If you read my blog post on Swedish birthday traditions yesterday, then you got a mouth-watering look at one example of a Swedish birthday cake. If you didn’t, well… HERE IT IS AGAIN.
DROOL. Meringue cake with raspberry and vanilla cream (marängtårta med hallon och vaniljkräm) from Söta Saker.
Moving on.
Söta Saker is a Swedish food blog run by Therésia Erneborg, who is a fabulous cook and takes beautiful photos of the food she makes. Most of her recipes are personal twists on Swedish classics and some of her recipes are even family heirlooms, inherited from her mother and grandmother. Therésia gave me permission to translate her birthday cake recipe into English, but you’ll have to check out her website to see the photos she took to illustrate the step-by-step construction of this cake. Even if you don’t speak Swedish, it’s worth a look just to get a glimpse of what Swedish food looks like at its most attractive.
There are four parts to this cake: the sponge cake, the vanilla cream, the raspberry cream, and the meringue topping. Fortunately, it’s not too difficult… just a little time-consuming.
The sponge cake is a really common base for the layer cakes that Swedes love so much, and if you live here, you’ll find that grocery stores actually sell pre-made sheets of sponge cake that you can use as a shortcut: just cut it into whatever shape you want and add filling with reckless abandon. This cracks me up. This may be the only cooking shortcut that I’ve found in Sweden that doesn’t exist in the US. Therésia even recommends having an extra sponge cake on hand in the freezer just in case you “unexpectedly find yourself in the party mood.” Common occurrence, actually.
For Therésia’s sponge cake, you’ll need the following ingredients. If you want a really tall cake, double the recipe so you have more cake to work with.
3 eggs
2 dl sugar (just a little less than a cup… .83 cups to be exact)
1 dl potato starch (just a little less than half a cup… .42 cups to be exact)
1 teaspoon baking powder.
Whisk the eggs and sugar together, then stir in the other ingredients. Throw all of it into a baking pan and bake at 175 C (350 F) for 35 minutes. Let cool, then cut it into three layers. From my experience baking here in Sweden, I’ve found that corn starch and potato starch are more or less substitutable, and corn starch seems to be a lot more common in the States. It might make a small difference, but not enough to worry about.
Then there’s the vanilla cream. This is something that makes even the most hard-hearted Swede swoon and sigh at pleasant memories from his or her youth. Seriously. It’s kind of like a hard sauce, but without the alcohol, and it gets thrown on every kind of pastry imaginable. I like it much better on the inside of a cake than the outside, but to be honest, once I start eating it, it’s like I go into this alternate dimension where I love vanilla cream more than anything else on earth and will not rest until I have shamelessly scraped the last drop from my plate. It is an undeniable phenomenon. Swedish-vanilla-cream-compulsive-mandibulation-salivary-ostrophy. Obviously.
You can also buy packets of instant vanilla sauce at the grocery store (just add milk!), but Therésia’s vanilla sauce is the real deal. You’ll need…
2 egg yellows
3 dl milk (10 fl. ounces)
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon potato starch
1 vanilla bean (If you don’t have a vanilla bean, my guess is about a teaspoon of vanilla extract will work, but I’m not the expert. Maybe you’ll need more.)
Split open the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds into a pot. Mix the other ingredients and whisk them together by hand. Let the mixture come to a low boil while you continue to whisk until the cream begins to thicken. Keep a close eye on it, and whatever you do, don’t let it boil or burn on the bottom. Cool before using.
Are you getting tired yet? Do you need a sneak peek of the finished product to keep you motivated? Fine.
The finished birthday cake... a thing of beauty.
Make sure you check out Söta Saker for more photos, especially if you’re unclear about what it should look like in process.
For the rest of the cake, you’ll need…
Raspberry cream
3 dl raspberries
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 tablespoon potato starch
Whipped cream… just whip it! whip it, yeahhh!
Meringue topping
3 egg whites
1 krm essence of vinegar… technically, this is 1 ml, but I think it’s safe to translate it as a “little splash of” vinegar essence. For those who live in the States, it’s just as easy to add a ¼ teaspoon or 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar… both are thickening agents that combine with the egg whites to make the meringue fluff up properly.
A pinch of salt
1 dl sugar (just a little less than half a cup… .42 cups to be exact)
So! Now that you have all the ingredients, divide the sponge cake into three layers. Spread the vanilla cream on the bottom layer, and then set the middle layer on top. Cook the raspberries together with the powdered sugar and the potato starch and stir until the raspberries start to dissolve into each other and the mixture becomes thick and smooth. Spread the raspberry cream on top of the middle layer. Whip your cream, then spread or spritz it out of a pastry bag over the raspberry cream. Whisk your egg whites with the vinegar essence and salt until they form stiff white peaks. Whisk in the sugar a little at a time. (Editorial note: in my experience, they should get a little glossy… you’ll know they’re done when there’s a sheen to the whiteness.) Put the top layer on a baking sheet lined with a sheet of baking paper and spread the meringue on top. Make small peaks so that it gets a nice structure. Bake for 8-10 minutes at 175 C (350 F), or until the meringue is a little brown and crispy on the outside but soft on the inside. Carefully pick up the top layer and set it on the cake. Garnish with raspberries!
Now, just so you know, you don’t have to wait until your birthday to make the cake. In fact, you can probably make it any old time you want. It’s a cultural experience, you know. Educational for the kids and all that.
