Finnish Queen (Kuningatar) Smoothie

Hello smoothie lovers! 🙋🏻

Today, I want to share a Finnish smoothie recipe with you. I call it a “Queen Smoothie” (I’ll explain that later), but it is basically a raspberry blueberry smoothie made with yogurt and a little honey.

Here in Finland 🇫🇮, a mix of raspberry and bilberry is often referred to as “kuningatar”, which is the Finnish word for ‘queen’—hence the name. In shops, you can find a number of “kuningatar” products with the raspberry-bilberry combination, including quark, ice cream, yogurt, and kissel. So, last weekend when I enjoyed a wonderful kuningatar ice cream, I decided that my next recipe would be a Finland-inspired kuningatar smoothie.

Why do we associate raspberries and bilberries with the word for ‘queen’? As often is, the Swedes are to blame. More than a century ago, in 1903, a Swedish recipe book referred to a jam consisting of bilberry and raspberry as “drottningsylt”, queen(‘s) jam, and for some reason, the name stuck.

Don’t know what bilberries are? Basically, bilberries are European blueberries. The two berries are very similar, but there are some differences. Bilberries grow wild in forests in northern Europe, including Britain, and are usually not cultivated. Their color is dark blue, almost black. In Finland and other northern European countries people go to forests to pick bilberries straight from the bushes. Bilberries are nowadays considered a superfood, thanks to their high concentration of vitamins and antioxidants.

I find bilberries less sweet than the grown North American blueberries. For me, this is a good thing; I like the more acidic taste of the bilberry. Another positive thing with forest-grown bilberries is that they, naturally, are organic. This is probably not the case with the often conspicuously big blueberries…

Anyway, enough about the bilberries, here’s the recipe:

Why this Finnish Queen Smoothie is good for you:

• Raspberries contain strong antioxidants, such as Vitamin C. It is also rich in manganese and fiber. Raspberries provide us with anti-inflammatory phytonutrients and studies also suggest that eating raspberries can result in a decreased risk of getting cancer.
• Bilberries, picked wild from the forest,  are being marketed, with good reason, as a Nordic superfood. Bilberries are good for preventing diabetes, maintaining good eye health, preventing cancer and can cure diarrhea, nausea and indigestion.
• Yogurt contains active cultures that help people with constipation and diarrhea. The vitamin D and calcium found in most yogurts is beneficial for our bones and may prevent osteoporosis.

Need more smoothie recipes with raspberries or bilberries? Just click on the hyperlinks for more recipes with raspberries and blueberries.

Nutrition facts

Pros	Cons
Good amount of dietary fiber (31% of RDA)	High in carbohydrates (20% of RDA)
High in protein (28% of RDA)
High in calcium (39% of RDA)

I hope you will enjoy this typically Finnish smoothie! If you liked this recipe, please share it with your friends and family. You can find share buttons above the title of this post 🙂  You can find Smoothie Fairytales on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.