There’s a very narrow window here in northern Norway when the grocery stores have Norwegian apples available, rather than the (pretty sad) imported ones we find throughout the rest of the year. My husband and I were delighted to find that we could find domestic Gravensteins at the store when this window opened last year, so when it came around this time, I thought it’d be the perfect opportunity to bake an apple cake.

I wanted to try another recipe from Fika, so as I thumbed through the pages I decided on the fyriskaka, which they describe as a “classic apple cake.” The recipe itself is quite simple, and they key components (aside from your typical cake ingredients) are apples, of course, along with cinnamon, brown sugar, and cardamom. Oh, the cardamom! The recipe calls for freshly crushed cardamom seeds, and I think that little detail really takes this cake to the next level. I also always love to bake anything that requires mixing up your sliced apples with brown sugar and cinnamon…

The recipe calls for a springform cake pan, but my Norwegian kitchen is actually still lacking a lot of baking equipment and a springform pan is not part of the equation. My regular cake pan did just fine, however – I greased and floured it well and the cooled cake popped right out in one piece.

I probably don’t need to tell you that the cake itself was delicious – it’s hard to go wrong with this mix of ingredients, after all. Despite the amount of brown sugar and plain sugar that went into it, it wasn’t overly sweet. It’s kind of the perfect fika cake, to be honest. I might have to make this one again before the domestic apple window closes.

You can find the recipe for this cake in Fika by Anna Brones and Johanna Kindvall.