Åland Pancake

Continuing in the food mode...this is the last postcard I received via private swap, thank you Nina :) This pancake looks like a king of all pancakes! I found a recipe online, courtesy of finland.fi.

Recipe: Åland Pancake This deliciously filling local snack and dessert is popular in homes and cafés throughout the Åland Islands – especially with cycling tourists keen to recharge their calorie count. (Thanks to Pettas Organic Home Bakery for advice on the recipe.) 2 dl (4/5 cup) semolina (some islanders use the same amount of pudding rice instead of semolina) 1 dl (2/5 cup) wheat flour 1 litre (4 1/4 cups) whole milk 2 or 3 eggs 1 tsp salt 1 dl (2/5 cup) sugar 2 tsp cardamom Serves 4 to 6 people Heat the semolina in the milk for a few minutes to a porridge consistency, and let it cool down. Mix eggs, sugar, salt and cardamom separately, then stir this mixture and the flour into the semolina. Pour the mixture into a baking dish greased with butter, and scatter a few small knobs of butter over the top of the pancake. Bake 50 to 60 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius (390 degrees Fahrenheit), until the surface of the pancake is golden brown. Serve hot or cold topped with whipped cream and stewed prunes or jam (popular jams in Åland are made of local apples, strawberries, rhubarb or buckthorn berries).

Another Round From Åland

My first two postcards from Åland arrived at the same time, and so did these two :) Love the matching stamp with the flag, and the stamp on the second postcard is kind of sandy to the touch on the part depicting the earthy road. There is a 'Viking Line' postmark too because it was sent from the ferry that traverses between Åland and Sweden. Great postcards, really happy to have them! thank you Maxim and Leila :))

Åland Islands

I was really happy to get these Åland postcards as they were my first written & stamped from there, and both coincided in the same month of august  :) (forgive me as this sentence doesnt sound correct..!)

Åland Islands are an archipelago in the Baltic sea, and an autonomous region of Finland. The name Åland translates into 'river land'. The population is 28000 and the official language is Swedish.

Described as a perfect place to relax and forget about work, Eckerö is the westernmost  municipality of Åland (and therefore Finland) with a population of just under thousand souls. Its most prominent building is Post and Customs House, built to aid the postal services between Stockholm and St. Petersburg :) Åland Europa stamp is beautiful, as is the semi-circular cancellation <3 Received from MrsTaavi, vacation RR - thank you!

The fish card is private swap with Suvi/ivus - thank you :)

To be precise, its a European Perch ('grgeč' in croatian, ha!) There is also a matching stamp, as well as the Coronella austriaca (smooth snake) and Potosia cuprea (Gullbasse? something not featured in wikipedia, a wonder!) Great stamps especially the snake!! <3