Friendly Bakes

Some celebrations call for specific baked goods, and sometimes there are baked goods so decadent you should create your own celebration around it.

For this reason two of my friends stopped by a few weeks ago to spend the afternoon making a Prinsesstrata. I know the Prinsesstrata from an episode of the Great British Baking Show, as it was set forth by Mary Berry in one of the technical challenges. My friend Kelsey knew the cake from a trip she took to Sweden. While I believe food eaten on vacation (or likewise food prepared by a favorite relative) can never taste as amazing as it does in that memory, I’m always willing to recreate a close proximate.

First off, shout out to small cities and towns. It is so much easier to catch up with friends in person when there are fewer options and everyone can get there on short notice (even if I’d just washed my face and put on sweats, I could still make it across town looking presentable in 15 minutes). Now it seems like Oregon Trail level of difficulty to get across the Missouri River.

It may also have something to do with having a baby (spoiler alert: it has a lot to do with having a baby), but making plans with friends is now something I put in my calendar and look forward to all week. For all of these reasons we decided to spend a Saturday at my house making the Prinsesstrata Cake.

Kelsey showed up first to start the cake making, Vida and her husband arrived later with the all important tasks of bringing the charcuterie tray, and holding Charlie when the kitchen got insane with the 37 steps (maybe a slight exahtration) that it took to construct the cake.

Some notes on making a Prinsesstrata:

we started at noon and the cake was ready to eat around 9 pm
on the Great British Baking Show the contestants were given 2 hours and 15 minutes, what the what?!?!
online these cakes sell for a minimum of $45, this cake is time consuming, uses lots of ingredients, and has various technical aspects

princess-cake640x360-288x162 — This is the Mary Berry cake we were aiming to create.

We used a combination of recipes from The Great British Baking Show and The Spruce Eats. The main reason the cake takes so long is that it needs to be chilled twice. These times aren’t listed at the top of the recipes, so make sure to check before you make yours.

1st Step: Make the pastry cream. We used the Spruce Eats recipe for this and everything went smoothly. It was placed it in the fridge to chill for five hours.

2nd Step: Make the cake. Spruce Eats suggests a box cake, so we went for the GBBS recipe here. Neither of us have ever made this type of img_0079-1 sponge, and on the TV episode, two contestants had cakes that didn’t rise. So this was the part I was most excited about completing. After double checking multiple sources that cornflour is in fact the British word for cornstarch, we were on our way. Have you ever made a cake that is equal parts flour and cornstarch? I hadn’t, but it worked. The lightly sweetened airy cake is a perfect complement to the cream, jam, whipped cream, and marzipan.

3rd Step: Make the fondant rose. We used store bought fondant that Kelsey formed into a rose without the internets help, which turned out adorable.

4th Step: Make the marzipan. Neither of us have ever made marzipan so we wanted to do it up right and we used the GBBS recipe. I’m not sure if the recipe left out a step or in Britain everyone knows you should blanch your almonds before making marzipan, but after grinding the almonds with the skin on we realized it would never turn into the white color we were looking for, before we used food coloring gel to dye it green. Luckily I live near a Hy-Vee, so I ran out for a bag of almond flour instead of starting from scratch again. Kelsey also saved the day by suggesting we turn the “ruined” marzipan into cookies which are delicious and I recommend!

1st attempt at marzipan (it should be white)

Kelsey rolled the brown marzipan into balls and baked them at 350 for 12 minutes. Delicious!

2nd attempt at marzipan using almond flour before we added the green food gel.

5th Step: Whip up the heavy whipping cream. I don’t think I used either recipe, adding 1/3 powdered sugar, and teaspoon of vanilla while whipping the cream in the stand mixer with the whisk attachment.

6th Step: Cut the cake into three layers. I cut the bottom layer a little thin, but don’t worry the cream covered it up and no one could notice.

7th Step: Spread the custard and pipe a border around the edge.

8th Step: Fill this border with raspberry jam, we used store bought. img_0089-1

9th Step: Fold half of the whipping cream with the pastry cream and spread a layer of the mixture over the jam.

10th Step: Top with the second layer of cake.

11th Step: Spread the remaining of the pastry cream/whipping cream mixture over the layer.

12 Step: Top with the third layer of cake.

13th Step: Cover the sides of the cake with the whipping cream and create a dome on the top of the cake. Place cake in the fridge to chill for an hour.