The first time I took a ferry across the Norwegian fjords, I bought a steaming cup of coffee and a ‘svele’ at the cozy little cafeteria. For a moment I thought I’d ended up in heaven when I took the very first bite of my svele with smørkrem. BEST. THING. EVER!!! So it’s no coincidence that a big part of our vacation photos is a love triangle between me, coffee and svele..
Svele, the taste of fjord Norway
But.. What is it?! Svele is a fluffy, cake-like Norwegian pancake that’s actually only served on ferries. Apparently the svele was invented right on board a little ferry in 1971. They’re traditionally served with coffee, spread with brunost (brown, caramelized goat cheese) or smørkrem (sugar butter). A real Norwegian delicacy!
So how do you make sure you can get your fix at home, too? I searched for the perfect recipe for quite a while, but I finally pulled it off. Now I can bake the perfect svele at home, without any weird ingredients. And soon, so can you!
This is what you need to bake your own sveler at home:
– 3 eggs
– 1 liter buttermilk
– 260 grams sugar
– 500 grams flour
– 75 grams melted butter
– 1.5 tablespoons baking soda
This recipe makes about 15 generous sveler.
Mix the sugar into the eggs until you have a fluffy mixture. Melt the butter and add it to the mixture, together with the baking soda and 250 grams of flour. Stir well. Then pour in half a liter of buttermilk, stir well, add the other half of the flour, stir, and finally add the rest of the buttermilk and stir again. (I don’t have a mixer, so I left the stirring to Bart-Jan. That worked out just fine!)
Melt a small knob of butter in a frying pan and use a ladle to scoop some of the batter into the pan. Bake the sveler as if you were making pancakes! Preferably a little longer on lower heat, because they’re a bit thicker than a regular pancake.
You can eat sveler warm or cold, folded in half with a topping of your choice. Jam, cream, brunost or smørkrem, for example! If you ask your cheese shop nicely about brunost, they can order it especially for you. Smørkrem is super easy to make yourself: just stir a knob of butter (at room temperature) with some sugar and a pinch of cinnamon.
They’re even tastier the day after baking. My secret tip is to put your spread on, fold the svele in half and then keep it in the fridge for a day. Yum!
