If you've been in the company of a few Norwegians for, say, at least five minutes, you'll soon realise that beneath their humble and modest veneer lies a corpulence of Norwegian national pride. Centuries of restraint have resulted in Norwegians perfecting the art of hands free chest thumping where the paradoxical roads of gloating about everything Norwegian and not being an absolute tool meet.
You'll experience this mainly with food. It will start with a little conversation about something like strawberries. You'll say, "Ooooh, these strawberries are delicious!" and your Norwegian friend will nod and smile and then say, "Yes, but the Norwegian strawberries are the best."
You can pretty much substitute the word <strawberry> with any one of the following nouns:
Blueberries
Chanterelle mushrooms
Tap water
Snow
Mountains
Apples
Waffles
Raspberries
Lakes
Sweets
Royal family
I could go on….
There is no better way to demonstrate this Norwegian idiosyncrasy than with this cake, humbly named, The World's Best.
A little while ago, this cake was known as Kvæfjordkake which is about as easy to pronounce as that belligerent Icelandic volcano from a few years back. Yeah, blow that. Life's short, let's just call a spade a spade. This is the world best cake and it just happens to be Norwegian, of course.
Prep time: about an hour
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Ingredients
For the base:
100g butter
100g sugar
100g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
4 egg yolks
3 tablespoons of milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla sugar/essence or 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
For the meringue:
4 egg whites
1 cup of sugar
150g of chopped almonds
For the filling:
2 cups of pastry cream (I used this recipe)
1 cup of cream
Strawberries (optional)
Method
Pre-heat fan forced oven to 165 degrees and line two spring form pans. Traditionally, this cake is a rectangle shape so you can use a rectangle or square cake tin. I don't have one so I made a round version.
To make the base:
Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the egg yolks one by one and beat well with an electric mixer for at least five minutes.
Sift in the flour, vanilla and baking powder and mix on medium speed together in batches with the milk.
Divide the mixture in two parts and spread the mixture onto the base of two lined cake tins. It doesn't have to touch the sides as it will expand in the oven. You can also do this step one by one if (like me) you only have one cake tin.
To make the meringue:
Beat the egg whites and sugar on high speed until stiff and glossy.
Spread equal amounts on top of the cake batter. That's right, you just dump it right on top of the cake mix!
Sprinkle the chopped almonds over the meringue and bake for no more than 20 minutes. The meringue should only just be starting to brown in parts.
Cool in the pans for ten minutes before removing and cooling on a rack.
To assemble:
Make sure the cakes and pastry cream are completely cool. If you can't be bothered making your own pastry cream you can just buy a carton of vanilla custard from the shop. I encourage you to make your own though as it's much better and super easy.
Beat the cream until stiff and fold through the pastry cream.
Spread the whole lot on top of one of the cakes.
Chop up some strawberries and layer these on top of the custard/cream mixture.
Carefully put the other cake on top. I find it's easier to make the cakes and pastry cream the day before and just whip up the cream and assemble about an hour or two before serving.
This is the picture from that Norwegian cookbook. In all seriousness, it's pretty much the best cake I've ever had.
