Norwegian & Icelandic · Dessert
Vínarterta
- Advanced
- 60 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with warm spice humming through the middle, richness that coats and comforts, closing toasted and warm.
Ingredients
- 400 g pitted prunes
- 300 ml water
- 100 g caster sugar, for the filling
- 2 g ground cardamom (1 tsp), for the filling
- 15 ml lemon juice (1 tbsp)
- 200 g unsalted butter, softened
- 200 g caster sugar, for the dough
- 1 egg
- 45 ml whole milk
- 5 ml almond extract (1 tsp)
- 4 g ground cardamom (2 tsp), freshly ground, for the dough
- 400 g plain flour
- 4 g baking powder (1 tsp)
- 3 g fine salt
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
- Simmer the prunes in the water for 20 minutes until collapsing, then blend with the 100 g sugar, 1 tsp cardamom and lemon juice to a paste thick enough to hold a clean line when a spoon is drawn through it. If it is loose, return it to the pan and cook it down over a low heat, stirring, until the spoon leaves a clean line. Cool completely. 20 min
- Cream the butter and 200 g sugar, beat in the egg, milk, almond extract and 2 tsp cardamom, then work in the flour, baking powder and salt to a stiff dough. Divide into 6, wrap and chill 1 hour. 60 min
- Roll each piece on baking paper to a 20 cm round about 4 mm thick, trimming against an upturned plate, and bake at 180C (350F) for 9 minutes to 11 minutes until the edges are just tan and the middle is dry. Cool the rounds flat. 9 min
- Stack the layers with about 110 g of prune paste spread thinly and right to the edge of each, pressing gently so nothing bulges out, and leave the top layer bare.
- Wrap the whole torte tightly in baking paper and then foil and leave it somewhere cool for at least 3 days before slicing it thinly with a serrated knife.
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.
Creaming butter & sugar 28 recipes
- The butter started at the right temperature: it took a fingerprint and held its shape, neither greasy and slumping nor hard from the fridge.
- It has visibly paled, from yellow towards near-white, and grown in volume, and getting there took minutes rather than seconds.
- The texture is light and aerated: a spoonful is fluffy and holds a soft peak rather than sitting dense on the spoon.
- Rubbed between finger and thumb it is still faintly gritty with undissolved sugar, and not slick or oily.
- It is one homogeneous cream: not split, slackened, or separating into a greasy mass with liquid running out of it.
Where it goes wrong The butter was too warm, or it was beaten well past its point, so the fat softened and gave up the air it had taken: the mixture goes slack and oily and the cake bakes dense and greasy with a sunken middle.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Moscato d’Asti
- Also Right
- Late-harvest Riesling
- From the Taps
- Witbier
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling elderflower
Citrus desserts need a wine sweeter than they are, with acid enough to keep up: light, frothy, and low-proof wins.
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