Bonjour May
Three plates, a picnic basket, and a raspberry bush by the woods.
Welcome to The Bakers’ Cottage, a newsletter about baking, stories, and the rhythm of life in the north. If you’re new here, thank you for joining. If you’re already a subscriber – I’m so glad to have you back.
This post is part of my Seasonal Letters series.
And this month’s letter is about things that take time. A raspberry bush planted last May, now checked every morning. The soft crumble of compost between your fingers. A cake baked slowly in the morning, with bilberries on top of a vanilla crème légère.
It’s about picnic dinners and birthday slices and a savoury loaf still warm from the oven.
There’s no recipe today – that’s coming soon – but I’ve shared a few glimpses of the kitchen, the garden, and what I’m baking this May. I hope you enjoy this small note from the north.
A quiet kind of tending
The strawberry patch hasn’t quite started flowering yet. But three plants have turned into ten, and I know that as soon as the air turns warmer, tiny white blooms will lift just above the soil, like a secret. And just beside them, the tulips Sienna and I planted last autumn are beginning to stretch through the earth. Green and white, waiting to hatch.
Sienna counts them from her bedroom window, morning after morning.
I topped the beds with compost last week. Dark, crumbly, cold in the hands. It doesn’t look like much, but there’s something grounding about it. Still, I know it’s early. The frost can return without warning. Here, they call them järnnätter [iron nights] and say they can linger into early June. So for now, I let most things wait.
I have scattered peas, and carrot and radish seeds, crossing fingers. A garlic I forgot to pull last summer has started to grow again, and the chives have come back.
And by the edge of the woods, the raspberry bush we planted a year ago is beginning to leaf out. Golden Queen. I check on it most mornings.
I know by now that some things won’t take. Some seeds stay in the soil, some stems break before they bloom. And still, I keep planting. Because somewhere underneath it all – past the frost, past the waiting – there’s a stubborn hope.
Eating outdoors
We eat outdoors all year round – under the stars and the snow in winter, when it’s dark almost all day, all night too. In the spring sun, in the height of summer beneath the pines, in the sharp golden air of autumn. Some meals are elaborate, others are eaten from our laps, with hands wrapped around mugs for warmth. But the rhythm is the same: three plates, something good to share, and the joy of being by the forest.
This time of year, though, it gets easier. No gloves, no thermos lids stuck from the cold. Just a sheepskin, a näverkorg [birch bark basket] – and a meal carried out to the fire pit.
Cakes salés, northern spring edition
Lately, I’ve been baking cakes salés (say it like the French do: kek sah-lay). In France, cake doesn’t mean what it does in English – it refers to a loaf-style bake, sweet or savoury.
The latter is an effortless classic. They’re often served in thick slices at apéro – still warm, or at room temperature, with olives or cubes of cheese tucked inside, or prunes, bacon and goat cheese. Easy to make, easy to carry, endlessly adaptable. The kind of thing you eat with your hands, standing up, glass in the other. We bring them on picnics, or offer them with a green salad when dinner needs to be simple.
Here in the north, I’ve been baking a spring version – made with yoghurt in the batter, wild garlic folded through, and white asparagus nestled just so on top.
We serve it at room temperature, with a spoonful of crème fraîche, a twist of black pepper, and a generous spoon of Löjrom [Kalix caviar]. Soft, savoury, golden around the edges – and easy to pack in the basket.
Matjessill, served the way I like it
And then there’s matjessill – softly spiced, gently briny, and something we come back to again and again.
I serve it as a kind of salad: waxy potatoes, sliced while still warm. Matjessill. A generous spoonful of sour cream. Plenty of herbs – dill, chives, and shallots, minced finely. Chopped boiled eggs. And of course, löjrom.
On top, a handful of Icelandic rye bread crumbs, fried in butter and cheese until crisp and chewy at once.
It’s the kind of dish that shows up at Easter, in spring, at Midsummer, even on the Christmas table. Always familiar, always welcome. The textures are everything. Soft, rich, sharp, cool, crisp.
Best eaten outside, with the smell of birch smoke in your jumper, and the light still golden long after you’ve finished.
Almost there
There’s more to come, of course. A bilberry and vanilla meringue cake we made for Svante’s birthday – sponge, drottningsylt, vanilla crème légère, and a swirl of burnt meringue. And a Swedish kringle filled with cherry compote and topped with almonds, the kind I kept seeing in Midwestern cookbooks, never quite knowing why it carried that provenance. I searched through old texts, written in Swedish and Danish, some dating as far back as 1755. For a while, I thought there was nothing to find. Until there was.
Maybe even the first soft rain, the kind that taps against the windows just so, and brings the worms out, so Sienna, K. and I can slip on our boots and go find them. And soon, the lilacs will bloom. We’ll pick the blossoms and make cordial, jam, or fragrant sugar. Just enough to hold onto their scent a little longer.
But for now, I’m letting May be what it is – bright and generous.
Maybe that's all we can ever do: tend what we can, trust what we can't, and let the season be what it is.
Thank you for reading. I’ll be back soon with recipes, but until then, I hope something in this letter stays with you, just a little.
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Enjoyed this! Thanks!
🪻🌱💚