“Cake is happiness! If you know the way of the cake, you know the way of happiness! If you have a cake in front of you, you should not look any further for joy!”
C. JoyBell C.
Swedish Prinsesstårta Cupcakes … the best BEST cake we’ve eaten of late. Perfect balance of flavours, moist, flavourful, addictive good, non chocolate … PERFECT! It’s been a while since I enjoyed a Daring Bakers challenge so immensely. Everything was good about it. I have to admit that I veered off the basic recipe … but need to blame the treacherous North Indian summer for that!!
Come May and I got a very excited call from local DB Ruchira. “Guess what the challenge is? A Princess Cake! Wheee… I love it!” I was equally thrilled. A Princess cake is junior teens most favourite cake of all time. Years ago I did a recipe testing for Helene of Tartlette which included a Bavarian cream. That was a princess cake of sorts.
To date, it’s been the best ever cake for the kidlet. He repeatedly tells me how good ‘that Bavarian cream‘ was! Talk about love for food and good taste. Everything Helene does has the midas touch. The months challenge was partly inspired by her recipe.
Korena of Korena in the Kitchen was our May Daring Bakers’ host and she delighted us with this beautiful Swedish Prinsesstårta!
A little research revealed that the original recipe was created in the 1930s by a Swedish home economics teacher named Jenny Åkerström, who taught the three Swedish princesses of the time. She published a series of four cookbooks called “The Princess Cookbooks” and in one of the editions, there was a recipe for “Grön Tårta” (green cake). One story is that this later became known as “princess cake” (prinsesstårta) because the three princesses are said to have loved it so much.
Another story is that Ms. Åkerström actually created three very elaborate “princess cake” recipes – a different one for each princess – and that the current version is a simplified combination of all three. That explains the princess connection, but the reason for the cake being green still seems to be a mystery.
I got to the challenge very very late. It was the 25th already. And the weather? Hot as hot can be, threatening to get worse by the minute! It was 46C at 6pm day before. Fry the eggs on the sidewalk hot, maybe bake the poor princess there too! Plans for a Princess cake were rapidly demolished. 
Yet I am very nostalgic about the Daring Bakers, a journey that has been long and fruitful. I have been with them for 5 years maybe, and it’s the only baking group I have continued with. I owe them most of what I’ve learnt. The journeys been full of ultimate highs, and a few heartbreaks too; entirely memorable.
Besides, the challenge this month was not just one of being a ‘baker‘. Bakers as you know double up quite often as patisserie chefs too. A finger in every pie, and so on! It was a test of skills at many different levels. I had to make something. That came by way of these sweet Princess Cupcakes that I’ve had bookmarked for years! {I baked the cupcakes the previous evening and completed them at the crack of dawn. You can find a few grainy pictures taken in a hurry to guide you through}
The components are quite the same. There is cake, pastry cream, whipped cream, jam and marzipan. A petite version in this blistering heat which hitting 48C is much easier to handle. I had some balsamic cherries from the two ingredient dark chocolate mousse. Cherries make life a lot more worthwhile.
The Swedish Prinsesstårta Cupcakes turned out excellent. The cupcakes are layered about the same way as you would a Swedish Prinsesstårta. In 20 minutes, spared of a power cut, I was past stage one. Cupcakes done! While they baked, the pastry cream was stirred in the Thermomix. 7 minutes to perfect pastry cream!
I made the pastry cream a little thicker as it’s so hot. I didn’t get to the marzipan though I have made it several times in the past. It was far too hot to attempt marzipan from scratch. A special gift from my dear friend and Daring Baker Finla came to my rescue. She sent me marzipan with a truckload of stuff a few months ago. I use it very sparingly and was thrilled to have some on hand for the princess cupcakes.
This was the best part! Such fun dressing the little ones up. I did the flowers and leaves out of trimmings and it reminded me of my first and only fondant cake, the Tea Rose Fondant Cake, I made a while ago. The cupcakes were patched together on fast track as everything threatened to melt. The end result isn’t as neat as I would have liked it to be, but the marzipan was going too soft.
Thank you Korena was such a beautiful and eye opening challenge. I intend to make the priginal Swedish Prinsesstårta once the weather gets cooler. Thank you as always Lisa of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice for hosting this fab kitchen!! Do stop by here and check out some more royalty!
Recipe: Swedish Prinsesstårta Cupcakes 
Summary: Swedish Prinsesstårta Cupcakes… the best BEST cake we’ve eaten of late. Perfect balance of flavours, moist, flavourful, addictive good, non chocolate … PERFECT! Recipe adapted from The Cookie Shop. Makes 5 cupcakes
Prep Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 40 minutes Ingredients:
- Vanilla Cupcakes {can be made up to 2 days ahead}
- 100g all purpose flour
- 85g sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 50g – room temp. and cut in pieces
- 1 egg
- 80g milk
- 1/2 vanilla bean
- Pastry Cream {can be made 1 day ahead. Only less than half quantity needed}
- 200ml low fat/single cream
- 50ml milk
- 1 egg
- 50g sugar
- 12g cornstarch
- 1/2 vanilla bean
- 20g butter
- Filling
- 1/2 recipe pastry cream
- 200ml low fat cream chilled
- 1-2 tsp sugar
- Rum syrup
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 teaspoon rum
- For assembling
- 5 vanilla cupcakes
- 1/2 cup pastry cream
- sugar syrup
- low fat cream, chilled
- 1/2 cup balsamic cherries {1/2 portion chopped fine}
- 300g marzipan approx
- food coloring
- confectioners sugar
Method:
- Vanilla cupcakes
- Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line 5 cups of a muffin pan, or 5 individual muffin tins with paper liners.
- Place milk, egg and 1/2 scraped vanilla bean in a small bowl. Whisk to mix with fork.
- Place flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in bowl of electric mixer and pulse to mix.
- Add the butter pieces to the flour mixture and process briefly until it resembles coarse meal {the larger pieces should be the size of peas}.
- With the processor on medium speed, add the milk mixture in three additions, and beat only until incorporated.
- Distribute the batter evenly in the prepared tins. Bake for approximately 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the cupcakes.
- Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before proceeding with the assembling.
- Pastry cream
- In a small saucepan over medium heat, heat milk and cream just until it simmers.
-
In a small bowl, whisk together egg and sugar until light and fluffy. Add cornstarch and continue whisking until smooth.
-
Slowly pour the hot milk/cream mixture into the egg mixture. Whisk until completely smooth and free of lumps. Return the mixture to the saucepan, and place over medium heat. Bring the mixture to a boil, whisking constantly, and cook for another 2 minutes, or until it thickens. Remove from heat and add the butter, whisking well to incorporate.
-
Thermomix : Place all ingredients in bowl of TM. Pulse at speed 6 to mix for 10 seconds. Then cook at speed 4, 90 C for 9 minutes.
- Remove the pastry cream to a bowl. Place a sheet of plastic wrap directly on top of the pastry cream to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate until ready to use.
- Syrup
- Place water and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Remove from heat and add the rum if using. Let cool completely before using or refrigerating.
- Marzipan
- Divide the marzipan into 5 portions.
- Mix the marzipan with the 4 different coloring and knead until the color is uniform. Leave one natural off-white. If it gets sticky, sprinkle a little confectioner’s sugar. Wrap with plastic.
- Assembling
- Cut off the domed tops of the cupcakes, and peel off thee liners.
- Invert cakes and cut into 3 layers.
- Whisk the cream and sugar until soft peaks form.
- Brush the layers with sugar syrup.
- Over removable bottoms of tartlet tins, start assembling the cupcake layers.
- first, a very thin layer of chopped balsamic cherries {or jam/preserve}
- over the jam, a teaspoon whipped cream;
- cake + syrup;
- a teaspoon of pastry cream;
- last layer of cake + syrup;
- Place a few cherries on top to help build the ‘dome’ if you like.
- Whip the remaining cream with the remaining pastry cream.
- Cover the whole cupcake with whipped pastry cream, trying to make the rounder the top you can. Refrigerate while you complete the next.
- Over a working surface, sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar, roll out the marzipan.
- Put the rolled out marzipan over the cake making sure to cover the entire cake and cardboard. When finished, some marzipan should drape onto the work surface all around the cupcake. There will be folds on the sides. To remove them lift the outside edge of the marzipan with a hand on either side of a fold and, without tearing or stretching, gently pull the marzipan out and down until the fold disappears. {It was too hot for me to attempt this}. Trim any extra marzipan and reserve for flowers etc.
- Stamp out flowers, leaves and stems from the trimmed marzipan and place on cupcakes.
- Sift a little confectioner’s sugar over the cakes and transfer to the serving dishes or cake stand.
- Note: These are best eaten the same day they are assembled.
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Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India 
Savarins. It was the 
I settled for both. Peanut butter frosting to sandwich the cake, and dark chocolate ganache for the top. It felt safe. I left a single slice for the lad, muttering that I made something in a hurry and he could have it if he wished. 
