Sunshine Torte

Swedish Sunshine Torte

From Kay’s Great Great Grandmother

This cake is all real.  Butter.  Sugar.  Flour.  Eggs.  That’s it.  Kay recommended adding vanilla, so of course I did, and it was wonderful.  We joke that most Swedish recipes begin with either fish or pickling something, but boy do they know how to do desserts right.

This Bundt cake is so dense and heavy and heavenly!  It’s like eating cake batter inside a buttery crispy cake crust.  I remember Kay serving this when I was a kid and I always thought it looked too brown on the outside, but I was wrong.  The cake is indeed a darker brown than I would want from a regular cake, but here it caramelizes and gets crispy and chewy with an intensely smooth interior.  It crumbles just right and is just the right amount of sweet.  I was instructed to serve it in thin slices, not hunks, because it’s better that way. If someone wants more, they can always get it.  Kay says that my Great Uncle Irvin was a big fan and would try to take a chunk at a time.

This recipe boasts that it’s a pound, a pound, a pound and pound of each of the ingredients.  Kay was smart enough to convert that to conventional measurements that work well for the recipe.  I’ve included both below.

The recipe felt weird to me at first because you cream the sugar with the eggs and then separately you cream the butter, and add flour to the butter.  Now I think it is the secret to the velvet insides and epic crust.

Recipe for Sunshine Torte

1 Pound of Sugar (2.5 cups)

1 Pound of Eggs (6 eggs)

1 Pound of Flour (3.5 c of Cake Flour or All Purpose)  (Kay doesn't bother sifting)

1 Pound of Butter at room temp  (Kay uses salted, but she says it doesn't matter)

Splash of Vanilla at the end  (Optional, but I wouldn’t argue with a master!)

Preheat Oven to 300-325 degrees, only you know your oven! 

Let Eggs and Butter come to room temp before starting.

She says the secret to this recipe is to beat beat beat beat beat beat and then beat some more.  Everything should be very very very very very very well mixed.

I used an electric beater.

Cream Sugar with Eggs until light. Keep on beating and beating.

In a separate bowl, beat the Butter until smooth.  Add Flour to Butter gradually until smooth.

Gradually add creamed Sugar and Egg mixture to the Flour and Butter mixture.  Secret is to mix and mix and mix with beaters.

Beat well.  Then beat some more.

Then add some vanilla.  I have awesome vanilla from Mexico and I added a capfull.

Butter and flour a Bundt cake pan.  Teflon!

Will be smooth, not runny, when done.

Bake at 300-325 for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

When it's done it's slightly pulled from the edges.  It will still keep cooking when you take it out because it's so dense.  The outside will be fairly brown.

To Serve:

Sift powdered sugar over it. 
Slice thinly.

Frequently served with berries on the side.