(Runebergin torttu resepti)

For me, the favourite day of the year is, of course, 6th February, the day I was born. Second favourite? 5th of February because it was the birthday of another great Finn, Johan Ludvig Runeberg. I’ve got a bit of a sweet tooth and on Runebergs day, we have this seasonal delicacy called, to everybody’s surprise, Runeberg’s Cake. If I was to name my favourite cake, this would be it. Looking at it, it doesn’t look or soundlike anything special but the secret is that it’s made with rum. In my case, lot’s of it.

Ingredients:

200 g butter (soft but not melted)
2 dl sugar
2 eggs
2 dl plain flour (I actually use whole meal)
2 dl bread crumbs
1 dl ground or crushed almonds
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cardamom
1.5 dl rum

Topping:

Raspberry jam
icing sugar
lemon juice

Method:

Whisk butter and suger into a foamy mixture. Add eggs while continuing to whisk.

Mix dry ingredients together and add to rest of the dough. Mix well. I add a dash of rum at this point if the dough feels dry.

Normally you’d use a specific cylinder shaped cup-cake tin to bake these but I normally just bake them a loose base 22 cm round cake tin. Easier to share.

Bake for 15-20 minutes at 200°C.

Once out and cooled down, moisten the cake with plenty of rum. You should probably water-down the rum just a little bit. Do this either with water or apple juice.

Decorate with raspberry jam and icing.

By the way, this was the cake I made last summer for the Big Lunch cake competition so it’s award winning. You should try it!