This weekend we celebrated a dear friend of mine who loves anything Swedish so I made her a princess cake, a traditional Swedish dessert that I never tried before, it has fluffy layers of sponge cake, raspberry jam and lots of whipping cream, all covered in green marzipan. It was a nice challenge for me as I had never worked with marzipan before. I started with a recipe from Linda Lomelino and adapted it and introduced raspberry to this cake in 3 stages: fresh, jam, and powder.

For the princess cake layers you will need:

6 eggs

230g granulated sugar (maybe next time I will use less)

90g flour

75g cornstarch

2 tsp vanilla extract

10g baking powder

For the vanilla cream you will need:

3 medium egg yolks

30g sugar

200ml milk 3.5% fat

1 tsp vanilla extract

20g cornstarch

1 tsp butter

For the whipped cream layers:

400ml whipping cream chilled in the fridge overnight

50g powdered sugar

8g gelatin powder

1 tsp vanilla bourbon sugar or the seeds of a vanilla bean

If you want to get that dom like shape, classical for Princess cake, you will need to double the amount of whipping cream

You will also need:

200g fresh raspberries

4 tbsp raspberry jam

500g white marzipan

green food coloring gel, not the liquid one

2 tsp raspberry powder (optional)

fresh flowers to decorate

Start by preheating the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Grease your cake tins with butter and layer them with baking paper, you will need 3 tins with 20cm diameter or just one tin and bake one layer at a time, don’t worry as they will bake quickly. Beat the eggs with the sugar until foamy and light in color, about 5 min on medium speed.

Then sift in the flour, cornstarch, and baking powder over and fold them slowly with a spatula, add the vanilla extract and fold it in as well. Divide the cake batter into 3 equal parts and bake them for 20 minutes. Let them cool completely then carefully remove the baking paper. You can also store them in the fridge in plastic wrap once they cooled completely.

For the vanilla cream, it is best to make it ahead as it needs a few hours to cool in the fridge. Put the milk, sugar, and vanilla in a small saucepan on medium heat and stir, once it reaches the boiling point remove it from the heat. Separately whisk the yolks and cornstarch then super slowly add the milk mixture over the egg yolk mixture and whisk continuously.

Then put the mixture on low heat and whick again constantly until the mixture reaches a thick consistency, it might take a few good minutes, so don’t forget to whisk, and don’t give up whisking haha. Once it thickened add the butter and whisk until dissolved. Remove it from heat, transfer it to a bowl let it cool, and then cover it with plastic wrap, stick the plastic wrap to the cream to avoid skin forming on its surface then place it in the fridge and leave it there for at least 3 hours or overnight. So for this cake in my opinion is best to make the cake layers and vanilla cream ahead and assemble the cake the next day.

The next day hydrate the 8g grams of gelatin with 80g cold water, and let it sit for 15 min. Meanwhile beat the whipping cream on medium until it gets soft picks then add the powdered sugar and vanilla sugar and beat until thickens. Heat the gelatin in a little bowl over a pan with steaming water, remove it once dissolved, then fold 2-3 tbsp of whipping cream into the gelatin. Add this mixture over the whipping cream and whisk a bit until incorporated. Reserve 4 tablespoons of the whipping cream and fold in the sifted raspberry powder. If you are not using raspberry powder you can use the whipping cream as it is or add halves of fresh raspberries to it.

Now start assembling the princess cake. Brush a cake layer with raspberry jam. Add the vanilla cream on the first layer, put the next cake layer on top, brush it with raspberry jam, and add the raspberry powder whipping cream layer. Put the last layer on top of it then add a thin layer of whipping cream, put raspberries cut in halves on top of the cream, then add the rest of the whipping cream on top of it and then a thin layer on the sides, you won’t need much on the sides, it’s just the „glue” for the marzipan layer.

Once you are done with the whipping cream put the cake in the fridge. I worked the marzipan on a silicon mat dusted with powdered sugar. Reserve around 150g of white marzipan to make a crown-like decoration for the cake. Knead a bit the rest of the marzipan, then add the food coloring gel a little at the time and knead until you even the color and obtain the green shade you like, I like the pastel colors. Then flatten it in the shape of a disc and start rolling it like here.

You should get a 30cm circle in diameter. Now comes the tricky part, I never worked with marzipan before, I think it also depends on the quality of the marzipan you find, if you are a pro you can also make it at home, promise to also try this once. The first time I used a smaller quantity of marzipan and the layer was too thin and it broke, the second time I used more (the quantity specified in the list of ingredients here) and I managed to transfer it to the cake with 2 rolling pins and two pairs of hands :)) then it was a bit tricky to even it on the cake, had some wrinkles but it was fine. So be gentle with yourself if you are like me and did not work with marzipan before. Cut the excess of marzipan off, Then rolled the remaining white marzipan into a 5-6cm wide stripe and about 50cm long, to get that crown shape I used a nozzle to cut it like here. Brush the lower part of the cake, where the crown will be, with a bit of water then carefully attach the crown to it, brush the little crown tips too and gently press them to the cake, decorate with flowers, and enjoy.