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From Denmark to Sweden to Helsinki: “I Want to Be the Girl with the Most Cake”

1/28/2019

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This line, crooned by Courtney Love, is almost always in the back of my head. My college roommate would repeat this line and her love of cake was almost unmatched. Almost, because I too love cake and it only sometimes rivals my love of soft-serve ice cream or frozen yogurt. But Love can't capture the deliciousness of Prinsesstarta, or Princess Cake.

There are many wonderful cakes in Denmark. In fact, kage takes many forms and even inspires holidays. There is a daily kage on my campus and students often make kage for events. The Danes’ love of cake has inspired me to make myself vegan cakes way too often, and I have been eating cake almost every day.

But I digress, which is easy to do when talking about dessert… unless that dessert is Princess Cake.

Apparently, if you watch The Great British Bake Off you are already familiar with Princess Cake. And if you frequent IKEA, you may have sampled their version (which is pink, not green, which is a total travesty). But I had knowledge of neither context. Instead, I discovered Princess Cake at a breakfast buffet on a Viking ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki.

It looked intriguing: creamy layers covered in a green marzipan. When I saw that it was called Princess Cake, I had to try it.
Side note: the meaning of my name is “princess,” something that never seemed to fit until I found Princess Cake. I mean, besides Princess Lea, of course.

I fell in love with Princess Cake. The next day at the buffet, I got the last piece. The next two days, I ate the grocery store version in Stockholm. The next day, on my birthday at the Romme Alpin ski resort, I was disappointed to find no Princess Cake at the Swedish dinner buffet. (But I more than survived, stuffed with dinner and several desserts.)

Princess Cake is layers of vanilla cake and pastry cream and raspberry jam, with a big dome of whipped cream and a green marzipan layer encasing it all. There are other versions, but this is THE cake in Sweden. And it has a fun story that connects it back to Denmark.

Princess Cake is far from vegan, so it will be a short experience that I will savor as long as I am on vacation in Sweden. Someday I might venture a vegan copy, but for now, I am just going to be the girl with the most Princess Cake.
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    Sarah Hentges

    I am a professor and a fitness instructor. I work too much, eat too much, and love too much. To borrow from Octavia Butler, I am "an oil and water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive." Because my work is eclectic, so are the topics I write about.

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