Swedish strawberry cake (jordgubbstårta) recipe

It’s fairly typical of most workplaces to have a birthday cake policy to celebrate employees’ birthdays. At some offices, the employers provide the cakes, at others it’s up to the employees to provide their own. At my workplace, our policy is to bring each other cakes. That is, you provide the cake for the person who’s birthday is next after yours. Last year, the rule was reversed and we had to bring a cake for the person who’s birthday was just before yours.

My team is quite full of foodies and most of them can cook, or their partners can. It is rare that we get a store bought cake, and often the buyer is shamed for not producing a homemade variety. All in good humour of course! Lest HR crucifies us for workplace bullying.

I love all the home made cakes. It’s the home made flair and the sometimes slightly unconventional flavours you can get introduced to. Last year I bought in those sago filled cupcakes to freak out my colleagues. I’ve had my eyes opened too. This year it was the jordgubbstårta. The look and the taste had me bugging my colleague to cough up the recipe. Turns out the sponge was store bought and he decorated it! Doh!

Jordgubbstårta is a traditional Swedish strawberry cake. It’s a layered sponge covered with sweetened whipped cream and decorated with strawberries. The fillings between the layers are usually whipped cream, jam, vanilla custard or even almond cream.

Without a home recipe to send me, he did lead me to the recipe posted on kikki.K. This is quite an interesting recipe in that the cake mix doesn’t actually have any fat in it. No butter, no oil. The only liquid comes from the eggs. So I can see why you would layer this cake with cream and jam. Without it, I suspect the cake will be rather dry. With cream smothered all over it though, dryness wasn’t a problem and it’s quite lovely. I’m not sure how traditional kikki.K’s cake batter is, I’m sure there are other versions of the jordgubbstårta sponge. It’s just a matter of finding a good one, or you could always use a basic sponge as well. The problem with finding jordgubbstårta recipes online is that, quite a few of them are in Swedish, and unfortunately my language skills do not extend that far.

As I love to add my own touches, the below recipe is 1 1/2 batches of the kikki.K one because I wanted to achieve 4 layers. Pink food colouring was added to half the batch to enhance the visuals. I also added sliced strawberries to my jam layer.

RECIPE – Swedish strawberry cake (jordgubbstårta)

(Original recipe from kikki.K)

Ingredients:

• 6 eggs
• 1 1/2 cup of icing sugar sifted
• 1 1/2 cup of self raising flour sifted (or 1 1/2 cup of plain flour and 1 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder)
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• couple drops of pink food colouring (optional)

Cake filling:

• 600mL thickened cream
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence (using essence instead of extract for this will keep your cream nice and white)
• ~1/2 cup strawberry jam
• 250g fresh strawberries (~100g of it sliced)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170°C and grease 2 20cm cake tins.
2. Whisk eggs until frothy then gradually add sifted icing sugar.
3. Beat until mixture is pale and thick.
4. Gently mix in flour until just combined.
5. Pour half the batter into 1 of the prepared cake tins.
6. With the remaining batter, add a couple of drops of pink food colouring and mix well.
7. Pour the pink batter into the other cake tin.
8. Bake for ~30 minutes or until the cake springs back when gently pressed (or you can check with an inserted skewer – it’s cooked if the skewer comes out clean).
9. Allow cakes to cool completely before assembly.

Assembly:

1. With a sharp knife, cut both cakes in half to get 4 roughly equal layers.
2. To prepare cream, beat cream until soft peaks are formed. Add vanilla essence and sugar. Continue beating until stiff peaks are formed.
3. Spread a layer of cream onto the first cake layer then place the second cake layer (of different colour) on top.
4. Spread 1/2 cup of jam on the second layer of cake and then cover with sliced strawberries.
5. Place a third layer of cake on top. Spread a layer of cream onto the third layer before covering with fourth layer. It should resemble something like this…and clearly I need to work on getting even layers!
6. Once all layers are on, use a palate knife to cover cake with the remaining cream and decorate with strawberries. Here’s where you can let your creative side cut loose!

This cake looks pretty impressive, especially when cut to reveal the layers, but surprisingly it’s quite easy to make. It’s just a little fiddly cutting the layers into equal portions, I’m still working on that! The cake is light and fairly springy with a great burst of strawberry. Mmm strawberries, cream and a bit of cake in between. It’s a bit hard not liking this little treat. It’s lovely for morning or afternoon tea. My tea party all gave it a resounding thumbs up for looks and tastes.

Tagged: Afternoon tea, Food, Recipes, Sweet things

Posted in: Cakes, MissC cooks, Sweets