The Finnish May Day Doughnuts You Only Make Once a Year

by Barry Lewis

Ingredients Method

Ingredients

Munkki Ingredients

250 g quark
160 ml water
25 g fresh yeast or 7 g active dry yeast
1 tsp fine salt
100 g caster sugar
1 tbsp ground cardamom (preferably coarsely ground)
1 large egg
480 g plain flour (divided)
60 g unsalted butter, softened
About 1 litre neutral oil (rapeseed or sunflower) for frying
150 g caster sugar for coating

Sima Ingredients

2 litres water
1 lemon (juice and rind)
125 g white sugar
125 g soft dark brown sugar
¼–½ tsp dry yeast

For bottling:
10 raisins (about 5 per bottle)

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The Finnish May Day Doughnuts You Only Make Once a Year

May Day, or Vappu as it’s called in Finland, is all about celebrating springtime with family, friends, fizzy drinks, and a lot of sweet treats. In true “me trying stuff for the first time” fashion, I decided to give two Finnish Vappu essentials a go: munkki (cardamom doughnuts) and sima (a lightly fermented lemon drink).

These are traditionally made just once a year for the May Day festivities… although after making (and eating) them, I’m questioning whether I can really wait that long for round two.

(If you want to see me trying a whole bunch of Finnish snacks before I got brave enough to cook anything, you can check out my Finnish Treats Tasting video here.)

What Are Munkki and Sima?

  • Munkki are deep-fried doughnuts, flavoured with cardamom and often made with a little quark for extra softness. They’re rolled in sugar while still warm and usually eaten by the handful at Vappu picnics.

  • Sima is a lightly fermented lemon drink that’s homemade just for May Day. It’s sweet, slightly fizzy, and super refreshing — basically the perfect doughnut sidekick.

You usually see tippaleipä (Finnish funnel cakes) floating around at Vappu too, but I gave those a miss this time. Baby steps.

How to Make Them (Method Only)

Sima:

  1. Peel strips of lemon rind and combine with white and brown sugar in a large bowl or pan.

  2. Boil 1 litre of water and pour it over the sugar and rind mixture.

  3. Add the lemon juice and another litre of cold water. Stir well to dissolve everything.

  4. Scoop about 100 ml of the mixture into a cup, stir in the yeast, then return it to the main batch.

  5. Cover and leave at room temperature for about 24 hours.

  6. The next day, strain the liquid into clean bottles, add 5 raisins and 1 tsp sugar to each bottle.

  7. Refrigerate loosely sealed until the raisins float — about 4–6 days. Serve cold!

Munkki:

  1. Mix the quark and water until lukewarm, stir in the yeast to activate.

  2. Add salt, sugar, cardamom, egg, and some of the flour to form a sticky dough.

  3. Mix in softened butter and the rest of the flour. Let the dough rest for 20 minutes.

  4. Shape into small balls, poke holes to form rings, and let rise again until puffy.

  5. Heat oil to about 175°C and fry the doughnuts until golden brown, flipping halfway.

  6. Drain on paper towels and roll in caster sugar while still warm.

  7. Try not to eat them all before anyone else gets a look-in.

Want to Watch the Full Chaos Unfold?

I filmed the whole process — from trying to figure out what sima even is, to wrestling with sticky doughnut dough. You can watch the full video here if you fancy a laugh (and maybe get inspired to give them a go yourself too!).

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