Swedish · Dessert
Prinsesstårta
- Advanced
- 75 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, a floral thread lifting the aroma, closing toasted and warm.
Ingredients
- 4 eggs
- 150 g caster sugar
- 100 g plain flour
- 50 g potato starch
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 300 ml whole milk
- 3 egg yolks
- 60 g caster sugar for the custard
- 25 g cornflour
- 1 vanilla pod, split
- 600 ml double cream, very cold
- 100 g raspberry jam
- 400 g marzipan, 60 percent almond
- green food colouring
- icing sugar, for rolling and dusting
The skills inside
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg · nuts
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Whisk the eggs and sugar until pale and thick enough that a drizzled figure of eight sits on the surface for three seconds before sinking.
- Sift the flour, potato starch and baking powder over in three additions and fold by cutting down and turning, stopping the moment the streaks vanish; bake in a 22 cm tin at 175C (350F) for 30 minutes, until the centre springs back. 30 min
- Whisk the milk, yolks, custard sugar, cornflour and vanilla over medium heat to a boil and hold it bubbling a full minute, until it thickens and loses any floury taste; spread thin and chill under film.
- Split the cooled sponge into three; jam on the first layer, the beaten cold custard on the second, then whip the cream firm and build a tall smooth dome over the top layer, and chill until it is hard.
- Roll the coloured marzipan to 3 mm between icing sugared sheets, wide enough to reach the board with 5 cm spare, then drape it from the crown and smooth downward, driving the air out ahead of your palms.
- Trim flush at the base, dust with icing sugar and finish with a marzipan rose.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Tempering a custard 59 recipes
- The hot liquid went into the eggs a little at a time with constant whisking, and only then did everything go back to the pot.
- The heat under it stayed gentle throughout and it was never allowed to boil.
- Stirred continuously and right into the corners of the pan, where it thickens first and sets unnoticed.
- Judged by behaviour: it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon and hold a clean line when a finger is drawn through it.
- Taken off before it looks finished, and strained. Residual heat carries it the rest of the way, and a custard held on the heat until it looks right arrives past right.
Where it goes wrong The hot liquid went in too fast, or the pot went back over full heat to save time. The yolks set into threads before they could thicken smoothly, and a scrambled custard does not come back; straining hides a little of it and nothing hides the rest.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Sauternes
- Also Right
- Demi-sec Champagne
- From the Taps
- Belgian tripel
- Zero-Proof
- Jasmine tea
The sweetness rule is absolute: the pour must be sweeter than the plate, and acid keeps it from cloying.
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