Gingery Xmas cake
Cake base:
150 g butter
3 large eggs
1½ dl brown sugar
1½ dl sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
3 dl flour
2 tsp baking powder
1½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp nutmeg
2½ dl buttermilk / sour milk
100 g walnuts
Icing:
100 g room temp, non-salted butter
300 g mascarpone cheese
1 ½ dl powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
Preheat the oven to 175°C. Prepare two springform cake pans, with a diameter of around 16 cm. Melt the butter and let it cool down. Whisk the eggs and sugars into a light, even foam. Add the butter and vanilla sugar and mix gently. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon together. Add the mix to the foam through a strainer and mix gently into an even batter. Crush the nuts and add the sour milk and crushed nuts to the batter. Split the batter evenly in the two cake pans. Bake for about 40-45 minutes.
Whisk the butter until it’s light in color. Add the mascarpone cheese and whisk it into an even mixture. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla sugar and whisk a bit more. If the mixture seems a bit too runny, place it in the fridge for a little while.
Cut the cake bases in half so that you end up with 4 evenly sized, round layers. Place the first base onto a cake stand. Spread an even layer of the icing. Repeat this process for 3 of the layers. Place the last layer on top, with the cut surface facing down. Spread the rest of the icing on the sides and top of the cake and decorate your masterpiece with cranberries and rosemary branches.
Sugared cranberries and rosemary Xmas trees
1½ dl water
1½ dl sugar
2 ½ dl sugar for the icing
8 pcs rosemary branches
1 ½ dl frozen cranberries
Boil the water and sugar in a pot until the sugar has melted. Let the liquid cool down before you dip the rosemary branches. Place the dipped rosemary branches on a baking sheet and let them rest there for about 15 minutes. Next, put the cranberries into the sugar water for about 10 minutes. After that, pick out the cranberries and place them on a baking sheet for about 30 minutes (the liquid can now be used to make cranberry juice.) Twirl the rosemary branches and cranberries in sugar and place them on a plate until the decoration portion.
The writer, Alessia Moborg, is a quarter Italian and a quarter Swedish foodie from Turku. This young world explorer has visited almost all continents of our beautiful planet and brings along inspiration to her cooking from her travels. Alessia has an eye for aesthetics, which can also be seen in her cooking, especially baking. Follow all things beautiful on Alessia’s Instagram.
