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Papua New GuineaFlavors · Gotland
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.
Traditional sweet from Gotland
Also known as: Gotlandspannkaka, saffranspannkaka från Gotland, gotländsk saffranspannkaka
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
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Saffranspannkaka — Gotland, Sweden
Saffranspannkaka, the saffron pancake, is the sweet Gotland offers visitors. The name is misleading: it’s not a skillet pancake but a rice pudding batter enriched with eggs, cream, sugar, almonds and saffron that is baked in a pan until golden on the outside and yellow inside.
Baked pancakes are part of Gotland’s festive traditions, including weddings. It’s unclear whether the saffron version originated on the island or arrived from elsewhere. Rice and saffron were never grown locally and came via Baltic trade, and some link the recipe to Gotland’s history as a trading hub; other sources note that sugar only became widely available in the 19th century. By the 20th century, the saffron pancake had established itself as the island’s specialty and was identified as a typical Gotland dish.
Preparation begins with rice pudding cooked in milk. Once cooled, beaten eggs, cream, sugar, chopped almonds, sometimes a little bitter almond, and saffron—which gives the color and aroma—are added. The batter is baked in a greased pan until set.
The traditional accompaniment is salmbär jam, made from a wild bluish berry common in Gotland, served with whipped cream. Outside the island, where salmbär is hard to find, blackberry or raspberry jam is used. The saffron pancake appears in cafés in Visby and across the island and is served with afternoon coffee.
Gotland
The sweet most associated with the island of Gotland, served with salmbär jam in cafés in Visby and across the island.
Rice for rice pudding, milk, eggs, heavy cream, sugar, almonds, saffron and sometimes a little bitter almond; to serve, salmbär jam (or blackberry jam) and whipped cream.
In slices, warm or cold, with a spoonful of salmbär jam and whipped cream, as a dessert or with coffee.
Dessert and coffee sweet year-round; formerly a festive sweet for occasions like weddings.
Your questions
Not in the usual sense. It’s a rice pudding batter with eggs, cream, almonds and saffron, baked in a pan.
A wild bluish blackberry common in Gotland. Salmbär jam is the traditional accompaniment to the saffron pancake.
Warm or cold, served with salmbär jam and whipped 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.
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.
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.
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).
