It’s taken me a while to post this, but a couple weeks ago was @goflyakate‘s birthday. Since we’ve been watching A LOT of The Great British Bake Off, I decided to make her a Princessa Torte!
The Princessa Torte is rumored to be SUPER COMPLICATED AND DIFFICULT but let me assure you that when you have adequate instructions and unlimited time, it is not that hard. The only thing that’s difficult is finding a decent recipe. I found a lot that were all Make Cake: preheat oven to 350 degrees, blah blah cake, Make Whipped Cream, Make Creme Patisserie: CHILL OVERNIGHT! Like bitch! Don’t tell me to preheat the oven then make a thing that will stall the process for 12 hours.
What I would recommend is that you find separate recipes for each section of the cake. Find a Genoise Sponge recipe that explains the process. It’s not actually that hard. None of the parts are hard to make, you just need to establish your timetable.Â
So! Creme Patisserie first. Put it in the freezer (not the fridge!) to chill. Check it often because you want to get it cool as fast as possible but you don’t want it to freeze. Just put it in the freezer to cool off then swap it to the fridge. Then make your cake. Then make a nice omelet with all the egg whites left over from the last two recipes. Cause making this cake will use up an entire carton’s worth of egg yolk but not the whites.Â
While the cake cools make your simple sugar and your enormous bowl of whipped cream. So much whipped cream. Then! dye your marzipan green.
I bought my marzipan and seedless raspberry jam because I just couldn’t be bothered. If you want to make all that jazz from scratch yourself I’d split the bake into two days just to give yourself a break and make sure the chilled parts chill adequately.
Once everything is cool you can assemble and that goes pretty quickly actually. Cake, syrup, jam, creme pat, more cake, more syrup, whipped cream, more cake, more syrup, a fucking shitton of the rest of the whipped cream, marzipan, done. Also you gotta make a marzipan rose and pipe some chocolate doodah on top. Oof. I actually have less sponge cake in there than I’m supposed to. I made one cake and cut it into three layers instead of two cakes cut into four layers and one just held back. Let me tell you, nobody complained.Â
In that final picture the cake is a little bulgy because it was fucking hot as balls that day and it was getting a little melty despite having spent probably at least an hour in the fridge once it was finished. But it held up very well and daaaaamn this was a good cake.
The Great British Bake Off occasionally makes me super mad because it’s obvious that British people have a lot more kinds of cake than Americans do and it’s bullshit. But this green Swedish monstrosity is so fucking delicious and fun to make that you don’t really need other kinds. This one is best.