Runeberg Torte (Boozy Almond and Cookie Cakes)

So good you'll want to write a sonnet about it

Feb 09, 2024

Hello to all you wonderful RLC subscribers!

To new subscribers, welcome! This newsletter is where I share memoir essays about restaurant kitchen life, and recipes I think you’ll love.

This week I want to tell you about my very favourite cake called Runeberg Torte. It comes from Finland (where I live) and it’s named after a poet called Johan Runeberg who enjoyed cake and booze for breakfast.

It’s easy to make, delicious, and drenched in a liqueur called Swedish Punsch (unless you choose for it not to be, I give you options below).

Thanks for being here,

Wil

A poet with only scraps in the cupboard

If there’s something I love about life in Finland it’s how consistently they invent a cake or pastry or other baked sweet thing to coincide with national days of celebration.

This week (February 5th) was the birthday of Finland’s national poet, one Johan Runeberg. And, true to form, a specific cake has appeared on store shelves in recent weeks to mark the occasion.

There’s even a little story to go along with it…

Back in the 1800s when Johan was writing poems about making bread from tree bark and other brutalities of Finnish rural life, he enjoyed doing so along with something sweet to nibble on.

The story goes that he fancied something sweet one day for breakfast. Unfortunately for Johan there was nothing in the house that could quite scratch his itch.

This is when his wife Frederika (herself a pioneer of Finnish fiction writing) stepped in.

Being a resourceful cook, she created something on the fly with the bits and pieces she had available: a bit of flour, some cream, a few almonds. What she created that day turned out a little dry, so she moistened it with an arrack-flavoured liqueur called Swedish punsch.

Johan enjoyed it so much he took to eating it every day, along with an extra measure of punsch, for his breakfast.

Yes, I’m sure he was a treat to be around by mid-morning…

200 years later and we eat this same cake each year on his birthday.

A monument to Frederika in my hometown of Turku, Finland.

A recipe for Runeberg Torte

The ingredients list has changed over the years. And like a lot of traditional recipes in Finland, the right way of making a Runeberg torte differs from household to household. But one nice thing about the usual ingredients is the way they maintain the same feel of random things, bits and pieces, being thrown together to make something delicious.

Whereas most cakes require a flour of some sort, fat and eggs, the Runeberg torte requires a small bit of flour, a bit of breadcrumbs or crushed cookies, and also some ground almonds. It still reads to me like a recipe created by someone in a pinch, using up the last of the dry ingredients in the cupboard, just as Frederika did back when her poet husband had a craving for something sweet.

Flavour notes:

People often describe the taste of browned butter as “toasty” or “nutty”. Well, the use of crushed ginger cookies in this recipe gives the cake a thoroughly rich and moreish browned butter flavour. The method includes a few steps to introduce air into the batter as well, which, along with the baking powder, makes the cake beautifully light.

Here’s the thing, this cake is absolutely delicious warm from the oven, or room temperature with a cup of coffee or tea.

But it really becomes something special once it’s enjoyed a cheeky little bath in the arrack-flavoured liqueur called Swedish punsch. The arrack flavour is really something else. It’s a bit like rum, a little like whisky, and, if I’m honest, a little like gasoline in the way really good Riesling sometimes tastes a bit gasoline-y. (If you know what I mean you’ll know I’m not crazy). And I don’t tend to use the word moist in polite company very often but really there’s no other way of describing the soft and effortlessly yielding texture of this liqueur-soaked cake.

My cursory Google search tells me Swedish punsch isn’t such an esoteric Nordic ingredient that it can’t be found elsewhere in the world, either. But I’ve added some substitutions below to make things easy for all.

Ingredients

Recipe makes 10 small cakes
(see below for substitutions)

125g butter + extra to grease muffin tray
80g white flour
1 tsp baking powder
90g sugar
1 egg
20g ground almonds + a few tablespoons extra to line muffin tray
120g ginger cookies
100ml heavy cream
150ml Swedish punsch

For topping
25g icing sugar
A few drops of water
A few tablespoons of Raspberry jam

Method

Tools and kit I used

Cupcake/muffin tray (each cup 1.5 inch deep)
Hand whisk
Piping bag

Get your oven on at 190°c/370°f and melt your butter on the stove over a low heat while you start the other jobs. (Pro tip: this step demonstrates the simple essence of a pro chef’s efficiency. Always get the jobs started first that don’t require your active attention, that way you can then focus on the “hands on” tasks (such as the ginger cookie crumb task below). This is why a low heat for the butter is important, you don’t need to keep checking it.)

Now to make crumbs out of your ginger cookies. You could use a processor for this. I just put them in a plastic bag and let my son go to town on them with a rolling pin. Yes, you’re left with the occasional chunky bit using the 4-year-old boy method, but it doesn’t make much difference to the end result.

Meanwhile, once your butter is almost entirely melted, take it off the heat to finish melting and to cool a little.

Whip your cream briefly so it just starts to get some body. It doesn’t need to be stiff, just a bit frothy, like the delicate foam of a well-made cappuccino. Mix this into your 20g ground almonds, cookie crumbs, flour and baking powder.

Then beat your egg with the sugar briefly until it becomes a little fluffy and pale.

Add your cooled butter to the egg and sugar mix (cool enough you can safely put your finger in it, we don’t want it to cook the eggs here), then fold in your cream/flour/crumbs mixture

Grease your muffin tray with the extra butter, then coat the insides with your extra ground almonds. This will help make sure they come out easily and give a pleasing texture to the outside of the cake.

Fill 10 of the muffin cups with the batter about half way. They just about double in size during cooking and you want the finished cake to rise up just to the top of the mould. This isn’t the place for muffin-tops, so to speak.

Bake them in your oven, now heated to 190°c/370°f, for about 15-20 minutes.

Fresh from the oven is when we turn these puppies from the mere Earthly delicious into something good enough to grace the lips of the gods themselves.

With them still in their moulds, carefully pour a generous tablespoon of the Swedish punsch over each one. I then let them cool in the muffin tray so they can sit comfortably in their boozy bath. Cover them lightly with foil so family members/birds flying through open windows are less likely to steal any.

Once they are cooled, mix your icing sugar with just enough water (we’re talking barely a few drops really) to create a thick paste. With a piping bag, create a circle around the edge of the upturned cake (if you don’t have a piping bag, just carefully spread some icing on the top). Finish things off by adding precisely 1 dollop of jam into the centre of the hole you’ve made with the icing.

The 10 cakes this recipe makes are the perfect amount for a family or group of 4 by my maths. 7 for yourself, and 1 each for everyone else.

Substitutions

The Swedish punsch
If you can’t find Swedish punsch, then a makeshift liqueur of 1 part rum, 1 part sugar and 1 part water would also work. And if you are keen on an alcohol-free version then apple juice is my choice.

The gingerbread
Here in the Nordics we have these really rather lovely, thin, beautifully spiced gingerbread cookies called piparkakut in Finnish (pictured above). But the spirit of this recipe is using what you have and any crisp ginger cookie would do the trick.

There you have it. If you fancy making some of Johan’s tarts then please do let me know about it.

This week I’ve also been taking notes for an upcoming guide on making really delicious vegetable purées. Might sound like a niche subject but I’m a firm believer in the power of a good purée to elevate a dish. I’ll be sharing that guide next week.

See you then.