Norwegian marzipan cake

Norwegian marzipan cake with marzipan cover and decorations

Birthdaycake made of sponge cake filled with vanilla cream

Spongecake:

8 eggs

400 g sugar

320 g flour

1 teaspoon bakingpowder

160 Celsius degrees  about 30 minutes

Whisk egg and sugar until fluffy and shiny and stiff.

Sift the flour and bakingpowder and blend carefully and softly in.

Pour into a big rectangular baking tray covered by baking paper.

Bake in oven about 30 minutes. Try to not open the oven since the sponge cake easily can "fall down" if getting cold air inside the oven. Try with a toothpick to see when ready. If nothing sticks to the toothpick it is baked enough.

Take out of oven and cool down on a grid.

Filling

Fill the spongecake with vanilla cream. The vanilla cream can be made by ready mix in packages that you just add cold milk to and mix together. Or you can make your own. I usually go with the ready mix. It is fast and easy. Add some whipped cream to the vanilla cream to make it really good. Divide the sponge cake into two and spread the vanillacream evenly on the bottom part. Put the second part on top and put vanilla cream all around the sponge cake. Make it smooth with a knife. For this size of cake you need to make vanilla filling  with about 1 liter milk. Add at least five dl whipped cream.

For the cover you can buy marzipan cover and decorate with or you can make your own. In certain stores even colored marzipan can be bought to make roses and leaves. Or you can color your own with food color. I usually make my own marzipan and color it and make the roses and leaves. This can be bought ready in stores as well. However it is most impressive to make your own.

Homemade marzipan:

500 g almonds grinded in a almond grinder

500 g icing sugar

1 eggwhite

Heat the the almonds and egg whites in i thick bottomed pan on low heat and mix all the time until it becomes a sticky, shiny dough, than take it off and cool and mix the icing sugar in while kneading with your hands until all sugar is in and it is a white soft dough.

When you have made the dough roll out the marzipan cover and put on the cake. Leave some small parts to color for flowers and leaves.

To make flowers and leaves you roll the marzipan to a thin film and cut out the leaves. Flowers can be shaped by cutting half circles with an egg cup for instance and making the roses, adding the halves outside of each other.

"False marzipan"

or:

60 g flour

1 dl cream

3-400 g icing sugar

1 teaspoon tragacanth (can be bought in drugstores/pharmacies, makes the marzipan hold together so it is possible to roll it to a thin cover)

50 g almonds (you can eliminate this and use almond drops instead if afraid of allergies) or just leave it completely)

Heat the cream and the flour in a thick bottomed pan on low heat while all the time stirring. Stir until you have a shiny dough that forms like a ball. Take it off the heat and cool down. Add the icing sugar and tragacanth by kneading the dough by hands. Add icing sugar until the marzipan feels like it can be rolled to a cover and tastes like marzipan. Too little icing sugar it will taste too much flour and not sweet enough.

When you have the wished consistency take some small parts and color with food color for the decorations. The rest roll to make the cover.

When decorated the cake with marzipan. Decorate all around with whipped cream like I have done in the picture, to make it really festive.