Swedish soft pepparkaka (or ginger cake) is traditionally served around Christmas time in Sweden.
I spotted this recipe in City Gross, one of our local supermarket’s adverts and thought it looked gorgeous and very festive (edited to say that the original recipe no longer exists on City Gross’ website but this recipe is fairly similar).
I particularly wanted to make this cake because it has gräddfil (vey similar to sour cream) and lingonsylt (lingonberry jam), both of which are mainstays of Swedish cuisine.
I am pretty sure you can get hold of lingonberry jam in IKEA the world over, but if not, just substitute it with any red jam. Cranberries or redberries would be ideal but raspberry or strawberry would work well, too.
Similarly, just replace the gräddfil with sour cream if you live outside of Scandinavia! The cake has a very mild spicy taste, but if you like cinnamon or ginger, feel free to add a little more.
- 150 g butter
- 250 g sugar
- 3 eggs
- 160 g gräddfil (or sour cream)
- 105 g lingonberry jam or any other red jam
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 tablespoon ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon cardamom
- 260 g plain (all purpose) flour
- 100 ml sour cream
- 3 tablespoons icing sugar
- red berries for decoration (optional)
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Pre-heat the oven to 175°C and grease a medium-sized bundt tin.
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Melt the butter and set to one side. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar until fluffy. Add the cooled butter along with the sour cream and jam and mix together until really well combined.
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Mix the flour together with the baking powder and spices and then add to the wet ingredients, making sure everything is well combined.
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Pour into the tin and bake for around 35-40 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a while before turning out on to wire rack. Leave to cool completely.
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To frost, mix the sour cream and icing sugar together. Drizzle or pour over the top of the cake and sprinkle with a few red berries. Enjoy!
If you’d like to see more Swedish recipes, check these out:
Kladdkaka Cupcakes with a Chocolate Fudge Topping (gluten free)
Swedish Vanilla Snittar Cookies with Homemade Blackberry Jam
Märtas Skurna Chokladkakor (Swedish Sliced Chocolate Cookies)
