Birthday Cake Club: Christmas Princess Cake

A festive, chocolate version of the layered Swedish classic.

Hi Bakers!

I love everything about a classic Swedish Princess Cake. The fluffy sponge cake, the lush pastry cream, the marzipan. Oh how I love marzipan! It is a bit of a project to make, but designing this holiday version was the perfect excuse to make the showstopper. 

This Christmas Princess Cake plays double-duty for our Birthday Cake Club  and anyone looking for a knock-your-socks-off recipe this holiday season.

The first bakery I worked at out of college made a fantastic princess cake. It was my first introduction to the pale green, marzipan-covered dome cake. A specialty item on their menu in the spring, I remember it being described to look like an Easter bonnet. 

I started thinking that if I just changed out the traditional pink marzipan rose for a red one, then it would make for a stunning Christmas cake.  

Prinsesstårta or “Princess Cake” is a traditional Swedish layer cake. The recipe was published first in the 1948 Prinsessornas Cookbook by Jenny Åkerström. It is said that the daughters of Prince Carl, Duke of Västergötland adored the cake made up of sponge, custard, whipped cream, and marzipan.

A typical variation includes a plain sponge cake, vanilla pastry cream, and raspberry jam. For this Christmas version, I used a vanilla-soaked chocolate genoise sponge, cranberry-raspberry jam, and cinnamon pastry cream. 

Yes, there are a lot of components to this cake. But also yes, you can make most of them in advance. A store-bought jam would definitely be suitable here. But don’t skip the soak. The cake depends on it.