Runeberg Tart

A small, tall cake is topped with red raspberry jam, and a ring of white icing surrounds it. Runebergintorttu is a baked sweet made with almonds and crumbs of baked goods mixed in, and it commemorates a Finnish poet. It is known as the sweet eaten on February 5, the birthday of Johan Ludvig Runeberg. In earlier times, however, it was also a Christmas product at bakeries, and recipes for it also survive in household cookbooks.

A Porvoo Bakery’s Pastry and Fredrika’s Household Recipe

In 1840s Porvoo, Lars Henrik Astenius, who ran an inn and a bakery, made a tall, cylindrical pastry. One theory traces the origin of its recipe (the proportions of ingredients and the method) to Saint Petersburg, but neither the recipe nor the route by which it arrived is certain. The name of the poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg, who was fond of this pastry, became attached to it. His wife, the writer Fredrika, also recorded “Runeberg’s cake” in her handwritten cookbook. It is not known whether this household recipe, which used butter, flour, sugar, almonds and eggs, was the same as the shop’s pastry.

A story also circulates that his wife made it overnight from leftovers. However, both the pastry that had been sold in a town shop before that time and the recipe recorded in his wife’s cookbook are known.

From Christmas Advertisements to a February Commemoration

In a newspaper advertisement dated December 23, 1857, the Helsinki baker Fredrik Edvard Ekberg listed a cake bearing Runeberg’s name alongside saffron bread and gingerbread. It was a Christmas product first, and it took time before it became the sweet of February 5, the poet’s birthday. In 1865, when Ekberg moved to larger premises, his range of products grew further.

In the late 19th century, it was also sold in shops in various places, and at first it was a sweet for the wealthy. Its link with February 5 became prominent from the 1910s onward, and it became widely known in the 1950s and 1960s. Today it appears in shops from mid-January and has become a seasonal sweet that announces the poet’s birthday. Schools in Porvoo serve it on the anniversary, and some cafés in the city offer it year-round. A sweet that was made at home in an era when sugar and almonds were expensive spread through the sales and advertising of urban bakeries and came to be eaten throughout the country on the day commemorating the poet.

Mixing Crumbs and Nuts and Baking in a Cylinder

The batter is made by mixing softened butter and sugar, then adding eggs, almond flour, and finely crushed biscuits or wheat flour. In a recipe published by the dairy company Valio, which uses chopped almonds and oat cookie crumbs, dairy cream is also added. Unlike a batter made with wheat flour alone, it gains the fat of the nuts and the aroma of the baked goods mixed into it.

When the batter is packed into cylindrical molds and baked, the cake has a similar round cross-section from top to bottom. It can also be made in small cup-shaped molds, but a tall cylinder makes the small dab of jam on top stand out. Rather than having tart pastry lining the bottom, it is a sweet made by baking a single mixed batter into a tall shape.

Finishing with Jam and Icing, and Soaking with Liquor or Serving It Alongside

Once the cake has cooled, raspberry jam is placed on top, and powdered-sugar icing is piped around it. The white ring is not a thick coating covering the whole cake but a thin line encircling the red center. Because the intensely flavored jam is placed in a single spot, choosing where to take a bite also lets you vary the ratio of cake to jam in each mouthful.

Today, the cake is sometimes made by soaking it with a syrup containing liquor. On the other hand, Fredrika’s recipe preserved by the Runeberg household does not add liquor to the cake itself. The custom was to drink a small amount of punsch alongside the cake. Both the modern method of moistening the cake and the household record of serving liquor separately have been handed down as ways of eating the sweet of the same name.

Runeberg tarts baked in paper muffin cups, with the jam encircled by white icing. Photo: Tuisku9, 2024-02-02, location unknown. Original image / CC0. Original size, no additional processing.

Raspberry Jam and White Icing Remain Even When the Ingredients Change

The wheat-free version uses a specified flour blend and is designed so that it can also be baked in muffin tins. This version brings the batter together with melted butter; after baking, it is soaked with sugar syrup and liquor and left to rest for several hours to overnight. Both the mixing method and the resting time after baking differ from the basic method of creaming the butter.

The dairy- and egg-free version soaks flaxseed in boiling water and uses olive oil and oat drink. The eggs and butter are replaced with other ingredients, while almonds, crumbs and cardamom are used. For the finish, raspberry jam is encircled by a ring of white icing. These versions keep this distinctive appearance while being adapted to the ingredients and molds available at home.

Glossary