a berry and almond cream cake

Good morning,

I’ve been away for a couple of weeks—and I’ll tell you about that soon, but for now, I wanted to share a recipe with you that I was working on for a while before this trip: the “Lazy Prince Cake” (or Raspberry and Almond Cream Cake). It was inspired by a very involved dessert, and the whole idea with my version was to capture some of the inspiration’s character—its flavors, its dramatic coloring—in an easy “one-bowl” kind of cake.

Do you know the Swedish Prinsesstårta (Princess Cake)? It’s an assemblage of several components—chiffon cake, pastry cream, whipped cream, raspberry jam (often but not always), and a blanket of green-dyed marzipan—that can take a full day or more to construct. (It looks like this.) I wondered what would happen if I were to combine all of the Princess Cake’s ingredients in a single bowl to form a simple batter to be baked in one go.

Here’s what my final Lazy Prince Cake (after four or five preceding attempts) looked like:

The above came after several tests and tweaks. For comparison, below is my very first test (which I made with blueberries rather than raspberries, only because that’s what I had in the freezer).

It was a delicious confection with a dense, custardy, clafoutis-/cheesecake-like texture. But I wanted it to be a plush cake, so I had to adjust the formula, reducing the proportion of fat and liquid in the batter until I finally ended up with a velvet-soft, mauve-colored, fantastically flavorful (lightly floral, fruity, nutty) cake.

Please take a look at the recipe below*, and let me know if you make it! Talk to you soon.

Brian

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Gluten-free and Dairy-free options below

Inspired by the multi-component Swedish Prinsesstårta (Princess Cake), which can take a full day or more to make, my Lazy Prince Cake is baked from a simple single batter that blends the floral flavor raspberries with the heady aroma of almonds and the light richness of dairy cream. If you are not a raspberry fan, feel free to swap in any other fresh or frozen berries.

Some singular things about this cake:

• Frozen or fresh raspberries are mashed with sugar in the mixing bowl/stand mixer bowl to create a brilliant magenta fruit puree (this takes the place of raspberry jam in the original Princess Cake);

• Dairy cream, eggs, and yolks provide the batter’s rich but airy fat and liquid (no butter or oil, for a change);

• Almond flour and almond extract give the cake its nutty flavor that harmonizes perfectly with the floral raspberries;

• A (completely optional) dusting of matcha+powdered sugar and/or ground pistachios jazzes the cake up with a nod to the Princess Cake’s green marzipan cloak.

The recipe uses only easy-to-find ingredients, one mixing bowl, and--though it’s easiest to make with a stand mixer--could be done by hand.

To make the cake dairy-free, use unsweetened coconut cream (not coconut milk) in place the heavy cream.

To make the cake gluten-free, use an all-purpose gluten-free flour blend in place of the wheat flour.

Yield: One 9-inch cake
Active time: 50 minutes (includes baking)
Total time: 1 hour 30 minutes (includes cooling)

INGREDIENTS: