toscakake

I have been on a toscakake baking binge lately, ever since my mom made it for a small family gathering in Innvik this summer and Judge fell in love.

This cake is deliciously simple to make as well as eat, and though a regular affair in Norway and Sweden (there's a bit of uncertainty as to in which of those countries this cake originated...and to be honest it doesn't much matter now does it), it has never been seen, eaten or heard of here in Taiwan.

My baking equipment here isn't quite up to par when compared to what I had to play with in Norway, but that doesn't stop this cake-making monster. It also helps that the recipe is very forgiving.

The original recipe calls for a schwackload of sugar, which I have conveniently reduced. I'm not quite sure where my mom copied the recipe from, so I cannot pay homage to the originator. But I can include a picture of the hand-written-down recipe at least:

In English we get the following (with added explanations by me):

Cake base:

• 2 eggs
• 200 ml sugar (I use about 75 ml light brown sugar)
• 50 g butter
• 100 ml milk
• 200 ml flour
• 2 tsp baking powder (I know this seems like a lot, but I think it may be necessary due to the melted butter...? I'm no baking expert, so this is something I will be looking into and experimenting with)

Topping:

• 100 g chopped almonds (I use about 300 ml whole, then chop them)
• 100 g butter
• 100 g sugar (I use about 65 ml light brown sugar)
• 1 Tbsp flour
• 2 Tbsp milk

Instructions:

1. Beat eggs and sugar into an eggnog consistency, about 8-10 min or until it changes to a lighter color and takes about 1 sec to drip off the beater when you raise it out of the mix
2. Melt the butter and then add the milk to the pot
3. Pour the butter and milk mix into the 'eggnog' and mix gently (or pour it in a slow stream while you still have the beater going)
4. Gently sift and stir in the flour and baking powder
5. Pour into 8" round cake pan, where the bottom has been buttered and dusted with flour
6. Place in pre-heated oven (170 degrees C) and bake for 30-40 min, until the cake springs back when you gently press down and the cake has begun to release itself from the sides of the pan

While the cake is baking:

1. Place all the topping ingredients into a saucepan and bring to a boil so you can mix it good
2. Pour mixture over the cake and distribute evenly, then place back into oven and bake for an additional 20 min. or until the top layer is browned (do not over-bake...and do not burn...obviously)

Brew up a nice cup of tea or coffee and enjoy (after it has cooled a bit and you have removed it from the pan)!

This cake is quite moist (thanks to the 'eggnog' step as well as the masses of butter), and the moistness holds nicely even if you freeze it and thaw it later, as long as you wrap it in plastic.

AND it tastes good warm and cold.

I've had to make some adjustments as my oven is a small portable one, and my cake pans are actually bread pans. However, there are two sets of 6-cup muffin tins as well as two round spring-form cake pans in the mail (yay!), and so I will have to make the cake a few more times to find the best baking times using the muffin tins as well as the cake pans.

Also, our egg-beater hand-held mixer contraption just arrived in the mail today, so I have yet to try actually beating the eggs and sugar to an eggnog consistency. Up until now I have just used a hand-wisk and beat it for 2-3 minutes...it still comes out nice.

My mother-in-law is so excited about this cake she wants to make it for Chinese New Year presents for her friends. It's that good.



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