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| Posted by: Cecilia |
Monday, June 22, 2009 5:27 AM |
If you want to celebrate Swedish style, you might not go for a sweet sponge cake (and nobody uses fruitcakes for decorating!), but rather you'd serve your guests what would have to be translated as a "sandwich cake".
Luke helped me make one to celebrate a birthday recently – perfect: lunch and cake in one! If you live in Sweden for any length of time, you will be served such a delicacy at some point; usually at a birthday reception, christening, funeral, or any other gathering where expedient food is required. It's a cake - but instead of being sweet it is made up of savoury goodies.
I had not actually ever made one before, but had eaten many, many, so tried to de-construct from memory. Which worked pretty well. The creamy looking substance was of course key, and it's made of ricotta cheese, mayonnaise and some hot horse radish (which goes very well with both the meaty and fishy ingredients).
The first layer was just honey roast ham, and plenty of it...
after adding some dark green lettuce leaves it was followed by a layer of smoked salmon drizzled with Swedish honey mustard gravlax sauce...
and covered with thinly sliced cucumber.
The best part of the whole assembly was of course the top decoration – and there are so many more colourful and interesting savoury food stuffs to use than any you'd find for a sweet cake!
Dill is essential, as are shrimp. Cape gooseberries was a first, but worked great.
Our English guests thoroughly enjoyed the cake, although Luke preferred the shrimp without any cake underneath them.
Oh, confession: I used sliced white bread – not a baker, me! And also, the bread really isn't the point of this cake, so something fairly neutral flavourwise is wanted.
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