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THE LOCAL RECIPES

SWEDISH FOOD

How to make this scrumptious Swedish bilberry ice cream

Since 17 percent of Sweden is said to be covered in bilberries, food writer John Duxbury shares an ice cream recipe to help us eat them all.

Published: 19 August 2016 06:59 CEST
How to make this scrumptious Swedish bilberry ice cream
Yes, please. Photo: John Duxbury/Swedish Food

If you ask most Swedes what blåbär means in English they will normally tell you it means blueberries. Which it does, literally, but the Swedish word actually refers to bilberries, a smaller and juicier version which grows wild across Sweden.

Summary

Makes: 8 portions

Level: very easy

Preparation: 30 minutes (plus freezing time)

Ingredients

200g (1 cup) fresh or frozen bilberries

60g (1/4 cup) caster (superfine) sugar

1 tbsp lemon juice

Ice cream base

1 large egg

90g (8/8 cup) sugar, preferably raw cane sugar

1 tsp vanilla sugar, optional

240ml (1 cup) whipping cream (35 to 40% fat)

120ml (1/2 cup) milk

Method

1. Mix the bilberries, caster sugar and lemon juice together in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate for two hours, stirring every 30 minutes.

2. After two hours, prepare the ice cream base by whisking the egg in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, about two minutes.

3. Whisk in the sugars, a little at a time, then continue whisking for another minute until well blended.

4. Pour in the cream and milk and whisk to blend.

5. Drain the juice from the bilberries, add to the ice cream base and stir until thoroughly mixed.

6. Mash the bilberries until puréed and stir into the ice cream base.

7. Pour into an ice cream maker with the paddle running and freeze following the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to a tub and keep until required.

Without an ice cream maker

If you don't have an ice cream maker, continue whipping after stage five for another three minutes, then mix the puréed bilberries and transfer to an ice cream container. Cover the surface of the ice cream with cling film (food wrap) and freeze. Remove the mixture from the freezer every half hour. Fork over the mixture thoroughly and return to the freezer. Repeat this step until the mixture is thoroughly frozen, which will normally take about three hours.

Tips

– Don’t use cultivated blueberries for this recipe as they don’t have enough flavour and the colour will not be as good.

– If you are using frozen bilberries, defrost them for a couple of hours in the fridge first, but don’t defrost them completely.

– This ice cream is soft enough to serve straight from the freezer, but for best results move the tub to a fridge about 15 minutes before required.

– Bilberry ice cream goes really well with mandelflarn (almond tuiles), which are easy to make.

This recipe is published 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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