Finnish Pasties

Yet another recipe from Beatrice Ojakangas' The Great Scandinavian Baking Book, though this time it's savory. I was intrigued by the descriptions of these meat and vegetable-filled pasties found in this cookbook and on the internet, which explain that they were popular among mining communities (a complete meal conveniently "packaged" that miners took with them to eat for lunch). These freeze well and are great for those nights when you are short on time or simply don't know what to prepare for dinner. Make a salad while heating them up and, 20 minutes later, voila! dinner is served.

Swedish Sokerkaka (Sugar Cake)

This dense, spiced cake has become a staple in our home. It's so simple to make and uses ingredients you probably already have in your pantry:  flour, sugar, baking powder, dried spices, salt, eggs & cream. There's no butter to soften and no special order in which to combine ingredients -- you simply measure them, put them all in the same bowl and mix them together. I use a stand mixer, so from start to finish it takes me no more than 5 minutes to make the batter, pour it into a bund form pan and pop it in the oven.

The spice that the recipe calls for is one found in a lot of Swedish baked treats: cardamon. While I like cardamon, I tend to associate it more with savory foods -- our favorite Indian restaurant puts whole pods in its sauces, which I occasionally bite into by accident, and when I first tasted this cake I immediately thought of them. The second time I made it, I substitued cinnamon for the cardamon, which made for a delicious, lightly-spiced cake. The third time around, I used pumpkin pie spice (my husband's favorite).

Recipes for this cake abound on the internet. I used one from Beatrice Ojakangas' The Great Scandinavian Baking Book.