Spettekaka from Skåne

I have a very fond memories of going to my grandparents for family dinners when I was little. They lived in Helsingborg on the north western coast of Skåne (Scania) in a grand old fashioned apartment. My mum would dress me up in my red velvet dress with itchy white stockings and black little patent shoes and off we went. If there had been a particular occasion the dinner and coffee and cakes would then be followed by my grandmother bringing out a huge meringue looking cake decorated with pink and white icing sugar. For my five year old eyes this was the prettiest thing in the world!

The cake was a Spettekaka, a typcially Skåne cake and the crowning glory of any old fashioned birthday party or wedding celebration.

A Spettekaka (sometimes called Spettkaka or Spiddekaga in the local Skåne dialect) is made of eggs, sugar, potato flour and normal flour. It is slowly piped onto a rotating cone, attached to skewers (hence the name, 'spett' means skewer in Swedish) over an open fire and then left to dry before the next layer is added. As you can imagine this is a very time consuming way of baking.

After all the layers have been added and the cake has completely dried (this can take up to a day!) it is decorated with the icing. Usually it has pink and white icing but local varieties in colour exists and different areas will use different colour combinations.

Cutting a Spettekaka is quite tricky and requires a special tool. A knife with a very thin serrated blade is recommended and it takes a lot of practise to get the Spettekaka pieces to come out whole rather than just as a crumbly mess. You normally eat it plain with a cup of coffee but you can add anything, ice cream, clotted cream, berries etc etc.

I looked up the history of the Spettkaka and found that it is originally from Germany but became popular in Swedish court circles as early as in the 17th century. By the early 19th century the cake had become established as a celebration and wedding cake in Skåne. There are many theories of how the Spettekaka came to be so much associated with Skåne. One is that Skåne has always been a rich a fertile farming area, with eggs, sugar beets and potatoes in abundance, the perfect place to find the ingredients for a Spettekaka in other words!

The Spettkaka has been classed by the EU as a regional speciality and therefore a genuine spettkaka can now only be baked in Scania. There are 10 - 15 places in Skåne where Spettekaka is still made and generally these bakeries only use organic ingredients and traditional methods of baking.