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In CULTURE SW E D I S H FIKA

The origin of Swedish Fika

Cinnabon Buns as the main part of Fika

A day without Fika is just a mess

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SIDE

IN CULTURE

CON TENT Recipes

Fika Etimology

Prinsesst책rta

History

Cinnamon Buns

Popularity

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IN CULTURE

F ika (Swedish pronuncia-

tion: [fika]) is a concept in Swedish culture with the basic meaning “to have coffee”, often accompanied with pastries.[1] A more contemporary generalised meaning of the word, where the coffee may be replaced by tea or even juice, lemonade or squash for children, has become widespread. In Sweden pastries in general (for example cinnamon buns) are often referred to as fikabrd (“fika bread”). date”, or just drink a cup of coffee, tea or other non-alcoholic beverage. As such, the word has quite ambiguous connotations, but almost always includes something to eat, such as biscuits, cakes and even sweets, accompanied with the drink. This practice of taking a break, often with a cinnamon roll or some biscuits, cookies, or a fruit on the side, is central to Swedish life.

Although the word may in itself imply “taking a break from work”, this is often emphasized using the word fikapaus (“fika pause”) or fikarast (“fika break”), with kaffepaus and kafferast, respectively, as near synonyms. Fika may also mean having coffee or other beverages at a café or konditori (a “patisserie-based coffeehouse”).

Traditionally, fika requires sweet, baked goods, especially cinnamon rolls. According to Helene Henderson, author of The Swedish Table, one needs three items minimum to avoid insult to Swedish guests; “to impress, serve a variety of seven freshly baked itemsand be ready to talk about the weather.

Fika is also combined in words such as fikabröd (“fika bread”) which is a collective name for all kinds of

Etymology The word “fika” is an example of the back slang used in the 19th century, in which syllables of a word were reversed, deriving fika from kaffi, an earlier variant of the Swedish word kaffe (“coffee”). From fika also comes the word fik (a colloquial term for “café”) through a process of back-formation. biscuits, cookies, buns, etc. that are traditionally eaten with coffee.

Non-sweetened breads are normally not included in this term (even though these may sometimes be consumed with coffee).

Fika is also used as a noun, referring to fikabröd and coffee combined.

Work break.

Definition Fika is considered a social institution in Sweden; it means having a break, most often a coffee break, with one’s colleagues, friends, date or family. The word fika can be used as both verb and a noun. You can fika at work by taking a “coffee break”, fika with someone like a “coffee.

Fika is e

even older... than one can imagine

E ver hear mention of fika? Maybe you’ve heard of the cafe chain in New York City, or

maybe you’ve heard a Swedish friend make a fika reference, or maybe you once watched that silly Gevalia video. But when it comes to fika, do you really know what it is?

Three years ago my friend Johanna Kindvall and I set out to write a book on the topic of fika, the almighty Swedish coffee break. For Swedes, fika is nothing revolutionary; it’s simply part of everyday life. But talk to any Swede who has moved abroad, or anyone who has visited Sweden, and they’ll tell you all about how wonderful fika is and how you should be doing more of it.

Fika (pronounced fee-ka) is a Swedish custom, a kind of social coffee break where people gather to have a cup of coffee or tea and a few nibbles.

Fika is such an important part of life in Sweden that it is both a verb and a noun. Do you fika?

If so, tell us more about this delicious-sounding tradition!

Having never experienced fika in person, I am by no means an expert. But what I can gather from friends and especially from the photo blog of the wonderful Sweden-born, Berlin-based artist Sandra Juto, fika is close to what we would call a coffee break here in the States but with some key differences.

Unlike British tea, fika can happen at any time of day. It seems to be a social event, too, something you invite people to join you in. It usually involves coffee or tea but can be cold drinks like lemonade. It can be taken at home or in a cafe.

Having accompanying treats is an important part of fika. Breads, coffeecakes, croissant, muffins, cookies, cake — any of these treats are appropriate fika fare. You can also indulge in the savory side, with slices of cold meats, cheese and bread, hard boiled eggs or a small sandwich. I’ve seen small platters with vegetables like radishes and carrots, plates of pickles and smoked fish.

It seems like fika is mostly finger food, with the occasional fork thrown in.

What I like most about fika is that it’s about pausing in the middle of your day to enjoy a little something with friends. This gathering together to nourish the body must also nourish the heart as well. The closest I come to this here in the States is an occasional coffee with friends.

Close, but not quite the same thing. Somehow having fika be a part of a culture seems to bring another element to it. We don’t ‘coffee’ here, after all!

Are any of you familiar with fika? Did I miss anything here? Let us know in the comments.

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IN CULTURE

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raditional Fika consists of a cup of coffee and a piece of cake

S wedes

love their cinnamon buns so much they even gave the baked goods their own annual day kanelbullens dag - offering sweet-toothed S wedes something special to celebrate. The L ocal finds out more.

Ever y year on October 4th, the S wedes celebrate Cinnamon Bun Day. Cafes, restaurants, and convenience stores across the countr y sell the spiced S wedish buns.

The holiday was invented in 1999 by the Home Baking Council (Hembakningsrådet), a c lub of baking ingredient producers now r un by Danish sugar company Dansukker. The company wanted to create a baking tradition in honour of its 40th anniversar y. “ We wanted to celebrate home-baking,”

Birgit Nilsson Bergst röm, project manager at the Home Baking Council, told The Local. “So we talked with various bakers, teachers, and just all sorts of ordinar y people, and we asked what bread they thought of when t hey thought of home-baking. And that was it.”

The cinnamon bun itself has been a beloved pastr y in S weden since the 1920s.

Money was tight during Wor ld War I, and it wasn’t until af ter the war that many S wedish households could afford to splurge on the ingredients.

The S wedish cinnamon bun is much less sticky and sweet than the t ypical American cinnamon roll. Another essential difference in S wedish cinnamon buns is the cardamom spice in the dough, which adds another dimension of flavour.

The buns are baked for just a few minutes in a ver y hot oven, making them light and fluffy with a golden brown surface. They are then topped with grains of “pear l sugar ” as opposed to frosting or glaz e.

Nowadays cinnamon rolls can be found around the wor ld, but in S weden they ’ve got that extra something - a touch of S candinavian simplicit y. “ We’re experts at f ika,” Bergst röm said

with a laugh. “ O ur Swedish cinnamon rolls are simpler, more ever y-day, and yet tastier. They have less fat, less sugar…

They’re more plain, but still festive for us, and ver y Swedish. ”

“I have fika every day, it is the sweetest part of my day”

As S wedish as cinnamon rolls?

‘S wedish’ cuisine unmasked For Bergström, the bun-baking bonanza begins the night before the big day.

“I’m going to put the first batch of dough in the fridge tonight,” she told The L ocal on Thursday af ternoon. “ I ’ll bake it early in the morning,

and invite over all of my neighbours in the apartment. I f they’re not home I ’ll leave a bag of buns outside the door .”

D uring the evening Bergström will be meeting for a celebration at a local cafe in Gothenburg. Par ticipants will talk about buns and S weden’s fika culture, and of course feast on the cinnamon concoctions. The Home Baking Council will also announce the winners of its contest to redesign the form of the cinnamon bun. “ The taste is per fect,” said Berg-

st röm. “ There’s no need to change that. But it ’d be fun to have a new design now and then. The pictures of the winning designs will be released next week .”

Cinnamon buns are not the onl y food so impeccabl y S wedish that they are celebrated in S weden with their ver y own day. Fat Tuesday is irrevocabl y associated with semlor, and Waffle Day is al ways March 25th.

But here at The L ocal we wondered - how many of these S wedish “traditional” foods actuall y have their origins in S weden? We did some sleuthing and found out. Even two of the key ingredients in the beloved cinnamon buns have travelled a long way to get here... Check out the galler y where we reveal the tr ue origins of seven popular S wedish foods.

Prinsesst책rta

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Method 1. Star t by making the custard filling. Place the milk into a medium pan and bring to a boil over medium/high heat. Whilst coming to temperature place the yolks, sugar, flour and cornflour into a bowl and whisk together until smooth. When boiling, pour the milk slowly over the egg mixture, whisking constantly. Pour the custard back into the pan and whisk constantly until the custard is bubbling and has thickened. Pour the custard back into the bowl and press cling film onto the sur face of the custard to prevent it developing a skin. Place in the fridge until needed.

2. Preheat the oven to 180°C (360°F, gas 4, fan 160°C). Grease a deep 20 cm (8”) round cake pan and dust with flour. Line the base of the pan with parchment paper and set aside.

3. For the sponge layer s place the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract into a large heatproof bowl and place over a bowl of simmering water. Whisk until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is warm to the touch. Remove from the heat and using an electric mixer whisk for 5 minutes until pale, thick and tripled in size. Sieve over the flour and carefully fold together, tr ying to keep as much volume as possible.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and gently level out. Bake in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes or until risen and golden. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 5 minutes before inver ting onto a wire rack to cool completely.

4. To assemble the cake use a serrated knife to slice the sponge into two even layer s. Spread the custard over one of the sponge layer s and top with the raspberries. Place the second sponge layer on top and set aside. Whip the cream, icing sugar and vanilla together until it holds stif f peaks. Place the cream

on top of the cake and using a palette knife spread it over the cake to create a domed ef fect. To finish the cake take the mar zipan and knead in a little green food colouring, kneading until the colour is even. Dust the worksur face with a little icing sugar and roll out the mar zipan until big enough to cover the cake. Gently drape the mar zipan over the cake and smooth down the sides of the cake and trim of f the excess. Best ser ved within a few hour s of assembling.

Ingredients Sponge • 4 • 115 g sugar • 1 tsp • 115 g Custard • 300 ml • 4 • 50 g sugar • 1 tbsp • 1 tbsp • 1 tsp To finish • 150 g • 480 ml • 1 tbsp sugar) • 1 tsp • 500 g

large eggs (½ cup)

caster (super fine)

vanilla extract (1 cup) plain (all-purpose) flour (1¼ cups) large eggs (¼ cup)

whole milk (3-4%) caster (super fine)

plain (all-purpose) flour cornflour (cornstarch) vanilla extract

(5 oz) raspberries (2 cups) double (heavy) cream

icing sugar (confectioner’s

vanilla extract (1 lb) mar zipan green food colouring

TIPS TIPS! you want want an an evenly evenly rolled rolled out ifif you out anything by hand; tr y using to anything by hand; tr y using to pieces pieces of square sided dowel that are of square sided dowel that are as tall asas tall youyour wantproduct your product to be place thick.the you as want to be thick. place the dowels on ether side of what dowels on ether side of what you are you rolling are rolling andI’ve roll used away.this trick with out and roll out away. ever ything from clay to biscuits and fondant, works like a charm ever y time.

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S

amanta Sik, a nineteen-yearold young girls who owns a caffe in Tyble, Ă–rebro, shares the techniques of making traditional cinnamon buns

Cinnamon Buns I ’ve got a bit of a soft spot

buttery within (more butter mom seeds whole, rather than is added at the filling stage), ground. Ground cardamom is for the sticky bun, a treat they’re almost impossible to far less widely available here with a whiff of the Billy Bunt- keep away from. But they are than in Scandinavia, but it’s er about it. These aren’t the not the cinnamon buns I’m easy to do yourself, and I think cream buns of the Greyfriars after, to my relief, which means gives a more mellow flavour. tuck shop, however, or the no more rolling. luridly iced confections of my rose-tinted childhood memories. Being Scandinavian, the cinnamon bun is ice cool – though, truth be told, they’re Signe Johansen’s cinnamon actually pretty similar to our Gail’s cinnamon buns buns. own chelsea variety. Described Gail’s cinnamon buns. Felicity as a Scandinavian obsession, Cloake/Guardian the cinnamon bun is made Milk, butter and egg are used slightly differently throughout to make the enriched dough the Nordic region – but what for the rolls. Lepard uses a all the recipes have in common lot more liquid than the othis a fluffy richness and a gen- ers for a very soft dough – his erous helping of sweet spice. rolls are wonderfully fluffy (The American cinnamon roll, and handsomely risen, but too as far as I can tell, is similar, light inside, despite the chewy but generally iced and studded crust; they almost melt in my with fruit or nuts.) Sweet buns mouth. They could be more to are best eaten warm from the the American taste, however: oven, which means that, unless my New York-raised tester fayou’re lucky enough to live voured “the white fluffier ones near a Nordic bakery, they’re that seemed to be baked all Signe Johansen’s cinnamon definitely worth a go at home. together in a really luscious, buns. Felicity Cloake/Guardian The Gail’s Artisan Bakery buttery, cinnamon swirl”. (She This is where the recipes reCookbook uses croissant may be angling for my job.) ally diverge. The classics, such dough, an innovation they Lepard also infuses his milk as Johansen and Danish chef credit to the great state of with spice, rather than adding Trina Hahneman, author of The California: “and it’s no exag- them to the dry ingredients. Scandinavian Cookbook, use a geration to say that our lives mixture of butter, sugar and haven’t been the same since”. cinnamon, as does Gail’s BakFor me, croissants fall into ery. Gail’s choose light muscothe same category as wine or vado sugar and Lepard dark, chocolate – delicious things both of which give a richer flabest left to the experts. How- Rose Prince’s cinnamon buns vour than the standard caster. ever, I bite the bullet and get Rose Prince’s cinnamon buns.

Felicity Cloake/Guardian on with it (a process which The bun itself, surprisingly, takes most of the morning, and involves rolling out some does not contain cinnamon recalcitrantly springy dough (that is found in the filluntil it’s a metre long, doing ing). Instead, it is flavoured with cardamom. Only Prince some fancy folding, pressing and Lepard add anything else an enormous slab of butter into it, then repeating sever- – vanilla and lemon zest respectively – but I don’t want al times until my arms ache with the effort). But, by God, anything to distract from that gorgeous aromatic flathe results are pretty stunning – crisp on top, indecently vour. Lepard uses the carda-

Fat

Spices

The filling

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Plain flour is used in most Scandinavian recipes to give the

P

buns a soft lain flour is used in most Scandinavian recipes to give the buns a softer crumb, though Dan Lepard and Rose Prince, in her Pocket Bakery, both go for strong bread flour instead.

This does make the buns lighter, but also slightly chewier, so I’m going to stick with the plain stuff.

Half-Norwegian and all-round Scandinavian food expert Signe Johansen uses spelt flour in the recipe in her Scandilicious Baking book, explaining elsewhere that she finds this ancient grain “more digestible” than wheat. Using half plain spelt and half wholemeal spelt gives her buns a lovely nutty flavour, but my testers find them “much too heavy”. If fluffiness is what we’re after, plain white flour seems to have the edge.

licious things best left to the ex perts. However, I bite the bul let and get on with it (a process which takes most of the morning, and involves rolling out some recalcitrantly springy dough until it’s a metre long, doing some fancy folding, pressing an enormous slab of butter into it, then repeating several times until my arms ache with the effort). But, by God, the results are pretty stunning – crisp on top, indecently buttery within (more butter is added at the filling stage), they’re almost impossible to keep away from. But they are not the cinnamon buns I’m after, to my relief, which means no more rolling.

The Gail’s Artisan Bakery Cook book uses croissant dough, an innovation they credit to the state of California: “and it’s no exaggeration to say that our lives haven’t been the same since”. For me, croissants fall into the same category as wine or chocolate – de

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Fika is a Family Time...

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