Mjuk pepparkaka with lingonberries (Swedish soft gingerbread cake)
60 min · 8 g protein · 135 cals / serving
The dark, spiced ring cake that fills Swedish kitchens with the smell of Christmas: cinnamon, ginger, cloves and cardamom, a good spoonful of mörk sirap for its colour, and tart lingonberries baked through it. Quark stands in for the soured cream and much of the butter, and a scoop of whey for some of the flour, so the crumb is moist, tender and a little denser and tangier than the classic. Like any pepparkaka, it tastes even better the next day.
Ingredients
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/3 tsp stevia, pure stevia powder, or sweetener equal to 1/3 cup sugar
- 2 tbsp dark syrup (mörk sirap), or molasses
- 1 3/4 cups quark, plain
- 2 tbsp butter, melted, plus a little for the tin
- 1 1/3 scoops (40 g) whey protein, unflavoured or vanilla
- 3/4 tsp baking soda, bicarbonate of soda
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp cloves, ground
- 1 tsp cardamom, ground
- a pinch salt
- 1 1/4 cups lingonberries, fresh or frozen (no need to thaw)
Steps
- Heat the oven to 350°F. Butter a 1.5-litre (6-cup) ring tin or loaf tin well and dust it with a spoonful of flour or fine breadcrumbs, tapping out the excess.
- Whisk the eggs, sugar, stevia and syrup until pale and frothy, about 2 minutes. Whisk in the quark and the melted butter until smooth.
- Mix the flour, whey, bicarbonate, spices and salt, sift them over the bowl and fold in with a spatula only until no dry flour remains, then fold in the lingonberries. The batter is thick.
- Scrape it into the tin, smooth the top and bake in the lower half of the oven for 40–45 minutes, until risen, dark and springy, and a skewer in the thickest part comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in the tin, then turn out onto a rack.
Good to know
Can I leave out the lingonberries?
Yes, for the plain classic. The lingonberries bake into sharp little pockets against the spice and keep the crumb moist; without them the cake is a little drier and tastes sweeter, at about 27 instead of 30.
Can I skip the sweetener?
Use 130 g (about 1 1/2 dl) sugar in all instead. The cake is a touch more tender and caramel-sweet, at about 26 instead of 30.
How long does it keep?
Wrapped, 4–5 days at room temperature, and it is moister on day two. It freezes well in slices.
Per
- Calories
- 194
- Protein
- (24%)
- 11 g
- Fat
- (22%)
- 5 g
- Carbohydrates
- (54%)
- 27 g
- of which sugar
- 13 g
- Fiber
- 2 g
- Sodium
- 251 mg
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Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. How
As written, 1615 kcal goes into the pot and 948 g of ingredients comes out as about 834 g of food: 194 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.