Saturday Scenes

On the 5th of February in 1804, Johan Ludvig Runeberg was born in Jakobstad, Kingdom of Sweden. He died in 1877 in Porvoo, Grand Duchy of Finland, Russian Empire. The Republic of Finland declared independence after his death, in 1917.

Runeberg wrote romantic poetry about ordinary people, farmers and soldiers, and in 1860 he wrote the poem upon which the Finnish national anthem is based.

So although Runeberg never lived in Finland as we know it today and didn’t learn to speak Finnish until he was an adult (he wrote in Swedish), he is the national poet of Finland. His birthday is celebrated every year with runebergintorttu (Runeberg’s Tarts), a small almond cake with raspberry jam and sugar.

In Finland, every bakery will have these single-portion cakes available for celebration. But just in case you are not in Finland, I have a recipe for making them at home.

Runeberg’s tarts are made with a special cylindrical mould but I am reliably informed that it is reasonable — if not quite traditional — to make these in a muffin tin and serve them upside down. However, enjoying the cakes with a sip of liqueur or rum is absolutely required. If you click through to Solange’s blog, you’ll find the recipe is accompanied by lovely photographs:

Le Petit Cuisinier: Runeberg’s tarts

Ingredients:
makes about 18
300g butter
4 dl dark muscovado sugar
4 eggs
5 dl wheat flour
1 dl minced almonds
16 crushed digestive cookies
3 tsp baking powder
2 dl cream
2 tsp cardamom
2 drops bitter almond extract

For the decoration:
raspberry jam or marmalade
water
powdered sugar

1. Heat the oven to 200°C.
2. Beat the sugar with melted butter into a foam, add eggs individually.
3. Mix together the dry ingredients, add cream and combine with the sugar-egg-butter mixture. Add bitter almond extract, mix well.
4. Divide into about 18 muffin cups or use silicone moulds like I did. Fill 2/3 of the cups, so the dough doesn’t rise over the edges.
5. Bake in the oven for about 15-18 minutes, try with a stick if the tarts are ready. Remove from the oven.
6. Let the tarts cool down, remove from the mould and turn over, put on a plate. Decorate the tarts with raspberry jam and icing made from powdered sugar and water. ENJOY!

Over two hundred years after Johan Ludvig Runeberg was born, on the 5th of February in 2011, people from all over the world took part in Saturday Scenes!

We have photographs of scenes spread across the globe, including England, the USA, Spain, Israel, Wales, the Philippines, Switzerland and Dubai:

These are the people who deserve extra cake:

• brooks_beauty
• fluttabyz
• RacingHippo
• robdavies
• rOcKeTmAn_76
• carocat
• BucksWriter
• JanetIsserlis
• raumsinn
• Pewari
• icklemouse
• HeideSpruck
• pixelfreund
• oxonspur
• dlewis1701
• UKMelia
• sahfenn
• elibrody
• Denrael
• mousewords
• timewind
• 9to5poet
• jamesnnb
• CliffStanford
• akaSylvia
• pendrift
• tradingnothing
• RAFairman
• akrabat

It’s easy to take part!

1) Take a photo on a Saturday and upload it to a site like Flickr or Twitpic
2) Twitter the url for your photograph to @SatScenes
3) Watch for the next post on Twitter Blog to see a great set of all the photographs together.

I’m looking forward to seeing your scenes!