Gul Kake

..or Yellow Cake, as it were should you translate it to English.

In Norway, this cake is also called "Suksessterte" which basically means success tart. It's wonderfull, almost macarroon-like base is the beginning of something good...always.

My mum bakes this to perfection, but since she's back in Bergen and I am here in Glasgow, I gotta make sure I'll keep the tradition alive, eh? And I don't mind that at all!

The first time I tried to make this, I undercooked the egg-custard frosting, and this time? I cooked it for a minute too much and it curdled slightly, I have pinky promised myself that next time it will be perfect. I know what to look for now! Overnight though, thankfully the custard frosting set, and come the following day - it was pretty much spot on!

With only a few ingredients, and a little patience, you'll have an amazing cake in no time! The base also cools down fairly quickly, so you don't have to wait for long until frosting it.

Gul Kake
(Makes 1 cake)

I crushed some "Smash" chocolate from Norway to top it with!

For the base:
4 egg whites (save the egg yolks in a bowl covered with water and a little sugar, ready to use for the frosting later, keep refrigerated until then)
200g ground almonds
200g icing sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder

For the frosting:
4 egg yolks (the ones you set aside)
100ml milk
100g sugar (I used light brown)
100g light butter for stirring in

- First, pre-heat the oven to 175-180ºC.

- Now, in a bowl, whisk your egg whites stiff, and then add the icing sugar, before folding in the ground almonds along with the baking powder. Pour it into a cake tin (about 18-22cm diameter) and bake for 45 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean and the surface is nice and crisp. Set aside to cool.

- Once the cake has cooled (about 20 minutes or so later) you can get cracking with the delicious egg custard frosting! Melt the butter and set aside.

- Heat the milk, egg yolks and sugar in a small saucepan over a medium low heat and whisk almost constantly for 5-10 minutes. Once it thickens, take it off the heat to prevent it from curdling - and stir in the butter, wait until it cools a little before frosting the base.

- Serve as it is, or with melted dark chocolate drizzled sparingly over it, or scatter some chopped nuts or crunchy sweets on top (I used the infamous Norwegian Smash! chocolate, yum!) For ideas, you can optionally google "suksessterte" soooo many beautiful examples there! I just prefer them a little plain, s'all ^ ^

I hope you like this as much as I do!

Oh, and today, I had the pleasure of having a little bottle of blackberry sparkling wine delivered to my door, now how about that? Remember the blackberry trip I went on with some friends? Well, turns out the most enthusiastic blackberry picker of the lot had a hard time finishing all the blackberry wine he made and needed a little help from his friends. And holy smokes - it was delicious! I used a little bit for braising some venison I got at a bargain, and the sweetness really shone through in the gravy I made for it. The wine itself though - so good on its own! Come to think of it - it would even have been really nice on the evening cake was had, mmmm ^ ^

I hope you have a great week so far! I myself had a trial shift yesterday which went well, but sadly not well enough, so now I'm a-looking for a job still, and making the most of my spare time. Also, I have become addicted to the Great British Bake-Off and over the course of a few evenings I have caught up on the most recent episode, like I said - making the most of it. I have done a lot of cooking and seen friends too, it's been good! Now I gotta turn on the "job search mode" button though, wish me luck!


Original source:
Iris (Grandmother's sister <3 )

- Jules aka Yellow Cake Addict