The Princess cake-Quadruple Chocolate delight

'Every Girl is a Princess to her Father and mother'

The Princess cake or rather The Swedish Prinsesstårta cake couldn't have been challenged at a better time by Korena, our host for this months Daring Baker's. 24th of May was our darling daughter Vaanya's second birthday and this cake was destined to be made for the grand day. Very frankly, one look onto the components and assembly of this cake scares you a lot but this cake is a lot simpler and is an amazing experience to remember for a long time. 

This cake was originally created in the 1930's by a Swedish home economics teacher named Jenny Åkerström, who taught the three Swedish princesses of the time. This was called the Princess cake as it was loved by them a lot. Originally it has layers of light sponge cake, raspberry jam, and vanilla custard/pastry cream, topped with a mound of fluffy whipped cream, covered in green marzipan, and garnished with a marzipan rose.

As this cake was meant for my daughter's(My princess's)birthday I was in no mood to experiment with the flavours. Therefore Chocolate it was for me!! And I love the way Korena called it a Quadruple Chocolate delight!!

Here is the Princess and her cake!

This certainly was not an easy cake to make in terms of the number of components, so I decided to start it all a day before. The assembly took place on the final day, which took me a lot of time because of the unbearable heat and humidity in our part of the world. Plus I was dealing with very heat vulnerable stuff like whipped cream and custard which kept melting away. The homemade marzipan was the worst to handle, it kept breaking and the more I rolled the more stickier it got and the more icing sugar it required!! Not to mention it did not turn out as smooth as the bought one. 

All these problems were washed up in one instance when the cake was brought out for cutting. The collective Wow's by my family made me feel so proud of the attempt. The cake was cut and I rushed to take a pic and while I did so, with my guests waiting very patiently, all the cream and custard melted away!!! So no pretty pics to show you all. The cake was collectively declared a Winner and the best cake I have ever made! Phew! The marzipan was too sweet and heavy for them to handle and it all got collected  on the sides of the plate but the cake was literally polished off with everyone asking for another helping.

My melting layers

Chocolate sponge: I followed my tried and tested chocolate cake recipe 

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar(powdered)
• 1 3/4 cups refined flour
• 3/4 cups cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 cup boiling water

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius. Grease and line a 9" round baking tin.

Take a bowl and mix sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla essence. Mix well so all the ingredients are well incorporated. Stir in boiling water (do not worry about lumps) The batter will be quite thin. 

Pour the batter in the prepared tin.

Bake for 40 mins or till a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool the cake on a rack.

Chocolate Ganache:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup dark chocolate, chopped
• 1/4 cup cream 

Procedure:
Bring cream to a boil and pour on the chopped chocolate. Whisk well so that it mixes well and keep aside.

Chocolate Custard:

Ingredients :

• 4 tbsp of Vanilla custard powder
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup cream
• 3 tbsp Sugar(or to taste)

Procedure:
Add milk and cream to a saucepan and bring it to a boil. Add sugar and let it dissolve. 
Take custard powder in a bowl and add little cold milk/water to make a paste.
Add this in a stream to the boiling milk and cream mixture. Stir well and let it thicken.
If required add more custard powder, dissolved in cold milk/water.
Remove from heat and allow to cool.
Refrigerate till further use.

Chocolate whipped cream:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 1/2 cup chopped chocolate, chopped

Procedure:
Boil cream in a saucepan. Add this to the bowl of chopped chocolate, stir well. 
Allow to cool to room temperature.
Refrigerate for further use(at least 2 hours) 

Marzipan:

Ingredients:

• 100 gms ground almonds
• 200 gms icing sugar
• 1/4 cup corn syrup(I substituted with liquid glucose
• 1 tbsp lemon juice or water

Procedure:
If using whole almonds, blanch them in boiling water for a minute and strain them. Rub off their skin and dry them in a kitchen towel. Dry heat them on low flmae very carefully to remove any moisture. Allow to cool and make a fine powder with little sugar in a mixer.
Place ground almonds and icing sugar in a bowl and combine them. Add liquid glucose and lemon juice and knead to a smooth ball. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate till used.

 

Assembly:

Whip the heavy cream to stiff peaks. Refrigerate till required.

Slice the chocolate cake in three layers and set aside the middle layer for the dome.

Place one layer of cake on a cake board(I used the lid of my plastic container and wrapped it with aluminium foil) 

Spread the chocolate ganache on it (If it has thickened a lot, warm in the microwave for 10-15 secs)

Put in the freezer for 5-10 mins to set.

Spread half of the chocolate custard.

Freeze again for 10-15 mins for it to set.

Place another layer of the cake and spread the remaining chocolate custard on it.

Freeze again till set.(Notice I required a lot of freezing because of the extreme heat and humidity)

Reserve half a cup of the whipped cream and pile the rest into a mound on top of the custard layer.

Shape it in a dome.

Place the final layer of cake on top of the whipped cream. Do not press on top of the cake. Refrigerate for 10-15 mins.

Spread the remaining cream onto the entire cake and the sides. Refrigerate again till required.

Mix some brown food colouring to a large part of the marzipan, reserving little for the decorations.

Dust your work surface with some icing sugar and roll out the brown marzipan enough to cover the entire cake. With the help of a rolling pin, gently cover the cake with the marzipan. Trim excess. Refrigerate the cake.

Make three portions with the remaining marzipan and add red, yellow and orange food colours. Roll out the yello marzipan and with a knife shape a Tiara. Make small balls with the orange marzipan and put as gems on the tiara. Roll out some pink marzipan and cut a heart shape and put in the center of the tiara. 

Roll out pink and orange marzipans and cut round shape for the polka dots and put on the cake.

Roll out some yellow marzipan and cut out a banner. Write message on it with a toothpick dipped in food colour.

Make small balls from the leftover pink, yellow and orange marzipans and put them around the cake at the botttom. 

The lone survivor Piece of the cake

The Tiara for the little Princess

 Happy Princess cake eating
Amrita