In Sweden, midsummer is a cherished tradition that starts every year on the 3rdFriday of June on Midsummer Eve. This ritual involves flowers in the hair, dancing around a pole, singing Swedish songs while drinking schnapps and having various midsummer foods on the table e.g. pickled herring (sil) with potatoes, gravlax (salmon), sour cream, dille, knäckebröd. Today, it’s more about food and drinking with family and/or friends 😊
One of the not-to-be-missed festive food is the Swedish jordgubbstårta. This is a summer cake filled with vanilla cream and strawberries. It is quite an effort but I’m sure you will love it! Tip: make the cake 1 day before and decorate next day, follow steps 1 until 29.
Serves approx. 12 slices, cooking time 1:30 – 2hrs including cool down process
Ingredients
- ————- Cake ————-
- Butter and breadcrumbs (NL paneer meel) for the springform pan Ø 22cm
- Baking paper
- Big and Medium bowl
- Hand/electrical mixer
- 1dl all purpose flower
- 1dl potato starch or corn starch
- 1,5 tsp baking powder
- 4 eggs
- 1½ dl sugar
- ————- Vanilla Custard ————-
- Saucepan
- Small bowl
- 2 egg yolks
- 2,5 Tbsp sugar
- 2 Tbsp potato starch or corn starch
- 1dl standard milk
- 1dl whipping cream
- 1 vanilla pod or 2 tsp vanilla sugar
- ————- Strawberry Filling ————-
- 400-500gr strawberries or forest fruit which brings a flourish variation on your tasty pallets (frozen fruit is possible)
- 2 Tbsp sugar
- ½ lemon, zest and juice
- ————- Topping Decoration ————-
- 4dl whipping cream
- 400gr strawberries
- Optional: 1½ cup chopped roasted hazelnuts or other mixed nuts to your preference
What to do?
- ————- Cake ————-
- Pre-heat oven on fan function at 190°– 200°C
- Cover the bottom of spring form with baking paper
- Grease the sides of the pan with butter
- Coat the pan with breadcrumbs
- In medium bowl: add 1dl flour, 1dl potato starch and 1,5 tsp baking soda. Stir until well mixed.
- In big bowl: whisk 4 eggs and 1½ dl sugar with hand mixer for 5-10min until the batter is white and fluffy
- Add mixed flower little by little into the egg mixture and stir well.
- Pour the mixture into the baking pan.
- Bake for 20min in the oven 190° on the middle level until its golden brown. If cake doesn’t get brown, increase oven heat to 200°C.
- Prick a wooden stick in the cake and check if the stick is clean and dry.
- Once the cake is ready, take it out of the oven and let it cool down in the pan.
- ————- Vanilla Custard ————-
- Add 2 yolks, 2.5Tbsp sugar, 2Tbsp potato starch, 1dl milk, 1dl cream in the saucepan.
- Scrape the seeds out from the vanilla pod and add into the saucepan.
- Cook on low heat and whisk until sauce gets thick.
- Once it gets thick, pour the sauce in a bowl. In case you use vanilla sugar instead of vanilla pod, then add and stir 2tsp vanilla sugar in the bowl.
- Let the sauce cool down.
- ————- Strawberry Filling ————-
- Remove stalks of 400-500gr strawberries and cut it small pieces. Put the berries in a bowl. In case you use frozen fruit, heat it up in a small pan.
- Add 2Tbsp sugar, ½ lemon zest and its juice. Stir all ingredients (let it cool down when you heat the frozen fruit).
- Crush the berries slightly until you have a jam consistency with chunks of berries
- ————- Decorate Cake ————-
- Cut the cake in 2 or 3 layers, whatever you feel comfortable with and the cake allows to.
- Spread the vanilla custard on the 1stlayer of the cake. On the 2ndlayer, spread the berries filling and add thin layer custard on top of the berries. Put the cake top above the berries.
- Tip: store the cake with custard filling in the fridge overnight and decorate the cake next day. This will make the cake moisty with full berry flavour. Put the springform ring around the cake, and layer 1 kitchen paper on the cake top, and then cover with aluminium foil. In case you want to make the cake in 1 day, put the cake in the fridge while you prepare next steps or put it longer in the fridge in letting the cream stiff up.
- Optional: chop 1½ cup roasted hazelnuts to decorate the sides of the cake at step 31.
- Remove stalks of 400gr strawberries remove and cut in slices or decorate cake with uncut strawberries but note that slicing the cake would be more challenging.
- Whip 4dl cream until it gets thick.
- Coat the sides and the cake top with cream.
- Decorate the sides with chopped roasted hazelnuts.
- Lastly, decorate the cake top with sliced strawberries. Start layering slices on the outer circle first, then layer by layer to the center of the cake.
Smaklig måltid!
