Toscakaka for fika time

Toscakaka, or almond tosca cake, is a sweet Swedish sponge cake flavored with vanilla and covered with an almond and butter crust. It is quite a specialty of Sweden and people eat it often at "fika", or coffee time in the afternoon.
Fika is a concept in Scandinavia equivalent to the British teatime or French "goûter" in the afternoon. It usually involves drinking tea or coffee and eating a piece of cake or sweet bread with friends or colleagues.

This cake is extremely easy and fast to make. Both kids and adults like this cake and you can also freeze it down. This recipe can also be adapted to make Swedish midsummer strawberry cake and a quick and easy chocolate chip cake, which are both delicious as well.


Toscakaka recipe:

For the cake:

2 eggs
2 dl sugar
50 g butter
1.25 dl milk
3 dl flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla sugar

Beat up the eggs and sugar until white. Melt the butter, add the milk and heat up to 37C. Mix the flour, baking powder and vanilla sugar. Mix all the ingredients together and pour in a buttered and floured cake pan. Bake 30 min at 175C at the bottom of the oven.

For the almond crust:

1 dl sliced almonds
1 dl sugar
50 g butter
1 tbsp flour
2 tbsp milk

In a saucepan, mix the ingredients and heat them up until it starts to boil. Then cover the cake with the almond mix and bake in the upper part of the oven for another 10 min.