Bløtkake: The Festive Norwegian Cake You Need To Know About

If you're looking for a baked dessert glow-up for the holiday season, turning your attention (and kitchen facilities) to turning out a custardy, fruity cream cake classic known to Norwegians as bløtkake would be an excellent start. For starters, there's literally nothing to dislike about this cake. It features layers of milk- or liqueur-softened sponge cake between jam, custard, and whipped cream. People top it with whatever kind of fruit they want to feature. Bløtkake is the perfect, festive finish to a celebratory feast.

Like almost every dish that includes cream, bløtkake improves with a night's rest. Give your creamy creation overnight in the refrigerator in order to allow the sponge to soak up the various flavors of vanilla custard, fruit preserves, berry liqueur, and whipped cream. The cooling will also set the cake up to give a proper, slight resistance to the fork. The next day, take one bite and prepare to enter the kingdom of heaven (figuratively not literally!).

Bløtkake has been around for ages, constantly showing up on Norwegian tables during celebrations. Festivities for the country's national day of May 17 put bløtkake alongside its close cousin kvæfjordkake, which features almonds and meringue. What kvæfjordkake and bløtkake have in common is a sponge cake known as sukkerbrød, or sugar bread, an ancient catch-all term for any sweet bake. There's no trick to making sukkerbrød. It's literally a garden-variety sponge cake batter like any other you've eaten.

If you really want to make your bløtkake authentically Scandinavian, spring for some cloudberry jam and liqueur. You will especially want to try those flavors if you've never experienced this succulent, slightly tart relative of the raspberry. Norwegians love cloudberries so much that they have legal protections for the crop. Obtaining cloudberries is going to cost more because of their Norwegian origin (cloudberries like it cold). Also, legal standards limit how people can handle and harvest them. If cloudberries are out of your budget, fresh raspberries (along with Chambord, the liqueur made from them) are a perfect substitute. If you are into strawberries, blueberries, or even snozzberries, then go for it. Bløtkake is a creamy vehicle for your favorite fruit flavor.

As a dessert that people traditionally bake, bløtkake doesn't pose any peculiar challenges or require a special skill set. You bake a sponge cake, cut it into three pieces, and layer it with custard, fruit preserves, and whipped cream. If you've never tried your hand at any one of these basic baking techniques, here's a wonderful reason to dip your toes in the water. You'll get the hang of them in no time.

What bløtkake will do is provide you with an opportunity to add that one magnificent ingredient that makes every single thing you cook and share twice as delicious: meaning. Dishes that people deliberately and lovingly cook (or bake) and place in front of loved ones with the purpose of nourishing their bodies and uniting their hearts are, by their very definition, the most delicious and satisfying food available to us. In addition to being an ideal vehicle for whatever fruit you want to feature, bløtkake will also perfectly convey that intention of loving fellowship. Life can be very sweet indeed.