Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK
THE LOCAL RECIPES

RECIPE

How to make Swedish Love Treat cakes

Kärleksmums (known in English as 'love treats' or 'love yums') are among Sweden's most popular cakes. They resemble brownies but are light and fluffy. Food writer John Duxbury shares his recipe with The Local.

Published: 25 September 2015 08:29 CEST
How to make Swedish Love Treat cakes
Kärleksmums are a popular Nordic treat. Photo: Kent Skibstad/TT
Ingredients
 
For the cake
 
220g (2 sticks) butter
 
150ml (2/3 cup) water
 
3 large eggs
 
150g (2/3 cup) caster sugar
 
175g (1 1/3 cups) plain (all-purpose) flour
 
2 tsp baking powder
 
A pinch of salt
 
3 1/2 tbsp good quality unsweetened cocoa powder
150g (5 1/4 oz) dark chocolate (70 percent cocoa solids), coarsely chopped
 
For the glaze
 
150ml (2/4 cup) whipping cream (heavy whipping cream)
 
2 tbsp strong black coffee, cold
 
150g (5 1/4 oz) dark chocolate (70 percent cocoa solids)
 
50g (2/3 cup) desiccated coconut (unsweetened shredded coconut)
 

Kärleksmums with a coconut glaze. Photo: John Duxbury/Swedish Food
 
Method
 
1. Preheat the oven to 200C (400F, gas mark 6, fan 180C). Grease two 20cm x 20cm (8 inches x 8 inches) baking tins and sprinkle with breadcrumbs or line with baking parchment. (Swedes often use breadcrumbs to help prevent cakes sticking to the tin.)
 
2. Melt the butter and then mix in the water and leave to cool.
 
3. Whisk the eggs and sugar together until light and airy. This should take two or three minutes on maximum speed in an electric mixer.
 
4. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder until thoroughly mixed and then fold into the egg mixture.
 
5. Fold in the butter mixture.
 

The mixture should be smooth once mixed. Photo: John Duxbury/Swedish Food
 
6. Pour the mixture into the two greased tins.
 
7. Sprinkle the chopped chocolate over.
 
8. Bake in the centre of the oven for about 15 minutes – a skewer should come out slightly sticky. Leave to cool in the tin for five minutes. (The top should look very chocolaty and a bit gooey – as shown.)
 
9. Meanwhile, boil the cream, then pour in the coffee and leave to cool slightly.
 
10. Break the chocolate for the glaze into rough pieces and add to the hot cream mixture. Stir until thoroughly mixed.
 
11. Spread over the cake and then sprinkle with the coconut.
 
12. Allow to cool a bit and then cut each tray into nine or 16 squares with a knife or use a heart-shaped cutter as shown. (Kärleksmums are particularly nice when the chocolate is not quite set!)
 
Tips
 
•  Make some chocolate truffles with the leftovers
 
•  Cut large squares and top each square with half a strawberry
 
•  Bake extra for a rainy day – you can freeze these cakes
 
This recipe was orginally published on food writer John Duxbury's website Swedish Food.

FOOD AND DRINK

OPINION: Are tips in Sweden becoming the norm?

Should you tip in Sweden? Habits are changing fast thanks to new technology and a hard-pressed restaurant trade, writes James Savage.

Published: 5 April 2024 13:59 CEST
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. 

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.

SHOW COMMENTS