I still have big pink orb shaped nightmares about this cake. While I worked in a restaurant on an island of the coast of Gothenburg in the middle of winter a few years ago, one of my jobs everyday was to ferry the food across stormy seas on the smallest boat you can imagine. On the many bumpy, cold and windy journeys over to the island, my job was to hold on tightly to three boxes of prinsesstårta’s which are one of the most delicate cakes you can imagine. With every bump of a wave, the marzipan covered cream cake would threaten to smoosh itself up the sides of the boxes. It was a recipe for disaster but thankfully that winter every single prinsesstårta made it in one piece.
The prinsesstårta is one of Sweden’s most popular cakes, selling around 500,000 a year and was originally created in the 1930’s, being called a Green Cake to start, due to it’s green marzipan exterior. However when the three princesses of Sweden fell in love with the cake it became known as Princess Cake. Traditionally the cake is colored a striking neon green but nowadays it’s common to see it in many other colours including the pink one here. The cake consists of three light sponge layers, sandwiched with a layer of crème patissière and fruit, a layer of plain crème patissière and then a mound of whipped cream on top with a marzipan layer on top. Variants on the layers are quite common and can also be referred to as Prinstårta and Opera Cake. This is my version, there is a few stages but it makes a wonderful and quite alternative celebration cake.
Continue to the recipe for Swedish Princess Cake…
