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THE LOCAL RECIPES

CHOCOLATE

Recipe: How to make ‘kladdkaka’ – Swedish chocolate cake

A nation obsessed with cakes in all its forms, Sweden is particularly fond of 'kladdkaka' – a type of gooey chocolate mud cake which literally means 'sticky cake'

Published: 22 January 2016 05:00 CET
Updated: 16 April 2020 10:23 CEST
Recipe: How to make 'kladdkaka' – Swedish chocolate cake
Chocolate 'kladdkaka', here served with chili and whipped cream. Photo: Leif R Jansson/TT

Summary

Makes: 8 portions

Time needed: 70 minutes (+ 40 minutes cooling time)

Ingredients

60 g (1/2 cup) plain (all-purpose) flour

25 g (1/4 cup) good quality unsweetened cocoa powder

pinch of salt

2 eggs

265 g (1 1/3 cups) caster (superfine) sugar

1 tbsp vanilla extract

115 g (1/2 cup) melted butter

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 175C.

2. Lightly grease a loose-bottomed 21cm (8”) round cake tin (pie plate).

3. Sift together the dry ingredients: the flour, cocoa powder, and salt and mix thoroughly. Set aside.

4. Whisk together the eggs and sugar until smooth.

5. Carefully fold the flour mixture into the eggs and stir until just combined.

6. Pour in the vanilla extract and melted butter. Stir until well combined and then pour into the tin.

7. Bake on the lower rack of the oven for about 25 minutes until the centre is lightly set.

8. Cool in its tin. Once cooled, it can be stored in an airtight container for up to four days.

Serving suggestions

1. Serve with lightly whipped cream and berries 

2. Dust with icing sugar (confectioner's sugar) and serve with lightly whipped cream spiked with some vanilla essence.

3. For a double dose of chocolate, drizzle some warm chocolate sauce over the top and serve with lightly whipped cream spiked with a splash of Grand Marnier and a glass of blood orange liqueur.

For the sauce: Put 25 g (1 oz) of dark chocolate, 2 teaspoons of double (heavy) cream, 2 teaspoons of caster (super fine) sugar and 1/2 a tablespoon of hot water in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir until the chocolate has melted and everything is thoroughly mixed and then drizzle or pour over the kladdkaka.

Tips

– If you're gluten intolerant – fear not! Substitute the flour for ground almonds.

– Swedish kladdkaka is best enjoyed when still warm out the oven, commonly with a cool glass of milk. It stays perfectly delicious if you opt to reheat it lightly in a microwave before serving. 

Recipe courtesy of John Duxbury, Editor and Founder of 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.

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