Search
Brazil
Argentina
Bolivia
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Guyana
French Guiana
Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
Paraguay
Peru
Suriname
Uruguay
Venezuela
Germany
Austria
Belgium
Croatia
Denmark
Spain
Finland
France
Greece
the Netherlands
Hungary
Ireland
Iceland
Italy
Luxembourg
Norway
Poland
Portugal
the United Kingdom
the Czech RepublicSweden
Switzerland
Turkey
Canada
the United States
Mexico
the Dominican RepublicTurkey
South Africa
Australia
Fiji
New Zealand
Papua New GuineaFlavors · Kalmar
Large potato dough dumplings filled with bacon or pork and onion, cooked in water and served with melted butter and red bilberry jam. The Öland version, gray and made with raw potato, and the Småland version, lighter and made with cooked potato, are the best known.
Traditional dish from Kalmar
Also known as: Kroppkaka (singular), öländska kroppkakor, småländska kroppkakor
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
Click a photo to enlarge it.
Kroppkakor — Kalmar, Sweden
Kroppkakor are round potato dumplings about the size of a tennis ball, filled and boiled in water. The tradition is strongest on Öland, the island off Kalmar, but kroppkakor are also eaten in eastern Småland, in Blekinge and on Gotland. The name likely refers to the filling, the kropp, the body of the dumpling.
What distinguishes the recipes is the dough. In Öland it is made mainly with grated raw potato and little cooked potato, which gives the dumplings a grayish color. In Småland the dough uses more cooked potato and is paler. In both cases flour and, in some recipes, egg are added, and the filling is usually bacon or chopped pork with onion and allspice.
In the past, kroppkakor were not everyday food but reserved for special occasions, eaten especially in the period before Lent. the modern way of preparing them was established in the early 20th century, and emigrants took the recipe to the United States, where descendants still keep it. In Sweden, the tradition spread into home kitchens and restaurants.
The most common accompaniment is melted butter and red bilberry jam, sometimes with cream. On Gotland they are served with white sauce, and in parts of Småland with mustard. On Öland, stalls and restaurants sell kroppkakor to eat on site or to take away.
Kalmar
The county includes Öland, where the kroppkakor tradition is strongest, and eastern Småland, the two regions of the best-known versions.
Potato (grated raw and cooked, in varying proportions), wheat flour, sometimes egg, salt; filling of bacon or pork, onion and allspice.
Hot, with melted butter and red bilberry jam, sometimes with cream. On Gotland, with white sauce; in parts of Småland, with mustard.
Lunch and dinner; formerly a dish for special occasions, eaten especially before Lent.
Your questions
Those from Öland use mainly grated raw potato and are grayish; those from Småland use more cooked potato and are paler.
Usually bacon or chopped pork with onion and allspice.
With melted butter and red bilberry jam, sometimes with cream.
Flavors of Sweden
Raw salmon fillet cured in a mixture of salt, sugar and dill, sliced very thin and served with hovmästarsås, a sweet mustard-and-dill sauce. The name means “buried salmon” and recalls the old method of preserving the fish under the ground.
Sweet yeast bread flavored with cardamom, rolled with butter, sugar and cinnamon, and topped with pearl sugar. It is the pastry most associated with fika, the coffee break, and even has its own day in the Swedish calendar, Kanelbullens dag, on October 4.
Small meatballs made with ground meat, fried in butter and served with cream sauce, potatoes, lingonberry jam and pickled cucumber. They are Sweden’s best-known home dish, with the first printed recipe appearing in a 1755 cookbook.
Dome-shaped cake with layers of sponge cake, raspberry jam, vanilla cream, and lots of whipped cream, covered by a green marzipan sheet and decorated with a pink marzipan rose. The name recalls the three princess daughters of Prince Carl, pupils of Jenny Åkerström, the recipe’s author.
Wheat bread with cardamom, cut open at the top, filled with almond paste and whipped cream and topped with the cut-off lid dusted with sugar. It’s the sweet eaten on fettisdagen, the Fat Tuesday, and descends from the hetvägg, bread eaten soaked in warm milk.
Tall, hollow, lace-like cake made from eggs, sugar and potato starch, poured little by little onto a rotating spit in front of heat, layer by layer. Decorated with white or pink icing, it is a celebratory sweet from Skåne, and the name Skånsk spettkaka is protected by the European Union.
Cubes of beef tenderloin, potato and onion browned separately and served side by side, with a raw egg yolk in the center and mustard or mustard cream. Named after the Hotel Rydberg, which operated on Gustav Adolfs torg in Stockholm, where the dish is said to have originated.
Baked saffron rice pudding tart with eggs, cream and almonds, yellow in color, served warm or cold with salmbär jam and whipped cream. Despite the name “pancake,” it’s baked in a pan. It is the sweet most associated with the island of Gotland.
A white stick candy with red spiral stripes and peppermint flavor, pulled and twisted by hand. It originated in Gränna, on the shore of Lake Vättern, where the widow Amalia Eriksson obtained a license to make it in 1859, and the town remains the center of its production.
Baked dessert made from curdled milk using rennet, enriched with eggs, cream, sugar and almonds, with a moist, granular texture. Served warm with jam and whipped cream, it is the festival specialty most associated with the Småland region, with Swedish records dating back to the 16th century.
Boiled dumpling made from raw grated potato and wheat or barley flour, filled with pork, served with butter and red bilberry jam. It’s an everyday food in northern Sweden, and the name comes from the town of Piteå, considered the Swedish center of palt.
Baltic herring, lightly salted and fermented, canned in summer; strong-smelling with a salty, acidic taste. It’s eaten on the thin flatbread tunnbröd with potato, red onion and sour cream, in a communal meal at the end of summer. The tradition links the dish to the Norrland coast and the island of Ulvön in the High Coast (Höga Kusten).
