Cake or Torte?

« Aleksanterinleivos ( Alexander's Cake ), raspberry jam sandwiched between two layers of shortbread topped with pink confectioners' sugar icing. »

In my search for something different recently, I found a reference to something called "Alexander's Cake" that I hadn't heard of or seen before so I started looking around for a recipe for it. I had to get a bit creative as the original name is "Aleksanterin torttu", but over the years it has been changed to "Aleksanterin leivos" for some reason that only Finnish linguists could explain since the nuance between leivos and torttu is a mystery even to many native speakers.

The cake is basically raspberry jam between two layers of shortbread that is topped with a sweet confectioners' sugar icing. One of the bakeries claim to to be 'Finland's oldest cake' though I'm not certain how they arrived at that conclusion. Perhaps it is the oldest cake named for a famous figure since it is named for the Russian Tsar Alexander I as he allowed Finland to become an autonomous Grand Duchy of Russia in 1809 with the Treaty of Fredrikshamn after the Russians defeated the Swedes. The treaty would later be credited for reviving Finnish culture leading to the Finnish language gaining official equal status. I'm still not sure if the cake is, in fact, a Finnish creation as it appears in Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian cookbooks under the same name, but all of the Baltics were similarly occupied by Russia in the 19th century though it seems less likely that they would have named any of their cakes after a Russian Tsar.

Making the cake is easy as long as you handle the shortbread layers with care as they are dry and reasonably delicate. I can't recommend the strawberry flavoured (a.k.a. pink) confectioners' sugar as though it has the appropriate intense pink colour, the strawberry flavour is rather strong and overwhelms the subtle shortbread and jam.

Aleksanterintortut

Makes: about 16+ servings
Time: about an hour
Source: Kotiruoka

• 200g or 1 3/4 sticks butter, softened
• 1 dl or 0.45 cup superfine sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 4 dl or 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons vanilla or vanilla sugar

filling:

• 2 dl or 3/4 cups raspberry or apple jam, marmalade or puree

frosting:

• 3 dl powdered sugar (pink or regular)
• about 1,5 tablespoons warm water or orange juice
• (tiny amount of red or green food colouring)

Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add egg and mix well. Mix together flour, sugar and baking powder in a small bowl and add gradually to the dough. Place dough in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Pre-heat oven to 175C/350F.

Split dough into two equal parts and press into the bottom of two round 8-9"/20-23cm cake pans lined with baking paper (you can use a third round cake pan to press the dough firmly and smoothly into the bottom of the pans). Bake one at a time for about 15 minutes each. Allow to cool until firm.

Gently place bottom layer of cake onto a serving plate, spread jam on top and carefully lower the second layer onto the jam. Decorate with pink or green coloured frosting. (Wrap a strip of baking paper around the edge of the cake to keep the jam and icing from oozing over the sides if you like.) Place in fridge for about 30 minutes and cut into 16 thin wedges. (Traditionally the cake is rectangular and cut into small squares, but the round cake is easier to deal with and the wedges make it look like a nice cake slice.)