pannukakku

pannu +‎ kakku; calque of Swedish pannkaka (“pancake”) (both words of which, panna and kaka, are furthermore related to the Finnish counterparts). The figurative sense "failure, fiasco" (which is also found in Swedish) may refer to how a cake that fails to rise in the oven stays flat like a pancake.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɑnːuˌkɑkːu/, [ˈpɑ̝nːuˌkɑ̝kːu]
• Rhymes: -ɑkːu
• Syllabification^(key): pan‧nu‧kak‧ku
• Hyphenation^(key): pannu‧kakku

pannukakku

1. a thick (~ 1–2 cm, ¹⁄₂–³⁄₄ in) pancake baked in oven, eaten as dessert and often served with whipped cream and/or jam

   Near-synonyms: (thin pancake) lettu, lätty, ohukainen, ohukas, räiskäle

2. (loosely) pancake
3. (idiomatic) failure, fiasco, flop

pannukakku tends to refer to thicker pancakes, like those in the photos. Thinner pancakes are usually called something else, like ohukainen, lettu or räiskäle.

• ohukainen

• “pannukakku”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[1] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 3 July 2023