Food Experience: Behind the Scenes of a Bløtkake

Have any of you ever had a Norwegian bløtkake? As I had mentioned in my first post in this series of Elmira (I have blog series now - it's new), it was Karianna's father's birthday on the Saturday after we arrived, so Karianna's mother - Anna - went through the beautiful process of baking and constructing a birthday cake.

Just to be VERY CLEAR. This is not a recipe post, and even if I knew all the ingredients and instructions, I would not know how to instruct you upon the process because my baking experience is next to none. And I mean absolutely right next to none. If "my baking experience" and "none" were both separate, living entities, then "my baking experience" would be breeching the personal bubble of "none". That's how close they are.

So here is merely a post of photos and observations.

And my eating experience, of course. I am very experienced in eating baked goods, I will give you that.

So here, I assume, is the bit where you make the batter and mix together eggs and flour and stuff? Okay, I'm not THAT ignorant when it comes to the intricacies of baking, but I will not claim to know how to exactly measure out flour or baking powder or buttermilk or how to remedy a mixture that is too runny and how to compensate for this lack or the other. That's Elliot's specialty.

But this aforephotographed batter was made into two cakes, one regular-sized and one miniature.

While the cake was cooling and resting, Karianna and her mother got right to creating one of the most glorious confectionaries ever known to man or woman: fresh whipped cream. It took all of my self-control to resist eating every fresh batch of whipped cream that came out from under the mixer. I cannot even begin to describe how silky but heavy and smooth freshly whipped cream is - almost like the finest of satins that melts upon your tongue.

Oh hey, I guess I did begin to describe how silky but heavy and smooth freshly whipped cream is. Fancy that.

Mmmmmmmm. We all took turns snacking on it.

I have no regrets.

Once the cakes were both well-rested and cooled down, they were then promptly cut horizontally in half, and laid out, with their innards exposed. Sorry if I'm being a bit morbid right now, have an episode of Dexter on and it might be somewhat affecting my writing style? Clementines were also split open and juiced, and the juice was sprinkled onto four halves of the two cakes.

Then we all got to prepping the fresh fruits that was going to go into building and decorating the cake.
These fruits were sliced up:
• Strawberries (some)
• Bananas
• Kiwis
These fruits were washed and set aside:
• Raspberries
• Blueberries
• Strawberries (some)

The sliced bananas were then placed in a neat layer across one halve of each clementine-juice-drizzled cake. Karianna's mother then took some of her delicious homemade raspberry jam, and mixed a healthy (or unhealthy?) dollop of the freshly whipped cream with it in a bowl.

This beautiful tangy, tart, and creamy mixture was then spread on top of the bananas which were spread on top of the cake.

A bar of Lindt milk-chocolate with almonds was then promptly crumbled on top.

What comes next after all this sinful beauty of butter and chocolate and cream and fresh fruits?

Why, more cream, of course!

Note another fresh batch being made in the background. There really just is no end to this.

The cream was smoothed over with a spatula, and the top half of the cakes were placed back on top of the entire construction.

And guess what comes next?

Well, if you guessed "More cream!" then you are absolutely right!

Look at how cute the mini-bløtkake is with the wave of whipped cream on top.

Once the entire cake is covered with whipped cream, then just decorate the cake with fresh fruit to your heart's delight. Keep in mind the pleasures of symmetry in aesthetics. At least that's the gist that I got from this session.

The mini cake turned out as thus:

And the grand finale of eating it at the birthday dinner resulted in my devouring 3 slices of joyful goodness.

I hereby proclaim Norwegians as the kings and queens of cakes.

Oh also, here is a picture of Karianna's adorable father attempting multiple times to blow out the trick candles that were placed upon the cake.