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SWEDIS

Recipe: How to make Swedish cloudberry soufflé

Food writer John Duxbury shares his recipe for a very impressive dessert with Swedish delicacy cloudberries.

Published: 28 April 2017 06:59 CEST
Recipe: How to make Swedish cloudberry soufflé
Cloudberry soufflé. Photo: John Duxbury/Swedish Food

Soufflés are such wonderfully theatrical desserts that they are a splendid way of finishing any meal. Using cloudberries makes it feel so Swedish and gives the soufflés an exquisite taste.

Cloudberries (hjortron) only grow in the wild in northern Scandinavia and are a much sought-after delicacy. It is possible to buy cloudberry jam (usually sold as hjortronsylt), which is used in this recipe, outside of Sweden in specialist shops or online.

Summary

Makes: 6 soufflés

Preparation: 15 minutes

Cooking: 15 minutes

Ingredients

25g (1oz) unsalted (sweet) butter, plus extra for greasing

2 tbsp caster (superfine) sugar

2 tbsp plain (all-purpose) flour

240ml (1 cup) milk

2 egg yolks

3 egg whites

140g (1 cup) cloudberry jam (hjortronsylt)

1 tbsp Lakka (Finnish cloudberry liqueur), optional

Icing (confectioner's) sugar, for dusting

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 250C (475F, gas 9, fan 200C).

2. Generously grease the insides of six individual ramekins. Coat the insides with half the sugar. This helps the soufflés rise because it gives the mixture a textured surface to climb.

3. Place a teaspoon of cloudberry jam in the bottom of each ramekin.

4. Melt the butter in a pan, add the flour and cook over a low heat for 30 seconds, stirring to make a roux. Slowly add the milk and stir continuously to form a smooth sauce. Cook until the sauce boils and thickens.

5. Remove the sauce from the heat, leave to cool slightly, then stir in the egg yolks. Add the remaining cloudberry jam and cloudberry liqueur and set aside.

6. Whisk the egg whites to form firm peaks. Fold in the remaining sugar, then the cloudberry mixture.

7. Spoon the mixture into the ramekins, smoothing the tops if you like the soufflés to rise straight, but leaving it if you like a more rustic looking top.

8. Cook for 10-12 minutes, until well risen and golden on top, but still with a slight wobble. Dust lightly with icing (confectioner's) sugar and run with them to the table before they start to sink!

Note

Whilst cold soufflés look pretty ugly they really taste every bit as good as their hot cousins, possibly even better, so if you have any soufflés left over don't throw them away.

Tips

– You can prepare the soufflé mixture up to three hours ahead, up to stage five. Store the sauce and unwhisked egg whites in sealed containers in the fridge, but for best results bring back to room temperature before continuing.

– Make sure the oven is really hot before you put the soufflés in, as they need an instant blast of heat to push up the egg whites, before they have the chance to set.

Recipe courtesy of John Duxbury, founder and editor 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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