Runeberg´s torte - Runebergintorttu

Travelling on regular basis in Finland in the cold Winter months of January and February I have noticing as well as tasting a very Finnish cake called Runeberg's torte described on Wikipedia. It is a cake in sort of a muffin shape decorated with raspberry jam and white icing sugar on the top. The flavour inside the cake is dominated by cardamon and some sort of alcohol, very tasteful combination. This cake is named after Johan Ludvig Runeberg, which was eating this cake for breakfast !!!

Commercial Finnish Runebergintorttu

Today (5 February) it is the birthday of Runeberg, so I have decided I should try to bake my version of this cake, which I have been enjoying for more than 10 years travelling in Finland. So I have spend some time locating a recipe on this Runeberg´s torte on Goggle, using Goggle Translate for the translation part from Finnish into Danish. I decided to try out this recipe on Runebergin tortut by Kinuskikissa.

In order to have less top on the muffin I reduced the amount of baking powder to 50% as well as place the muffins in the lower part of the oven during baking. The muffin top was reduced, nut I still had to cut off the top of the muffin, so the upside of the muffin became the downside of the Runeberg´s torte.

It is quiet a messy cake to make due to the high fat content and the dipping process of cake in a sugar-alcohol syrup after the baking process.

So I have already decided to make my own Danish version in 2015 !!! Hopefully being respectful enough of the Finns and their cake.

Runeberg´s Torte a la Kinuskikissa: - 14 cakes

• 100 g honey cakes - blended together
• 150 g almonds - grounded into flour
• 180 g (cake) flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon cardamon
• 1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
• 250 g butter - room temperature
• 4 eggs - room temperature
• 310 g sugar
• 200 g dairy whipping cream, 35-40% fat
• 200 g water
• 4 tablespoon sugar
• 4 tablespoon cardamon liqueur
• raspberry jam
• icing sugar

1. Heat up the oven to 200'C.
2. Mix blended honey cake together with flour, almond flour, baking powder, cardamon and vanilla sugar.
3. Whip the butter and sugar together in a fluffy white mass using an electrical mixer. I normally whip for 5 minutes.
4. Whip in the egg, one by one, without whipping to much.
5. Shift from electrical mixer to mixing gentle by hand in order not to over whip the cake mix. 
6. Alternating stir in whipping cream and flour mix into the cake mix.
7. Fill the cake mix into muffin forms.
8. Bake the muffins in the middle/lower part of the oven at 200'C for 30-35 minutes.
9. Before removing the muffin check, that the muffin is baked using a cake tester.
10. Cool down the muffins.
11. Cut off the muffin top using a knife, the upside of the muffin is now the downside of the Runeberg´s torte.
12. Heat up the water and sugar in a small cooking pot, until the sugar is dissolved.
13. Cool down this sugar syrup and add the cardamon liqueur in.
14. Dip the muffin into this sugar-alcohol syrup, so all of the muffin is soaked.
15. Remove the muffin from the sugar-alcohol syrup.
16. Decorate the Runeberg´s torte with raspberry jam with a ring of icing sugar around the jam.