Anders' Tosca Tårta

Swedish Tosca Tårta

Tosca Tårta

Every so often I remember foods I used to eat back in my childhood.

Just the other day, it dawned on me. As a child spending the summers at our summer house on the island of Öland in Sweden we used to pick up a Tosca Tårta from the bakery. This was of course for a special treat.

It is a wonderful cake that you can enjoy with coffee or as a dessert with some vanilla ice cream, whipping cream or just by it self.

So where do I find a recipe for Tosca tårta? Well, from my mom (Ruth) of course. She is always a reliable source for these kind of things, she has so many Swedish recipes. She owns this huge recipe book that is about 4-5 inches thick.... love it.

Here are the ingredients:

Cake:

• 2 Eggs
• 2 dl  (not quite a cup .8  of a cup) of Sugar
• 50 g of melted Butter
• ¾ dl ( 1/3 of a cup) of Cream or Milk. I like it best with cream or at least half and half.
• 2 dl (not quite a cup .8 of a cup) of flour
• 1.5 tsp of baking powder

Almond Glaze:

• 50 g of Butter
• ½ dl ( ¼ cup ) of Sugar
• 50 g of sliced almonds ( I blanch my own )
• ¾ tbs of cream or milk
• 1 tbs of flour

The Cake:

Turn oven to 175-200 C or 350 to 400 F. Use second rack from bottom. Take a tbs of butter on some wax paper and grease the cake tray well then coat with Graham Wafer Crumbs. You can use regular bread crumbs or even flour but Graham Wafers are best.

In a mixer or with a blender mix the eggs and sugar well, 4-5 minutes. Mix in the melted butter (should not be hot) and the cream, blend one more minute then add the flour and baking powder mix.

I prefer to have the flour and baking powder mixed well separately. Mix everything well together, 2-3 minutes. Pour into the cake pan and put in oven.

Bake 20-25 minutes till done, check with a tooth pick, it is OK if it is a little bit damp, just not sticky.

The Glaze:

While baking the cake, in a small pot on medium heat, melt the butter, add the sugar, cream or milk.

Stir for a minute and then add the flour while stirring. Add the almonds. Bring to a very slow boil while stirring for a minuter or so, then remove from heat.

This Tosca Tårta is so Good.

Just a tip for the almonds: if you buy sliced almonds so be it, but I think they charge way too much for them.

Just put 50 grams of almonds in an inch of boiling water for 3-4 minutes, rinse with cold water and drain.

The skin will now pop off really easy and you can chop them or slice them as you wish. See, I just saved you $3.69

Once cake is baked as per above, remove from oven. Remove the spring form pan and set the cake on a cookie sheet or pizza plate (the cookie sheet will stop any runs from the glaze to make a mess in your oven)

Pour the glaze on top, try to get it fairly even within a ¼ inch from the outside edge. Set back into oven under broil. Watch this closely, once the glace starts to bubble, start to change colour and run down the sides of the cake, remove from oven. The glace should now be golden-brownish.

Let cool on a rack.

It is so good.  Good luck and let me know how you make out.

Kiss the cook,

Anders