Food & Drink

Everything you need to throw a fika gathering

Break out the sifter, roll out the rolling pin and push your sleeves up – because we’ve got everything you need to throw a fika-themed gathering for your friends. Go ahead and make sure you have a bag of flour, a half-pound of butter and all your favorite traditional Swedish spices like cardamom and cinnamon, and leave the rest to us.

Recipes

• Kanelbullar, Swedish cinnamon rolls spiced with cardamon
• Vaniljhjärtan, heart-shaped cookies filled with vanilla cream
• Dammsugare, green marzipan rolls made with leftover cake
• Drömmar, an almond-coconut biscuit cookie

All of these recipes involve resting or chilling the dough at various stages, so depending on your schedule, read through the recipes, and plan your baking – while one item is rising, start prepping the next one.

When the time comes, serve your pastries with a piping hot cup of coffee. According to The Cookful, Swedes like Arabica beans, and they use one rounded tablespoon to every eight ounces of water. Swedish export Gevalia is a good place to start for beans.

Décor + Activities

• Design your own coffee mug
• Put “Fika” on display
• Swedish flags

You can’t have a fika without coffee, right? While you and your guests sip on your Gevalia, pass around blank white mugs (check out Dollar Tree) and have a handful of Sharpies ready. This DIY from Popsugar gives you instructions for creating a personalized mug – an awesome party favor.

And we know your pastries are going to be awesome and photo-worthy in themselves, but add some extra décor to really make your table pop. If you’re a fika lover, you already may have a copy of “Fika: The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break,” and if you do, you can use it as your centerpiece with your pastries and coffee worked around it.

For the final touch, we found these awesome Sweden flag toothpicks that are perfect to lay out for people to pick up pastries. Put up a Swedish flag banner, and you’ve got the makings of a delightfully Swedish fika.