From mid January until early February you will find these tartlets everywhere in Finland. They are baked in honour of the Finnish poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg (1804 – 1877) who wrote the lyrics of the Finnish national anthem “Maamme” – Our Land. For his birthdays , the 5th February, his wife made these tartlets from left over Christmas cookies and old breadcrumbs. Even nowadays these tartlets are made with leftover Christmas baking giving the tartlets a different taste every year – how awesome is this?! Some also use ground Finn Crisps or Piparkakut (ginger biscuit) for a very unique taste. Unfortunately, I had no more Piparkakut left, so I used some oat biscuits.
If you have some Christmas cookies left, this is the perfect recipe to make something delicious while getting rid of them.
And now you are ready to celebrate Runeberg Day – Hyvää Runebergin päivää!
Runebergintortut
yields 6 pieces
For the dough
100g butter, soft
75g sugar
1 egg
60g flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
50g ground ginger biscuits, oat biscuits, Finn Crisp, and/or breadcrumbs
40g ground almonds
35ml cream
for the rum punch
100ml water
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp rum
to decorate
32g confectioner’s sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
raspberry jam
Dough
Ground the biscuits, breadcrumbs or Finn Crisps until you have small crumbs. Mix with the ground almonds.
Cream the butter and the sugar, then add the egg and mix the mixture well.
Mix the flour and baking powder and add to the butter-sugar mixture.
Add cardamom, the crumbs-almonds.
Lastly, add the cream and carefully mix the dough.
Pour the dough into little greased muffin forms – don’t fill them up until the brim but leave some room in case they rise a bit. (In Finland there are even special forms for these tarts but you can use normal muffins forms, the more cylindrical the better.)
Rum Punch
Boil the water and sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Add the rum. Set aside to cool down.
Baking
Preheat the oven to 200°C and then bake the tartlets on the middle rack for 15 minutes.
Then dip the finished, slightly warm tartlets in the Rum Punch bath and let them cool down.
Decorating
Mix the confectioner’s sugar with the lemon juice until you have a think icing.
Trimm the tartlets so that you have an even surface to decorate.
Create a circle with the icing and fill the middle with the raspberry jam.
