Norwegian Bløtkake

This weekend is my mum's birthday. We're going away to Barry Island for the weekend as we're literally obsessed with Gavin and Stacey so do expect a lot of touristy and shameless photos next week!

Anyway, for work she always makes this traditional Norwegian cream cake 'bløtkake' which basically translates as 'moist cake' and is made up of fatless sponge, fruit, jam, juice (from tinned fruit), cream and marzipan. I know, I hear you screaming now, marzipan is almost its own food group in Norway. They love it, you get marzipan shaped pigs at Christmas and chocolate covered sticks of it at Easter...and, well, all year round really they just love the stuff. I, to be honest have never been that keen but apparently it works really well with this cake as it really lifts it, and it's rolled super thin - not like how we roll fondant here.

It's a layered cake starting with the juice soaked sponge, jam, cream, fruit/nuts and some add custard too. You will find these cakes in every shop, at every birthday...and to be honest anywhere they serve food! My nan could eat this all day long so we always bring her some from her favourite bakery when visiting.

I hadn't made one before myself so I thought I would get in on the action, and it would make a great post for AlphaBakes with marzipan being a perfect choice for the letter M! I know a lot of people are using marzipan but I can promise that no one will have entered one of these bad boys.

This is baking challenge made by The More than Occasional Baker and Caroline Makes. This month Caroline Makes is hosting the challenge and I can't wait to submit this family recipe!

Unfortunately I won't get a slice of this magnificent beast as I don't think it will survive long at my mum's work...but it looks glorious so I'm happy!

And as ALWAYS, there are a lot of pictures so be patient...it's an obsession.

Ingredients:

26 cm diameter tin

6 eggs

150 g sugar

180 g flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tin canned fruit (we used pineapple)

1/2 jam (any, we used strawberry)

700ml double cream

1 bag chopped waltnuts 

1 punnet of strawberries (or any other fruit you may like)

1 block of marzipan

Method:
Beat eggs and sugar into submission until thick, light and fluffy.

Measure out flour and and baking powder.

Then fold gently into the egg mixture with a spatula.

Grease a baking tin and sprinkle with flour, I would recommend lining the bottom as well.

Pour into cake batter and place on the middle shelf in the oven. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN.

Bake in preheated oven 170C/150C fan

Cooking time is about 40 minutes but we did about 45 - 50.  

The cake is cooked when it is no longer 'singing', I have only just become aware of this term...

 

When the cake is cool cut it into three layers. We wanted this cake to be huge so we made an extra cake for thicker layers (because we're greedy).  Whip the cream into stiff peaks.

Moisten each layer by sprinkling spoons of juice, then spread over the jam in a thin layer. Whack a good layer of cream on and spread right to the edge.

 Now you can add some fruit or nuts or both. We chose sliced strawberries and chopped walnuts. Repeat another layer, you can alternate what fillings you put in each layer.

Add the top layer of sponge and add another layer or jam and cream. For the marzipan to stick to the sides you'll need to dirty ice the cake with - wait for it more cream! Nom nom.

This is where you can get more creative with making patterns with sliced fruit, some prefer to add sweets to the top or some even cover the whole cake in marzipan which does look really nice.

But as we're not a marzipan eating nation here we thought cream would be better :D We filled the top with more sliced strawberries and crushed walnuts and finished the whole thing off with some piped cream in true Norwegian style.

It's now sitting safely in the fridge until tomorrow...must not eat mum's cake.....must not eat it.....

Nom!

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