
Mix the sugar pearls and crushed nuts together (or use one of the two ingredients) and layer on the stick pieces.
Put the sticks on the baking tray.
————- Make Raspberry Caves ————-
Roll small balls for a cookie size and press a whole in the centre with your dumb.
Scoop a bit jam with the teaspoon in the cookie centre.
Egg wash is not needed here.
Put the cookies on the baking tray.
————- Cookies in Oven ————-
Bake for 9-10min in the middle of the oven.
Cool off for at least 30min.
Enjoy your coffee & tea time with your delicious home baked fluffy Swedish cookies 🙂
Do you like coffee & tea time too? Cardamom buns are an indispensable delicacy among Swedish folks for Fika time. Taking your time for a good coffee or tea and have sweet delicacies. This spiced Swedish bun has an intense floral perfume from cardamom seeds, which works its way into the dough during cooking. Another favourite is the cinnamon bun, where the baking process is the same but having cinnamon as key flavour.
This recipe covers both, a mix of cardamom and cinnamon but having cardamom as the key flavour.
Serves approx. 20 buns, baking time 1:30-2 hrs including rising process.
Tips:
Flour:use bread flour (hard wheat flower with gluten) or strong flour that contains more protein (tarwemeel/speltmeel) which gives an elastic texture. Do not use all-purpose flour (self-rising flour) as this contains baking powder and is intended for non-yeast recipes e.g. cake and muffins.
Yeast: use yeast in the recipe and not baking flour
Cardamom in dough: do not use powder version. If you have pods, then prepare this first in taking out the seeds of the pods as this is quite an effort and time consuming.
————- The Dough ————-
Saucepan
Whisk
Big bowl
Mortar & pestle
Dough mixer
Kitchen towel
Dough roller / rolling pin
Knife
Baking paper, baking tray
2,5 dl milk
25 gram yeast
1 Tbsp fresh ground cardamom seeds
450-500 gram (7dl) bread flour
75 gram butter on room temperature
1 dl sugar
½ tsp salt
————- The Filling ————-
Small bowl
Fork
100 gram butter on room temperature, butter needs to be soft
1dl sugar
1 Tbsp fresh ground cardamom seeds
1 Tbsp cinnamon powder
————- Topping ————-
Baking / pastry brush
2x small bowls
1x egg wash
½ dl sugar
½ dl water
½ Tbsp vanilla sugar
Mix 2 tsp cinnamon and 2 tsp cardamom powder
Optional: 1dl pearl sugar or chopped almonds
What to do?
————- The Dough ————-
Warm up 2,5 dl milk in a saucepan to finger warm temperature.
Crumble 25gr yeast into the pan, whisk until it dissolves in the milk and pour the milk over in the big bowl.
Grind 1 Tbsp cardamom seeds with the mortar & pestle.
Add the grinded cardamom, 1dl sugar, 450gr baking flour and 75gr butter into the milk bowl.
Mix the mixture for at least 15min until the dough gets elastic. Halfway mixing the flower, add ½ tsp salt and continue mixing. Add a bit more flour if dough is too wet.
Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and let it rest for at least 40min. The dough will rise about double its size.
————- The Filling ————-
Mix 100gr butter, 1dl sugar, 1 Tbsp ground cardamom and 1 Tbsp cinnamon powder with a fork. The consistent is difficult to mix in the beginning but when the butter softens, it will make it much easier.
————- Prepare Dough ————-
Prepare baking trays, having baking paper on the bottom.
The dough is ready when it bounces back by slapping on the dough with your hand palm or fingers. Place the dough on a flat and clean surface. Roll it out to a rectangular shape by using a dough roller.
Spread the filling in lengthwise on one half over the dough and fold the dough in half lengthwise.
Gently, press the dough down so that the folded dough sticks together.
Slice the dough in 1,5cm strips.
Take one strip and twist it. Lay one end on the surface, then roll the strip over the end and place the other end at the bottom of the bun. See video on the ‘How’ at the bottom of this article. Place the bun on the baking tray.
Repeat with the stripes and twists until dough is finished.
Cover the bun tray with a towel and let it rest for 30min.
Pre-heat the oven on 225°C.
————- Topping ————-
While the buns are resting, make the sugar syrup. Put ½ dl sugar, ½dl water, ½ Tbsp vanilla sugar in a saucepan. Let it simmer until the sugar is dissolved.
Whisk the egg for the egg wash (beaten egg + little water or milk).
Brush the buns with egg wash.
Sprinkle a little bit of the cinnamon & cardamom powder mix on each bun
Optional: sprinkle a little bit of pearl sugar or chopped almonds on each bun.
————- Finally ————-
Bake the buns in the middle of the oven for approx. 8-10min until the buns are having a golden glow.
When you take the buns out from the oven, immediately brush each bun with a little bit of sugar syrup. The liquid will evaporate and don’t brush too much as you don’t want soggy buns. The syrup prevents having dry buns when they cool off.
In Sweden, midsummer is a cherished tradition that starts every year on the 3rdFriday of June on Midsummer Eve. This ritual involves flowers in the hair, dancing around a pole, singing Swedish songs while drinking schnapps and having various midsummer foods on the table e.g. pickled herring (sil) with potatoes, gravlax (salmon), sour cream, dille, knäckebröd. Today, it’s more about food and drinking with family and/or friends 😊
One of the not-to-be-missed festive food is the Swedish jordgubbstårta. This is a summer cake filled with vanilla cream and strawberries. It is quite an effort but I’m sure you will love it! Tip: make the cake 1 day before and decorate next day, follow steps 1 until 29.
Serves approx. 12 slices, cooking time 1:30 – 2hrs including cool down process
Ingredients
————- Cake ————-
Butter and breadcrumbs (NL paneer meel) for the springform pan Ø 22cm
Baking paper
Big and Medium bowl
Hand/electrical mixer
1dl all purpose flower
1dl potato starch or corn starch
1,5 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
1½ dl sugar
————- Vanilla Custard ————-
Saucepan
Small bowl
2 egg yolks
2,5 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp potato starch or corn starch
1dl standard milk
1dl whipping cream
1 vanilla pod or 2 tsp vanilla sugar
————- Strawberry Filling ————-
400-500gr strawberries or forest fruit which brings a flourish variation on your tasty pallets (frozen fruit is possible)
2 Tbsp sugar
½ lemon, zest and juice
————- Topping Decoration ————-
4dl whipping cream
400gr strawberries
Optional: 1½ cup chopped roasted hazelnuts or other mixed nuts to your preference
What to do?
————- Cake ————-
Pre-heat oven on fan function at 190°– 200°C
Cover the bottom of spring form with baking paper
Grease the sides of the pan with butter
Coat the pan with breadcrumbs
In medium bowl: add 1dl flour, 1dl potato starch and 1,5 tsp baking powder. Stir until well mixed.
In big bowl: whisk 4 eggs and 1½ dl sugar with hand mixer for 5-10min until the batter is white and fluffy
Add mixed flower little by little into the egg mixture and stir well.
Pour the mixture into the baking pan.
Bake for 20min in the oven 190° on the middle level until its golden brown. If cake doesn’t get brown, increase oven heat to 200°C.
Prick a wooden stick in the cake and check if the stick is clean and dry.
Once the cake is ready, take it out of the oven and let it cool down in the pan.
————- Vanilla Custard ————-
Add 2 yolks, 2.5Tbsp sugar, 2Tbsp potato starch, 1dl milk, 1dl cream in the saucepan.
Scrape the seeds out from the vanilla pod and add into the saucepan.
Cook on low heat and whisk until sauce gets thick.
Once it gets thick, pour the sauce in a bowl. In case you use vanilla sugar instead of vanilla pod, then add and stir 2tsp vanilla sugar in the bowl.
Let the sauce cool down.
————- Strawberry Filling ————-
Remove stalks of 400-500gr strawberries and cut it small pieces. Put the berries in a bowl. In case you use frozen fruit, heat it up in a small pan.
Add 2Tbsp sugar, ½ lemon zest and its juice. Stir all ingredients (let it cool down when you heat the frozen fruit).
Crush the berries slightly until you have a jam consistency with chunks of berries
————- Decorate Cake ————-
Cut the cake in 2 or 3 layers, whatever you feel comfortable with and the cake allows to.
Spread the vanilla custard on the 1stlayer of the cake. On the 2ndlayer, spread the berries filling and add thin layer custard on top of the berries. Put the cake top above the berries.
Tip: store the cake with custard filling in the fridge overnight and decorate the cake next day. This will make the cake moisty with full berry flavour. Put the springform ring around the cake, and layer 1 kitchen paper on the cake top, and then cover with aluminium foil. In case you want to make the cake in 1 day, put the cake in the fridge while you prepare next steps or put it longer in the fridge in letting the cream stiff up.
Optional: chop 1½ cup roasted hazelnuts to decorate the sides of the cake at step 31.
Remove stalks of 400gr strawberries remove and cut in slices or decorate cake with uncut strawberries but note that slicing the cake would be more challenging.
Whip 4dl cream until it gets thick.
Coat the sides and the cake top with cream.
Decorate the sides with chopped roasted hazelnuts.
Lastly, decorate the cake top with sliced strawberries. Start layering slices on the outer circle first, then layer by layer to the center of the cake.
