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Papua New GuineaFlavors · Jönköping
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.
Traditional sweet from Jönköping
Also known as: Ostkaka, ostkaka från Småland
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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Småländsk ostkaka — Jönköping, Sweden
Ostkaka, literally “cheese cake,” is not related to cream cheese cheesecake. It is a dessert made from milk: milk and flour are treated with rennet, which separates the curd, and that curd mass is mixed with other ingredients and baked in the oven. It is eaten throughout Sweden, but two regions have their own famous versions, Hälsingland and Småland.
The oldest Swedish records date to the 16th century, and the origin is likely older. For centuries, ostkaka was a dish for festivals and special occasions, and recipes varied from region to region and even from family to family. In Småland, regional tourism presents ostkaka as the top dish of the area.
The Småland version is the best known. In addition to milk, flour and rennet, it contains eggs, cream, sugar, almonds and a little bitter almond, and has a moist texture that resembles scrambled eggs. The Hälsingland version, by comparison, contains no almonds and almost never eggs, and is smoother.
Producers from Småland and the association Ostkakans vänner met in Jönköping to define what constitutes an authentic Småländsk ostkaka, aiming to protect the name in the European Union. Ostkaka also gained a calendar day, November 14, Ostkakans dag, and is sold ready-made in stores across the country, as well as served in cafés and open-air museums.
Jönköping
Specialty of Småland; Jönköping County, in the north of the region, was the center of the producers’ movement to protect the name Småländsk ostkaka.
Milk, wheat flour, rennet, eggs, heavy cream, sugar, sweet almonds and a little bitter almond.
Warm or at room temperature, served in portions cut from the baking dish, with jam (strawberry, cherry, raspberry or cloudberry) and whipped cream.
Sweet for festivals and special occasions and also for fika; it has its own day, Ostkakans dag, on November 14.
Your questions
No. It is a dessert made from milk curdled with rennet, mixed with eggs, cream, sugar and almonds, and baked in the oven.
The Småland one contains eggs, cream and almonds and has a moist, granular texture; the Hälsingland one contains no almonds and is smoother.
Warm, with 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.
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.
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).
