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Fikabröd literally translates to "fika bread," but that doesn't mean people in Scandinavia enjoy sipping coffee with... bread! Fikabröd, rather, is a general term referring to all the types of pastries that can be enjoyed in a traditional fika meal in the country.
As elaborate as fikabröd
Unlike how Vietnamese or other Asians enjoy coffee, Westerners typically pair it with a pastry. This could be a cappuccino with a freshly baked croissant for an Italian breakfast, a hot black coffee with a Finnish Runebergintorttu, or a large Starbucks coffee with a colorful American donut. However, to have specific names for the pastries served with a fika, different types of pastries for different occasions, and even more impressively, a national day dedicated to celebrating… a particular type of pastry, only Sweden can do that!
The most common treats at Swedish fikas are cinnamon rolls, sugared sponge cake, marzipan-covered sponge cake (also known as princess sponge cake), "vacuum cleaner" candy (because of its shape resembling the head of a vacuum cleaner), round chocolate candies, and various other sweets. However, fika and fikabröd culture is much more complex, with rules that can be confusing for first-time visitors, such as the order in which each type of cake is eaten during a fika, and which cakes are suitable to accompany each type of cake at different times of the day or season of the year.
Around the 19th century, when street coffee shops weren't as common as they are now, a coffee gathering would typically take place at the host's home, usually reserved for men. Coffee would be enjoyed alongside baked goods made by the hostess herself. Therefore, it was an opportunity for husbands to both socialize and subtly show off their family's wealth.
The reason it's called "showing off" is because all the cups, saucers, and plates used for the fika party that day must be the most beautiful and best in the house. Under no circumstances should everyday cups and saucers be used to entertain distinguished guests, and thick, heavy cups should certainly not be used. The porcelain used for the coffee party must be thin porcelain with handles. The host can use several different sets of cups and saucers, but they must all be beautiful and adhere to the rules mentioned above.
Tablecloths must also be replaced, usually with beautiful ones reserved for special occasions. And even the coffee must be accompanied by a special kind of rich, creamy milk, called kaffegrädde in Swedish, not just regular milk. Everyday milk is… too commonplace. Nowadays, kaffegrädde is often preferred by older generations for its characteristic richness, while younger generations prefer less creamy or skim milk. In a 19th-century-style home fika, everything must reflect the atmosphere of a party—not extravagant, but neat and more special than usual.
7 types of lucky cakes
Given its elaborate nature, enjoying fikabröd naturally requires certain rules. Typically, four different types of pastries are served. First are the common baked goods (bullar), such as cinnamon rolls (kanelbullar) or raisin bread (rosinerbullar). These are served first to ensure they are warm and fluffy right out of the oven. If it's not possible to bake them immediately, the host must at least offer freshly baked pastries. Older pastries, even those from just yesterday, will taste different.
When I first arrived in Sweden, I didn't pay much attention to hot pastries. For me, overly hot pastries were just a waste of time blowing on them, so I figured eating them cold was fine. But it wasn't until I tasted a freshly baked, piping hot cinnamon roll that I realized why bullar (coffee rolls) need to be eaten hot to be truly authentic! The freshly baked roll, left to cool slightly on the tray before being taken out and broken in half, revealed a gentle warmth rising. The pastry was soft and fluffy, the sugar glaze still chewy, blending perfectly with the bitterness of hot coffee – and enjoying it at a fika (coffee party) on a cold, snowy winter day would be absolutely wonderful!
After enjoying the bullar, guests are offered various types of sponge cake. The most popular is the sugar sponge cake, with a simple recipe. Alternatively, there may be spiced sponge cakes, often with added common spices like cinnamon, cloves, star anise, etc., to enhance the flavor. These cakes are usually decorated quite simply with a little whipped cream, a few berries sprinkled on top, or sometimes no decoration at all.
For the third round of cookies, the host will bring out a small tower of seven different types of cookies. Why seven? Because Swedes, Norwegians, and some other European countries consider the number seven to be lucky. For example, God created the earth in six days and used the seventh day to rest. But that's God's business. For ordinary people, the seven types of fika cookies on the tower are simply delicious. And there's nothing more impolite than... refusing to eat more cookies from that delicious tower. Even if you can't eat any more, you should still try to "convince" yourself to have a sip of coffee to eat more cookies, because refusing cookies means you think they're not good, or that the host didn't organize the fika party well.
And even after trying their best to eat more cookies, guests still had to enjoy one last type of cake before the fika party at home ended! It was an extremely elaborately decorated cake, almost a perfect birthday cake or… wedding cake, even though it was just a cake to accompany a normal fika party. And of course, as with any other attempt at showing off, the more extravagant and elaborate the cake, the more it demonstrated the host's wealth. Nowadays, no one organizes a fika party with such a lavish cake, and the most elaborate cake would be the prinsesstårta – the princess cake.
Prinsesstårta is quite time-consuming and requires a lot of effort to prepare, with a sponge cake base, jam spread between the layers, icing, whipped cream for decoration, and a sweet, vibrant green marzipan topping. Of course, if you don't want to spend too much time in the kitchen, you can buy prinsesstårta at any bakery or cafe on the street. It's also a very popular cake for birthdays and Mother's Day in Sweden.
Fikabröd: "Each season has its own type of cake"
Swedes can enjoy fika (a type of Japanese snack) all year round, but they don't eat just a few types of pastries year-round. The most popular is the cinnamon roll. Cinnamon rolls, along with meatballs, are two quintessential Swedish dishes. They're so characteristic that if you go to any IKEA restaurant, you'll almost certainly find cinnamon rolls on display at the coffee and pastry counter, in addition to meatballs. And it's not just popular; Swedes are so devoted to cinnamon rolls that they even dedicate October 4th each year as National "Cinnamon Roll Day." If you happen (or intentionally) visit Gothenburg, Sweden's second-largest city, don't forget to stop by Husaren, which sells the world's largest cinnamon rolls. A cinnamon roll at Husaren is even bigger than an adult's face!
Besides "Waffle Day," in ABBA's homeland, they also celebrate "Våffel Day" on March 25th and "Cheesecake Day" on November 14th. Although våffels in Sweden and Norway have similar names to waffles in English, they are actually quite different from the waffles commonly found in continental Europe. Våffel (or vaffel in Norwegian) originated in the Middle Ages, with simple ingredients like flour and water. It wasn't until the early 19th century that eggs, cream, and butter were added to the recipe.
In the past, våffel was a cake used to signal the arrival of spring. With the arrival of spring, hens began to lay eggs, and cows started to produce milk. These were the ingredients farmers used to make våffel. Nordic-style våffel is usually poured into round iron pans and baked evenly on both sides, resulting in a light and slightly chewy texture, rather than the crispy rectangular Belgian style. Swedes often eat våffel with whipped cream and jam, while Norwegians prefer våffel with brunost brown cheese made from goat's milk and whey.
Besides their signature cakes, Swedes also have two types of cake associated with two major religious holidays: semla for Easter and lussebullar for Saint Lucia's Day – one of the major holidays leading up to Christmas in Sweden.
Quite some time ago, I read an article about a special customer in Stockholm, what business terms call a mystery shopper – a person or group of people from a company posing as customers to observe and evaluate the performance of employees at the company's stores. This customer was special because every year, they would sample all the semla at every single shop throughout Stockholm, then compile a list of the best semla in the capital. This customer was so mysterious that no one knew their gender, age, or any other identifying characteristics. Because of this level of anonymity, the annual list of best semla shops was something almost everyone eagerly awaited.
In Gothenburg, where I lived and studied for my master's degree, the list was compiled by a group of reporters from the local newspaper. Interestingly, the best place to find semla was the pastry shop in the small ICA supermarket, only about a 10-minute walk from my house. Their semla truly lived up to the newspaper's reputation. The cake was soft and fluffy, the fresh cream filling was subtly sweet, and the marsipan filling had just the right amount of sweetness. The top of the cake was a "lid" cut from the base, sprinkled with a fine layer of white powdered sugar. Oh, it's been three Easters since I've had a semla as delicious as that!
The final representative of the "seasonal cake" fika school is the lussebullar, a saffron-filled cake with raisins, usually only available on store shelves during the Feast of Saint Lucia on December 13th. Lussebullar uses similar ingredients and preparation to other sponge cakes, but it also includes saffron, one of the most expensive ingredients in the culinary world. Saffron gives the cakes a vibrant golden color, with a subtle saffron aroma and the scent of cardamom – a common spice in European cuisine. Those without saffron can use turmeric powder as a substitute; the cake will still have a beautiful golden color, but the flavor will not be comparable to that of pure saffron. Lussebullar is often shaped into a curved, S-shape, or a gracefully undulating form, hence its nickname, the "cat's tail cake" (lussekatter).
My husband's uncle told me a funny story about a lusse bulllain cake: He knew a friend who, one day, was asked by his wife to buy a few grams of saffron for a cake. Having never touched anything in the kitchen or baked goods, the husband was convinced his wife was senile; how could she possibly need just a few grams? It should be... several hundred grams of saffron! Excitedly, he drove to the store, only to be shocked by the bill that amounted to almost his entire fortune! Of course, he couldn't afford it all, so he went home and complained to his wife, hinting that she had wasted so much money on the dish. After listening to her husband's explanation and complaints, the wife drove to the store herself to buy the saffron!
That's the funny story, I don't know if my uncle embellished it or not, but it was enough to add some laughter to an impromptu Christmas fika, when my kitchen had just finished baking a batch of hot, crispy gingerbread cookies and a few fragrant lussebullar cakes. To make that batch of 20 cookies, just one gram of saffron was enough.
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