One of my goals as a food writer is to make beloved Scandinavian recipes as accessible as possible. That includes writing the recipes with clear instructions and limiting specialty ingredients and equipments. There are times, however, in which recipes require such things. Here’s a collection of items, categorized by type, to help you add a Scandinavian touch to your kitchen.

(You can also find a collection of my favorite Scandinavian cookbooks by clicking here.)

Most products below contain affiliate links; read more by clicking here.

Lefse Supplies

The recipe

Waffle & Pancake Supplies

The recipes:

Cakes & Cookies

The recipes:

Cookies:

Cakes:

  • Kransekake (recipe coming soon)

Specialty Ingredients

Some Scandinavian ingredients and foods are available at well-stocked grocery and specialty stores. If you don’t have such a shop nearby, you can find many products online. I’m partial to the Seattle-based Scandinavian Specialties, which is my local store. They stock everything from imported and house-made food to housewares and clothing, and they ship nationwide. Also check out stores such as Ingebretsen’s in Minnesota, and the gift stores of organizations such as the National Nordic Museum, some of which sell products online.

Here’s a look at some of the products to keep an eye out for:

  • Assorted jams and preserves, including lingonberry or cloudberry preserves
  • Fresh or frozen lingonberries
  • Swedish pearl sugar–adds a distinctive appearance to Scandi cinnamon-cardamom twists
  • Scandinavian vanilla sugar, or vaniljesukker, a powdery product that adds a distinct flavor to many recipes, including my pannekaker
  • Baker’s ammonia (aka hornsalt, salt of hartshorn, or ammonium carbonate)–yields crisp yet light results in cookies such as Swedish drömmar
  • Various crispbreads
  • Cheeses such as the brown geitost or brunost (which is excellent on waffles), cumin- and clove-studded nøkkelost, Jarlsberg, havarti, Swedish farmer’s cheese, and bondost (also consider purchasing an ostehøvel, a Norwegian cheese slicer)
  • Various cured meats and sausages (Scandinavian Specialties makes some in-house)
  • Assorted fresh or frozen, cured, dried, smoked, pickled, or canned seafood products, including herring, lutefisk, fish balls, cod roe, smoked salmon and mackerel, and tubes of creamed roe (excellent on rye crispbread)