It’s a light fluffy sponge cake with crunchy caramel almond topping, and yes, it tastes as good as it sounds. The perfect Scandinavian recipe to enjoy at your next ‘Fika’ perhaps?
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 115g of unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 135g of caster sugar (⅔ cup)
- 3 eggs, at room temperature
- 140g of all-purpose flour (1 cup)
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1½ tsp of baking powder
- 2 tbsp of milk, at room temperature
- Zest of 1 lemon
For the topping:
- 55g of unsalted butter
- 55g of sliced almonds (½ cup)
- 3 tbsp of granulated sugar
- 1 tbsp of all-purpose flour
- 2 tbsp of heavy cream
Directions
For the cake:
- Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F) and grease a cake pan.
- Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl and mix together. Put it to the side.
- In a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar so they get light and fluffy.
- In the same bowl, add the eggs while beating, one at a time. Do this until they’re fully mixed in.
- Now you can add the lemon zest and about half of the flour mixture (from step 2) and keep mixing.
- Pour in the milk, while mixing, and then lastly the rest of the flour mixture (from step 2). Mix until it turns into a smooth batter.
- Add the batter in the greased cake pan and bake it in the oven for approximately 25 minutes or so until it turns a nice golden colour and has risen.
- Take it out of the oven so you can add the topping (after which you will need to continue baking it) but first you need to make the topping.
For the topping:
- In a heavy-bottomed pot on a medium-high heat, combine the butter, almonds, sugar, flour, and heavy cream.
- Stir until you notice the mixture starting to thicken and bubbles appearing.
- Take it off the stove and pour in an even layer across the top of the cake that has just come out of the oven.
- Place it back in the oven and keep baking for another 10 minutes or so until the top turns a nice rich-brown colour.
- Take it out of the cake pan and leave it to cool on a wire rack before serving.
Background: Caramel almond cake (toscakaka)
While this caramel almond cake is well-known for being a Swedish delight, it’s also popular in Norway and Denmark.
There are a couple of different views on how it got its name.
Obviously, ‘kaka’ is the Swedish word for cake, but the ‘toska’ part has two popular origin stories. Some believe it was inspired by Puccini’s opera (which was called Tosca), while others think it stems from the almond cakes in Tuscany.
Either way, the resulting recipe is a true Scandinavian classic that’s well worth a try in the kitchen!
Scandification: Discovering Scandinavia.
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