J.L. Runeberg's Day

Today the whole nation has celebrated J.L. Runeberg’s birthday by eating the quintessential Runeberg cakes (runebergintorttu in Finnish), you might be forgiven for assuming that Runeberg was a pastry chef, and a very good one at that. In fact, the raspberry jam-topped muffin is connected with a poet who stoked the self-esteem and patriotism of the Finnish people in the days before the nation achieved independence. The baker was his wife, Fredrika Runeberg.

Despite its celebratory context, the Runeberg cake was in fact born as an exercise in frugality. Money was often tight in the Runeberg household, and faced with the added challenge of J.L.’s picky eating habits, his wife Fredrika (1807–1879) took creative license with her recipes. As the poet demanded, she flavoured his daily breakfast cakes with punch and topped them with homegrown fruit, but incorporated crumbs from leftover bread and cakes into the dough itself.

We did not read Runeberg's poems today, but we did have our traditional Runeberg cake tasting.

This year's results (name of bakeries):

1. Jussinhanna   14 points
2. Aalto   12,5 points
3. Pyymäen Oma   8 points
4. Rosten   7,5 points


-13°C, sunny