A Scandinavian celebration cake with layers of sponge, cream and fruit.
I feel I must apologize for the recipe blogging silence of late. Regular readers will be aware that back in February I took on a part time job in our local village shop – a little something to get me out of the house a couple of afternoons a week. Being self-employed from home can be a rather unsociable affair, so taking a part time job meant I could get out of the house, speak with folk, do something non-blog related and earn a small steady income.
The boss has been away on her much needed and deserved summer holidays over the last 2.5 weeks. I agreed to take on a few extra shifts to help ease the workload on one of my work colleagues who was taking over the boss’ job while she was away. It’s been a very rewarding, but exhausting two weeks! In the first week I did 95,000 steps – 40 miles – in a tiny village shop! I don’t know how people who work full time for someone else do it. How is there time and energy for hobbies, for passions, for doing anything when you get home except collapsing in a heap on the couch and not moving until morning?
This morning is the first day I have had off in two weeks. It’s also the last full day of Bestemor’s visit – Bestemor (Norwegian for grandmother – beste: best  mor: mother) has been visiting us from Norway for these last two weeks, and it’s been fantastic having her here. Besides the chance the children have to actually have someone related to them be nearby (being a migrant Canadian/Norwegian family our families are spread all over the world) she’s happily taken over all the cooking and cleaning jobs in the house.
We’ve been absolutely spoiled rotten with good food over this last fortnight and I’ve taken plenty of photographs and been given recipes and stories to share. I will be blogging these over the coming days/weeks.
My husband’s birthday occurred during these two weeks – the big twenty-eighteen! To celebrate, Bestemor made him a birthday cake, a recipe he remembers fondly from his childhood.
This sockerkaka – sponge cake, is a traditional Scandinavian celebration cake, a recipe passed on to Bestemor from her Swedish great-grandmother who ran a small hotel on the west coast of Sweden back in the 1930s. Their customers included a lot of workers from a nearby lumber yard, but because of the Depression they had to shut down.
This recipe consists of a delicious sponge cake, baked the day before, and then thinly sliced and layered with freshly whipped cream and fruit into a round bowl. The mixture is pressed down and left overnight to chill, and the next day it’s turned out onto a serving platter, decorated with cream, fruit and nuts and served.
This is such a visually impressive, and incredibly delicious cake! The domed shape is rather unusual and intriguing, while the layers of cake, cream and fruit are positively moreish. The toasted and chopped nuts, usually hazelnuts (but in this case we had almonds because there were no hazelnuts to be had in the village shop!) add a fantastic nutty crunch.
I was working a split shift on my husband’s birthday, so I came home from lunch and enjoyed cake and an afternoon walk with the family before heading back to work. The weather was so cold, for July, but at least the sun was shining. We donned our toques and headed to a nearby beach.
It’s not the most remarkable beach in Shetland by any means, but there is always something to investigate on it. This time of year there are plenty of wildflowers growing along the shoreline, especially in that area you can see crumbling into the sea.
A strange high-pitched noise could be heard from the sea; a noise I’d never heard before. It definitely wasn’t a bird. I scanned the water. There, just a matter of metres before us two otters were swimming across the voe! By the time I thought to grab my camera they were well out into the water, but one of them slowed down as it caught a fish. I am rather pleased with these photos – my first two proper photos of an elusive Shetland otter!
All in all it was a pretty fantastic day. Cake, sun, wildlife, family – followed by ice creams on the picnic bench outside the village shop before I had to start my second shift.
Bestemor says that if you don’t have time to do the whole slicing and layering thing overnight, you can always bake the cakes in two sandwich tins and slice them each horizontally into two layers, making a four layer cake in total. Sandwich together with cream and berries, finish off with the rest of the cream and sprinkle with toasted chopped nuts.
Enjoy!
Sockerkaka - Great Grandmother's Sponge Cake
Ingredients
for the sponge cake
- 3 free-range eggs
- 2 cups caster sugar (use 1.5 for a lower sugar version)
- 2.5 cups plain flour
- 0.5 cups potato flour (or cornflour)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract * not in original recipe
- 0.25 cups lukewarm water (you may need up to 1/2 cup)
to assemble and decorate
- 0.5 cups orange juice
- 1.5 cups whipping cream whipped
- 0.5 cups strawberries
- 0.5 cups blueberries
- 0.5 cups hazelnuts (or almonds), toasted and coarsely chopped
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Instructions
- Prepare the sponge cake two days in advance for the best results. Grease and line a 24 cm springform cake pan and set aside. Preheat oven to 200 C/ 170 C fan.
- Whisk the eggs and caster sugar together in a large bowl until they are light and fluffy.
- Sieve the plain flour, potato flour and baking powder together in another bowl and gradually add to the egg mixture along with the vanilla.
- Gently mix in 1/4 - 1/2 cup of warm water.
- Spoon into the prepared cake tin and bake for 30 minutes until a skewer, inserted into the centre, comes out clean.
- Leave the cake until the next day (ideally) as it is easier to slice.
- Option 1: slice the cake into 3 or 4 layers, sprinkling each layer with fresh orange juice before sandwiching together with freshly whipped whipping cream and fruit. Finish with a layer of cream and sprinkle the chopped nuts over the top.
- Option 2: Slice the cake from top to bottom into 1 cm thick slices.
- Line a 2 litre bowl with slices of the cake and sprinkle liberally with fresh orange juice.
- Spread a layer of whipped cream over the cake slices and sprinkle with some fresh fruit.
- Fill up the bowl with layers of cake slices, sprinkled with orange juice, whipping cream and fruit.
- Finish off with a layer of cake slices and press the whole thing firmly down in the bowl. Place a heavy plate on the top of the cake and leave in the fridge overnight.
- The next day, turn the cake out onto a cake stand or plate.
- Cover with whipping cream. Decorate the sides with the toasted chopped nuts and arrange fresh fruit on the top.
LINKING UP WITH A FEW FOOD BLOGGING CHALLENGES
Cake Club by Kerry Cooks
Love Cake by Jibber Jabber UK (theme: cakes from around the world)
Tasty Tuesdays by Honest Mum
Recipe of the Week by A Mummy Too
OTHER CELEBRATION CAKES YOU MIGHT LIKE
Kransekake by Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary
My Favourite Chocolatey Chocolate Cake by Recipes from a Pantry
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Raspberry Vinaigrette
why does my tummy long for treats like this?
The sockerkaka looks amazing! It is great to have your grandmother in the house. They always know some great recipes and help so much around the house! Thanks for sharing this recipe! Me and my family have just moved house last week and everybody is still stressed and feeling strange at the new place so I think that a nice sockerkaka will cheer up everybody! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
That looks delicious and really great fun too. A recipe to try making with my daughter, I think!
Hi there – I followed a link from ‘CAke-Club’ to read about your great-grandmother’s cake – it looks delicious. I was also delighted to hear you are on the Shetlands where my own grandmother was born. I’ve never visited, so enjoyed seeing your beach/seal pictures. Cheers, Jenny Pyatt – New Zealand
What an amazing looking cake and a great story behind it. I worry about recipes being lost in time. My nan used to make a delicious chocolate loaf cake but I never have found the recipe for it.
It’s great to learn about new cakes from different cultures. This looks like an inpressive and yummy cake! 🙂
Love to learn about new cakes from different cultures. This looks like an inpressive and yummy celebration cake 🙂
What an absolute;y gorgeous cake! I love everything about it, especially the fruit. I really want to try this!
I like this cake very much, look so delicious. thank you for sharing.
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Glad you find it appealing! We rather did enjoy eating it! 🙂
I remember what it was like to work full time – exactly as you say. Life was all work and exhaustion, time for fun or hobbies guiltily snatched from time that should have been spent doing the garden or housework. After forty years flat out I feel I earned my retirement and I can now happily say I can hardly remember going to work at all!
The cake looks delicious – a real summer treat!
Things are back to normal now. I’ve got five days off in a row – and I’m so grateful! I’d taken staying at home and having lots of time for stuff for granted. I appreciate what time I have now. 🙂 Glad you hear you are enjoying your retirement – you deserve it!
Sounds like busy times! I love that towering sponge. It sounds more like my mum’s sponge than the british victoria sponge because there is no butter – though I don’t think we have so much cream and decoration on my mum’s.
It was really busy! So glad it’s over now and things are back to normal! 🙂
The cake looks nothing short of amazing and I bet tasted delicious. I’ve just made a soda bread which I’m usually quite good at but on the occasion a bit disappointed in it, lacking something BUT will still get eaten.
It is a rather impressive cake, isn’t it! Sorry to hear your soda bread didn’t work out as well as expected, but glad to hear you’re not throwing it out – food can always be repurposed!
I always enjoy reading your posts Elizabeth but this one makes my heart sing. Cake, beach, celebrations, flowers, walks, otters and appreciating the little things. Inspiring in so many ways.
Aw thank you Sally! 😀
Wowzers Elizabeth, that is some cake. And how wonderful to have a grandmother. I really really miss mine. And how wonderful too that she looked after you all so well just when you were so busy. Fab pics of the otters, you should indeed be proud 🙂
It really is an impressive cake, isn’t it. Yes, the kids are fortunate to see their grandmother, I agree. I miss mine too.
Cakes and otters oh my! The cakes looks just amazing x
Thanks Holly 🙂
oh wow! this is a great centre piece for a special occasion. looks yummy and i love the story behind it x
It really is, isn’t it. A proper celebration cake!
What a wonderful treat. This looks like such a good balance – cake (yay!!!), rich cream and lots of fresh fruit so you don’t feel overloaded. I almost don’t miss the chocolate 😉
The fresh fruit and cream really did add a lightness to the butterless sponge. It was perfect!
What a talented Best Mor your children have, this cake is very professional looking and how fortunate that she could cook for you while you did your stint in the shop! Those shots of the seals are amazing:-)
She is rather clever in the kitchen, isn’t she! 😀 I was so grateful to have her here. We would have lived on frozen pizzas if she hadn’t been, I’m sure!
What a gorgeous cake! And a lovely post – how lucky your children are to have such a rich cultural heritage to draw on. And otters! This is the second time this week somebody I know has posted about otters! The other post was about Cape clawless otters gambolling about on a beach in Cape Town. How lucky you are to live near such wonderful sights!
I’d never looked at it like that before, but yes, they are a bit of a multicultural mix, aren’t they! Otters are awesome, and I was so chuffed to be able to photograph them!
Wow this is just stunning, perfect for summer! Love the pictures of the beach and seals too. Thanks for entering #cakeclub!
So glad you like, Kerry, and thanks for hosting a fab new challenge!
What an amazing cake and loving the otters. I always wanted to see one in the wild. As for working full time and blogging and doing other things – definitely need 36 hour days to fit it all in
Come to Shetland – there are plenty of otters up here! 😀
What a beautiful cake Elizabeth.
I think it is so interesting have different family heritages and traditions. Makes me feel so boringly British.
It really is stunning, isn’t it! Being British isn’t boring at all either – we’re all from somewhere, we just need to embrace it 🙂
What a lovely cake, thanks Bestemor!
Heehee, it was lovely, for sure! 🙂
What a lovely cake!! It would be perfect for the Inheritance Recipes (starting in August)…
Love the otter photos, my younger one is big fan of the Octonauts and the sea otter character is her favourite 😉
Oooh well this sounds like a fantastic new blogging challenge on the books! 🙂
Oh Elizabeth, that cake looks positively decadent! its Scandinavian origin and the link to a hotel reminded me immediately of the Danish film “Babette’s Feast”.
I share your dilemma about full-time work: regular pay and social security are positive but it is difficult to keep anything else going at the same time.
You know, I have heard of that film but I don’t think I’ve ever watched it! I must remedy that! 🙂
That sponge cake looks so yummy. I love baking so I will be trying this out.
Let me know how you get on! Despite looking complex it’s really quite simple to make.
That cake looks amazing, I’ve got a party this weekend so I’ll be trying to recreate this masterpiece x
Do let me know how you get on with it!