Raspberry Vanilla Hearts

Vanilla hearts are another traditional, Swedish pastry – and adding a little raspberry to the filling puts them over the top!

Have you ever seen those people on shows like MasterChef, that have to make something they’ve never even made or tried before, and then somehow everything turns out nearly perfectly? Well, maybe “perfectly” is a little bit of an exaggeration, but that’s not so unlike how it was with this recipe.

I was walking around my ‘hood and popped into a small store that sells a variety of kitchen and cooking items. I thought I’d get a little inspiration and I always like checking out fun kitchen tools and appliances.

I spotted these interesting, very affordable, concave heart-shaped molds and thought, “Ah, these will be fun to make something in!” I didn’t know what, yet, but I can’t resist a good bargain, so I bought them. The woman at the cash register said “Just the vanilla heart forms?” And I said “Uh, yes. Vanilla hearts you said? Why are they called that?” Her smile turned into a confused, but still kind, what-kind-of -weirdo-is-this look, and she replied, “Well, that’s what you usually make with these forms.”

I thanked her and went on my way. When I got home I googled “vaniljhärtan” – vanilla hearts in Swedish – and saw what she was talking about! Oohh, I thought those look great! Now, I just have to Planticize them!

Vanilla hearts have been around in Sweden and Norway for over 100 years, and as is the case with a lot of old recipes, most of the ones floating around out there are nearly identical and have made the very same way throughout the years. One of the first things I did was cross off egg yolk, then I replaced the dairy items with oat milk, soy cream and plant-based margarine, played around with a mix of normal and confectioner’s sugar, decided on the old school potato flour over the more modern Maizena (if I had either one in the cupboard, that might have affected my choice) and went for my beloved vanilla extract instead of the vanilla sugar often found in Swedish recipes.

It looked good on paper at this point, but I felt like I needed to jazz it up a bit. I didn’t want to mess too much with the dough and it’s consistency so I it had to be in the filling. White chocolate was an idea, but then I thought, nah, not chocolate. And then, since I was planning to make 2 other things with raspberries or raspberry flavoring,  it hit me – raspberry jam! Raspberry and vanilla – they’re like peanut butter and banana, like popcorn and movies, like Mulder and Scully, like… Oh, sorry, I’ll stop there.

While it’s an obvious benefit to have the concave forms to help with filling the pastry, they aren’t totally necessary. You can definitely make these using a heart-shaped cookie cutter ( or two, one slightly bigger than the other), placing a little less filling in the middle (and/or making it a bit thicker) and folding the edges and crimping them.

But no matter how you make them, make them! They aren’t something you make every day (and not at all something that is eaten on Valentine’s day here – that just happened to be a happy coincidence) but they are definitely worth the effort!

So, let’s go make some Raspberry Vanilla hearts – and eat to our heart’s content!