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SWEDISH FOOD

How to make Swedish blackberry muffins

Swedes love picking their own blackberries in the forest. Food writer John Duxbury shares his recipe for these American muffins with a Scandinavian twist with The Local.

Published: 18 September 2015 07:30 CEST
Updated: 18 September 2015 09:18 CEST

How to make Swedish blackberry muffins

Blackberry Muffin Photo: John Duxbury

Summary

Serves: 12

Preparation: 15 minutes

Cooking: 25 minutes

Total: 40 minutes

Ingredients

50g almond flakes

250g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

pinch of salt

100g caster sugar

1 lemon, zest only

1 egg, lightly beaten

200ml buttermilk

50g unsalted sweet butter, melted

225g blackberries

1½ demerara sugar

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200C (400F, gas 6, fan 170C).

2. Line a 12-hole muffin tray with muffin cases.

3. Heat a dry frying pan for 5 minutes over medium heat. Add the almond flakes and toast for a couple of minutes until golden brown. Shake the pan every now and again to ensure that they are evenly toasted. Tip on to a plate and leave to cool.

4. Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and a pinch of salt into a bowl. Add the caster sugar and lemon zest and stir everything until evenly mixed.

5. Stir the egg, buttermilk and butter together thoroughly. Tip into the dry ingredients and mix lightly, then fold in the blackberries.

6. Divide the mixture between the muffin cases. Scatter the toasted almonds over the top and add a good pinch of demerara sugar to each.

7. Bake for 25 minutes until well risen and golden. Cool on a wire rack.

8. Enjoy and resolve to go foraging again.

Tips

– Use cultivated blackberries if you can’t find any blackberries growing near you.

– The muffins are nicest when freshly baked and still warm. You can warm them again in a microwave. Choose a medium power (about 600 W) for about 30 seconds.

– The muffins freeze well, so if you have any left over put them in the freezer.

This recipe was orginally published on food writer John Duxbury's website Swedish Food.

OPINION: Are tips in Sweden becoming the norm?

The Local’s guide to tipping in Sweden is clear: tip for good service if you want to, but don’t feel the pressure: where servers in the US, for instance, rely on tips to live, waiters in Sweden have collectively bargained salaries with long vacations and generous benefits.

SEE ALSO: What’s the tipping etiquette in Sweden?

But there are signs that this is changing, and the change is being accelerated by card machines. Now, many machines offer three preset gratuity percentages, usually starting with five percent and going up to fifteen or twenty. Previously they just asked the customer to fill in the total amount they wanted to pay.

This subtle change to a user interface sends a not-so-subtle message to customers: that tipping is expected and that most people are probably doing it. The button for not tipping is either a large-lettered ‘No Tip’ or a more subtle ‘Fortsätt’ or ‘Continue’ (it turns out you can continue without selecting a tip amount, but it’s not immediately clear to the user).

I’ll confess, when I was first presented with this I was mildly irked: I usually tip if I’ve had table service, but waiting staff are treated as professionals and paid properly, guaranteed by deals with unions; menu prices are correspondingly high. The tip was a genuine token of appreciation.

But when I tweeted something to this effect (a tweet that went strangely viral), the responses I got made me think. Many people pointed out that the restaurant trade in Sweden is under enormous pressure, with rising costs, the after-effects of Covid and difficulties recruiting. And as Sweden has become more cosmopolitain, adding ten percent to the bill comes naturally to many.

Boulebar, a restaurant and bar chain with branches around Sweden and Denmark, had a longstanding policy of not accepting tips at all, reasoning that they were outdated and put diners in an uncomfortable position. But in 2021 CEO Henrik Kruse decided to change tack:

“It was a purely financial decision. We were under pressure due to Covid, and we had to keep wages down, so bringing back tips was the solution,” he said, adding that he has a collective agreement and staff also get a union bargained salary, before tips.

Yet for Kruse the new machines, with their pre-set tipping percentages, take things too far:

“We don’t use it, because it makes it even clearer that you’re asking for money. The guest should feel free not to tip. It’s more important for us that the guest feels free to tell people they’re satisfied.”

But for those restaurants that have adopted the new interfaces, the effect has been dramatic. Card processing company Kassacentralen, which was one of the first to launch this feature in Sweden, told Svenska Dagbladet this week that the feature had led to tips for the average establishment doubling, with some places seeing them rise six-fold.

Even unions are relaxed about tipping these days, perhaps understanding that they’re a significant extra income for their members. Union representatives have often in the past spoken out against tipping, arguing that the practice is demeaning to staff and that tips were spread unevenly, with staff in cafés or fast food joints getting nothing at all. But when I called the Swedish Hotel and Restaurant Union (HRF), a spokesman said that the union had no view on the practice, and it was a matter for staff, business owners and customers to decide.

So is tipping now expected in Sweden? The old advice probably still stands; waiters are still not as reliant on tips as staff in many other countries, so a lavish tip is not necessary. But as Swedes start to tip more generously, you might stick out if you leave nothing at all.

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