A tiny bakery with serious talent
BY MEGAN HILL
PHOTOS BY JILL LIGHTNER
When Claes and Kristina Bavik began selling their Swedish treats, they approached their recipes like the research scientists they are. “We manipulated our recipes in a scientific manner, changing one ingredient at a time,” Kristina said.
Such precision created splendid results: The pair now they operates Svedala Bakery in Pike Place Market. They’re also selling at the Edmonds Farmer’s Market, baking cakes and tarts for all Puget Sound-area Whole Foods markets, creating sandwiches for the Swedish Cultural Center’s Swedish Kafé, and baking for weddings and other special occasions.
Kristina and Claes met at the Scripps Research Institute in California. They married and moved to Claes’s native >Sweden, where the country’s traditions made a baker out of Kristina. She and Claes kept busy work schedules, preventing them from finding time to buy baked goods from local markSweden’s daily coffee break, fika. So she learned to bake her own.
“It is customary in >Sweden to invite visitors into your home to fika. Fika always includes hot coffee, sweet yeast bread, pastries and/or cookies,” Kristina said. “Someone really following proper etiquette would provide seven different options! The combination of not being able to shop for treats and always needing some on hand made a decent baker out of me.” They recreate fika at their bakery, offering their personal favorite coffee roasts to complete the assortment of baked goods.
Kristina brought her skills to Seattle when she and Claes moved here in 2002. “We wanted to move to a place we chose to be, as opposed to following a job,” she said. It didn’t hurt that the Pacific Northwest reminds Claes of his Scandinavian home. They worked in their respective fields while selling traditional Swedish treats at the Edmonds Farmer’s Market on Saturdays, beginning in 2007.
“We found we did really well. We were surprised there was a demand,” Kristina said. She later quit her job in an immunology lab to bake full-time, and in December 2008 they opened Svedala Bakery in Pike Place Market. Claes still works his day job in vision research. “It pays the mortgage,” Kristina joked.
Kristina and Claes bake everything in their Pike Placecase from scratch, using no “fillers” or artificial preservatives. Everything you see is fresh, Claes said, even if that sometimes makes their inventory look a little bare. They also keep true to Swedish traditions. “It’s an old-fashioned type of cooking. It’s real Swedish—we don’t want to Americanize,” he said.
The treats behind the glass may be few, but they’re all tantalizing: Mandelfläta, a cardamom yeast bread filled with the couple’s homemade almond paste; Tosca cake, a buttery coffee cake topped with caramelized almonds; slices of Dröm Rulle, a chocolate sponge cake rolled with homemade vanilla buttercream; chocolate fudge bars called Himmelska Cakes with caramelized coconut topping; an array of cookies, including the soft gingerbread of Southern Sweden and a crunchy, buttery Swedish Farm Cookie.
“Swedish baking and cooking in general doesn’t look very fancy and is all dependent on raw ingredients and the skill of the baker, which fits our style,” Kristina said. But don’t be fooled: the simplicity of their products belies their tastiness.
The Baviks do their best to buy local, purchasing organic raspberries from Frog’s Song farm in Mt. Vernon to use in their jam cookies, Princess Cake and summertime fruit pies. They also buy blueberries from farmer’s mark
The Princess cake is a traditional Swedish cake layered with raspberry jam, vanilla bean custard and whipped cream. Swedes eat Princess cake at ceremonies such as baptisms and weddings and it’s traditionally topped with bright green marzipan. At Svedala, though, the cakes are pink.
“Oddly enough there is no natural green color that isn’t a muted army shade of green,” Kristina said. So they make their marzipan with beet juice, turning it pink.
This winter, Svedala will have a number of traditional Christmas treats, including cookies, Vört limpa (a spiced bread), fruit and ginger rings, and cardamom bread in a wreath shape.
Starting in February, the Baviks will be baking Semla, a cardamom bun filled with their homemade almond paste and topped with whipped cream. It’s traditionally eaten on Tuesdays before Lent and is served in hot milk or cream. Last year they were so popular they sold until Easter. “My arms were so tired from making the little buns,” Kristina recalled.
Though they’ve really just started, the Baviks sound busy and confident about their future. “We hope to find our own place one day,” Kristina said as she assembled open-faced sandwiches for the Swedish Cultural Center. For now, though, they’ll continue providing their all-natural treats at Pike Place, keeping a tasty array of Swedish traditions alive in the process.
Svedala’s Pike Place Market stall is a few yards inside the mark
All Puget Sound-area Whole Foods carry the Tosca cake, both kinds of almond tart, and seasonally, Mandelfläta.
The Swedish Cultural Center hosts a Swedish Kafé on Fridays, year-round, from noon to 10:30pm. 1920 Dexter Ave N
Megan Hill is a freelance writer who loves finding excuses to eat beets. You can read more from her at: MeganAHill.wordpress.com.