Technical Thursday: Mary's Prinsesstårta

When I first read the recipe for this week's Technical Challenge I really, really hoped it was a joke.

The prospect of making custard, jam, sponge and marzipan from scratch all for a cake I'd never heard of - let alone had any idea how to pronounce properly - seemed all too daunting of a task and completely impossible. It turns out the cake itself certainly isn't impossible, but doing it within the time the contestants were allocated on The Great British Bake Off is ludicrous! Just waiting for the various elements to cool enough to use takes forever, and the constant washing up of bowls and saucepans is a massive faff!

It's no exaggeration: this cake dominated the entire day.

However despite the decades to took to make, this Prisesstårta was an enormous success and looks rather pretty so I don't mind blogging it below!

I don't think I've ever made a European cake before, and definitely never a Swedish Princess Cake. My knowledge of Swedish princesses was limited to Princess Estelle - the future Queen of Sweden and the only royal toddler to rival Prince George in the cuteness stakes. Now, though, I'm well versed in another Swedish princess, the Prinsesstårta.

This recipe can be found online here, in the new GBBO book here, and below with my notes.

Ingredients:

For the vanilla custard:
600ml milk
1 vanilla pod, split open lengthways
6 free-range egg yolks
100g caster sugar
50g cornflour
50g unsalted butter
600ml double cream

For the jam:
200g raspberries
175g jam sugar
2 tablespoons water

For the sponge:
4 large free-range eggs
150g caster sugar
75g cornflour
75g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
50g unsalted butter, melted

For the marzipan:
400g ground almonds
150g caster sugar
250g icing sugar, sifted
2 medium free-range eggs, beaten to mix
1 teaspoon almond extract
green paste food colouring

To decorate:
150ml double cream
50g dark chocolate, melted

For the fondant rose:
25g pink ready-to-roll fondant icing (I think on this occasion, shop-bought is acceptable…)

Method:

First, make the vanilla custard. Pour the milk into a large, heavy-based saucepan. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod and add to the pan with the pod. Heat gently until just simmering, then remove from the heat.

Whisk the yolks with the sugar and cornflour in a bowl until light and creamy.

Remove and discard the vanilla pod from the warm milk, and pour over the egg mixture, stirring. Return the mixture to the pan and cook over a low heat, whisking constantly, for 4-5 minutes until the custard starts to thicken and the whisk leaves a trail.

Remove from the heat and beat in the butter.

Transfer to a bowl and cover with cling film to prevent a skin forming. Once cool chill in the fridge.

Now turn to the jam. Tip the raspberries into a medium-sized pan and add the sugar and the water. Cook over a low heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved.

Bring to the boil and boil vigorously for about 4 minutes until the temperature reaches 104C on a sugar thermometer (I don't have one so used my Thermapen), or setting point. Transfer to a heatproof bowl and leave to cool and set.

For the sponge, heat the oven to 180C / 350F / gas 4. Put the eggs and sugar into a large bowl and whisk together using an electric mixer until the mixture is very pale and thick, and leaves a ribbon-like trail on the surface when the whisk is lifted out. This will take about 5 minutes.

Sift the cornflour, flour and baking powder over the mixture and carefully fold in using a large metal spoon or plastic spatula.

Fold in the melted butter, taking care not to over-mix.

Pour the mixture into a greased and base-lined 23cm spring clip tin and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes until the sponge is golden and has just started to shrink away from the side of the tin.

Remove from the oven and set on a heatproof surface. When cool enough to handle turn out the sponge on to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

Now make the fondant rose. I couldn't find pink fondant icing on such short notice, so made do with plain white icing and red gel food colouring to turn it the right colour! I also hate using food colouring, hence the gloves...

Dust 2 small pieces of greaseproof paper with icing sugar. Divide the icing into 10 little pieces and roll each into a small ball about the size of a cherry stone. One at a time, place the balls of icing between the sheets of greaseproof (sugar side in) and flatten with your fingers to a thin circle about 2cm in diameter. These will be the petals.

Roll one petal up like a sausage to form a rose. Curl the petal edges, to make them look more realistic. Dry for at least 1 hour.

Once the custard, jam and sponge are cool, start to assemble the cake. Using a serrated knife cut the sponge horizontally into 3 equal layers.

Place the first sponge layer on a temporary serving plate. Spread a very thin layer of vanilla custard over the sponge. Spoon a quarter of the remaining vanilla custard into a piping bag fitted with a plain nozzle and pipe a border around the edge of the sponge - this is to contain the jam.

Spoon the jam over the sponge, and spread evenly within the piped border.

Whip 300ml of the double cream to firm peaks. Fold the cream into the remaining vanilla custard. If the mixture is too sloppy then pop it in the fridge to firm up slightly before using (I had to do this). Spread a third of this creamy mixture over the jam.

Place the second sponge layer on top and spread the remaining creamy vanilla custard over it. Set the third sponge on top.

Transfer the cake to your serving plate/stand.

Whip the remaining 300ml of double cream and spread it around the edges and on the top to form a dome. I didn't have enough to make a dome which was really annoying, so had to quickly whip another 200ml to add the the top. It's not exactly dome shaped, but at least there's a bit of a curve! I'd have added more cream, but by this stage I'd even used my mum's emergency stash and had absolutely none left in the house. Chill in the fridge for an hour.

Meanwhile make the marzipan. Mix the ground almonds and 2 sugars in a free standing electric mixer fitted with the dough hook. Add the eggs and almond extract and knead in a bowl to make a stiff dough.

Turn out onto a worktop dusted with icing sugar. Add a tiny amount of green food colouring and knead into the marzipan to tint it an even pastel colour. Roll out the marzipan on the sugar-dusted worktop to a circle about 40cm in diameter, or large enough to cover the cake completely. Lift the marzipan up over the cake, and using your hands shape the marzipan around the size of the cake to get a smooth finish. Trim off any excess marzipan.

Whip the 150ml double cream for decoration to medium peaks. Spoon into a piping bag fitted with a star tube. Pipe around the base of the cake.

Melt the chocolate until smooth them leave to cool. Spoon the chocolate into a piping bag and pipe rings over the top of the cake.

Finish with the fondant rose.

Please excuse my terrible piping - I seriously need to work on that some time soon! I'm fine up to a point, then it all goes a bit wrong and looks really, really shoddy!

Despite the millennium it took to make this, I'm super impressed with how it turned out! Given the fact that I'd never made jam, a genoise sponge or marzipan, nor had I ever attempted to mould fondant into a rose (or any other flower for that matter) before, I'm not too bothered that it looks a little uneven and all over the place. I'd have preferred it to look a little more professional and for the dome to be more uniform, but given the circumstances I can't really complain!

With regards to the layers, the top one was a bit of a disaster… My sponge rose enormously in the oven only to shrink rather sadly when removed. As a result when cutting it into three layers the top was unfortunately very thin. In future, I'd take more care to make them all a bit more even.

This has to be the hardest challenge yet for me. I found the recipe really easy to follow - it seems daunting at first given the quantity of ingredients and ridiculous number of steps, but it's actually quite simple. However, my total lack of experience with virtually every skill required made it a lot more stressful than it needed to be!

As far as feedback goes, this is the highest rated cake I think I've ever made. I haven't tried any myself and I'm so frustrated that I can't sample a small slice to see what all the fuss is about! From what I can tell though, this is going to be a recipe to archive and make again in a few months time!

Let me know what you think of my Prinsesstårta in the comments below and do say if you've tried this - or other European bakes - too: I'm always on the look out for feedback and inspiration!