Just make a cake

« A lakkakermakakku or cream cake with a cloudberry gelée on top. A traditional Finnish heartstopper of a dessert, the cream cake comes in many forms with many different berry toppings but all feature a generous dose of sweetened cream. »

If there is one cake you are most likely to see on the celebration table in Finland, it is a cake under a mound of whipped cream topped with a fruit gelée. The first time I laid eyes on one of these cream cakes I had to stop and stare much like I did when I first saw the vats of butter mixed with fish roe and chopped egg on the ferry to Stockholm; foods of a completely alien nature. A sweet cake layered with berry jam and cream, iced with a thick coating of cream topped with a berry gelée, the cream cake is basically a sweetened heavy cream transport protocol.

We celebrated my father-in-law's 60th birthday on Sunday and Jarkko asked me to make a cake. Coercing a type or genre of cake out of him was something of a challenge. "Well, he likes all kinds of cake." "Can you be more specific? Sweet or chocolate? Berries? Does he have a favourite? What?" Hours pass. After a bit more interrogation, we settled on the berry-cream cake. Finding a recipe for it though became something of an adventure since classics tend to have a wide array of variation and many of the recipes didn't match the cakes I've seen in the bakeries and frozen foods section at the market. I also suspect that the more modern cookbooks have shunned such classics both for their seeming banal ubiquity and for the payload of billions of grams of fat they tend to carry. I suspect, too, that food snobs judge the worthiness of a dish by how complicated the recipe is or its perceived exoticness by comparison to the local fare. Classic home cooking can be sophisticated and simple at the same time without the need for a large kitchen and a food stylist.

I decided to improvise given the lack of a clear recipe mandate. The basic cake is usually a dry sponge cake made with 4 eggs, sugar and flour that is then moistened with a heavy dose of apple juice that makes for a tough cake paired with soft cream that I generally find unsatisfying since it's like eating cream on a chewy cracker. I wanted something similar, but moist and not overwhelmingly sweet. I decided to go with a really easy plain white layer cake. The recipe calls for cake flour which is a flour with a 6-8% protein content and, in spite of the 'erikois' flour here with pictures of cakes on the packaging, it just doesn't exist in Finland (a good explanation of Finnish flours). Supposedly you can substitute by using 3/4 cup sifted all-purpose flour and 2 tablespoons of cornstarch for every cup of cake flour called for in the recipe. I've not tried this though. I used the 'erikois' flour with a 12% protein content and it worked reasonably well.

The white cake is more rich than the dry sponge, but its texture goes better with the cream and I used less cream for frosting to compensate for the richness of the cake. If you search with google for images of "vadelmakermakakku", you'll get an idea of the extreme density that the cream frosting is usually applied. The photo of the marja-kermakakku from Kotiruoka shows the decorated cream cake with strawberries, sliced kiwi and meringue cookies along with the whipped cream icing. A lot of these cakes tend to be a bit overly done in the decoration department with added sweets that really aren't necessary on an already rather sweet cake. Simple is sublime.

I used 3 round cake pans that I keep around for making layer cakes. I can't recommend baking this cake in one pan and slicing it as it is a very soft and delicate cake. Round cake pans are cheap, less than 8 euros each even in Helsinki, so buy a set of 2 or 3 identical round layer pans and you'll be set. When assembling the cake, you can opt to either make the whole amount of whipped cream and refrigerate the remainder while waiting for the gelée to set, or just whip a third of the cream for the layers and the 'glue' and prepare the remainder when you're ready to ice the cake. Since I let the cake set overnight and iced it in the morning, I opted for the latter so adjust your timing accordingly as needed. There are some who prefer to use 'stabilized' whipped cream for icing, meaning that it is whipped with gelatin or cornstarch, and, unless you're going to be keeping this cake around for a few days you really shouldn't need to use any stabilizers as long as you use good cream and keep the cake refrigerated.

I opted for using cloudberries, but raspberry and strawberry are likely the most commonly found varieties of the cake, especially when they are in season. Cloudberry is not very common outside of northern climes so feel free to swap cloudberries for raspberries, cranberries, etc. and a complementary juice for the gelée. Fresh whole fruit, jam or purée can be used between the cake layers along with the cream. Just think of the cake as cream transport with a bit of cake and berries tossed in for texture. :)

Lakkakermakakku / Cloudberry Cream Cake

Makes: 1 9in/23cm cake
Tools needed: 2-3 round cake pans, baking paper
Time: Prep, about 40 mins, total, 3-5 hours depending on refrigeration time

White Cake Layers

• 2 1/4 cups or 5,50 dl cake flour, plus more for dusting the pans
• 1 cup or 2,35 dl whole milk, at room temperature
• 6 large egg whites, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons almond extract 
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla sugar
• 1 3/4 cups or 4,25 dl granulated sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder 
• 1 teaspoon table salt 
• 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) or 170g unsalted butter, softened but still cool and cut into small chunks

Layers and frosting

• Lakka/cloudberry jam or 2-3dl of fresh berries
• 2 cups or 5 dl whipping cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
• almond slivers or crushed almonds for decorating (optional)

Gelée

• 2 dl or 3/4 cup cloudberries
• 2 dl or 3/4 cup pure fruit juice, e.g. apple, grapefruit
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 3 2g sheets gelatin

1. For the Cake: Set oven rack in middle position. (If oven is too small to cook both layers on a single rack, set racks in upper-middle and lower-middle positions.) Heat oven to 350F/175C degrees. Butter two or three 9-inch/23cm round cake pans, line the bottoms with baking paper. Grease the baking paper, dust the pans with flour, invert pans and rap sharply to remove excess flour. (The pan prep isn't excessive. These cakes will stick to teflon.)
2. Pour milk, egg whites, and extracts into small bowl and mix with fork until blended.
3. Mix cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in bowl of electric mixer at slow speed. Add butter; continue beating at slow speed until mixture resembles moist crumbs, with no powdery streaks remaining.
4. Add all but 1/2 cup(1 dl) of milk mixture to crumbs and beat at medium speed (or high speed if using handheld mixer) for 1 1/2 minutes. Add remaining milk to mixture and beat 30 seconds more. Stop mixer and scrape sides of bowl. Return mixer to medium (or high) speed and beat 20 seconds longer. (The addition of the milk makes the mixture a bit gloopy so be careful of splashing batter.)
5. Divide batter evenly between the prepared cake pans; using rubber spatula, spread batter to pan walls and smooth tops. Arrange pans at least 3 inches from the oven walls and 3 inches apart. (If oven is small, place pans on separate racks in staggered fashion to allow for air circulation.) Bake until thin skewer or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 15 to 25 minutes.
6. Let cakes rest in pans for 3 minutes. Loosen from sides of pans with a knife, if necessary, and invert onto cooling racks covered with baking paper. Let cool completely, about 1 1/2 hours.
7. Assembling: Soak the gelatin sheets in a bowl cool water. Microwave the apple juice until it is piping hot. Dissolve the gelatin and sugar in the apple juice and quickly cool by placing juice bowl in an ice/cold water bath. When it is cool enough to touch, add cloudberries, reserving a few whole berries for decorative placement. Place in refrigerator while assembling the cake.
8. Fill large mixing bowl with ice water and place beaters in with the ice water. Once chilled, drain ice water and dry bowl and beaters thoroughly. Add cream, sugar and vanilla to the bowl and mix on low-medium speed for about 30 seconds and increasing the speed to medium until the cream begins to thicken. Increase the speed to high and continue until the cream has doubled in volume. Stop when the cream forms soft peaks. You can also stop using the electric mixer once it has doubled in volume and continue with a whisk until it has the right texture. Just don't overbeat the cream as it will have a bumpy, unappealing look when you ice the cake with it. Place the first cake layer on a plate and spread a thin layer of jam topped with a layer of cream. If you use fresh berries instead of jam, apply a layer of cream and cover with berries and add a small amount more cream to keep the next cake layer in place. Cover with another cake layer and repeat application of jam and cream. Cover with the third and last layer. Place the bowl of whipped cream into a cold refrigerator until you are ready to ice the cake.
9. Take a piece of baking paper long enough to run the circumference of the cake. Trim so that it projects about 3cm above the top of the cake. Apply a thin layer of cream to the outer edge of the top cake layer and wrap the paper around the cake, securing it with the cream. Check the cloudberry gelatin mixture and wait until it has begun to set a little bit before pouring it onto the top of the cake. When it has reached a good consistency, pour gently onto top of the cake, taking care that it doesn't break through the baking paper/cream seal, smooth evenly and carefully with a spatula, add whole berries in a decorative pattern and place cake into the refrigerator for a few hours for the gelatin to become firm.
10. Remove cake from refrigerator, peel away the baking paper and begin by icing the edges of the cake with an icing spatula. Pipe a border of cream along the bottom and top edges, add almonds around the sides of the cake or other decoration as desired, and place in the refrigerator until time to serve.