My Great Swedish Cake

Stockholm - 25th June

Stockholm is an archipelago of 30,000 islands and islets (small rocky islands that are not habitable), the city of Stockholm itself is spread over 14 islands which are connected by 57 bridges. That is a lot to explore so today we are having a planning, rest and washing day. However just to be sociable we went to meet our neighbours across the waterway at Ulriksdal Palace. The photo above is the palace from our apartment and the photo below is what they can see of us (tall apartment block to the left).

Due to a dodgy GPS and a lack of English signage we managed to drive right up to the palace, no one stopped us and there were no barrier arms or gates. The parking near the famed Orangery appeared to be free, although the website said something else, tourist ignorance is bliss so we heeded the nearby parking sign and put our ‘parkering timer’ in the window and went off for a tour of the palace grounds. Ulriksdal Palace is one of eight royal palaces and residences in Stockholm and although the 17th century buildings are still in tack most of the garden features have long disappeared.

The following photos were taken at the palace:

The Chapel
The palace gardens being prepared for a Mid-Summer event
The Andromeda Rock, once a waterfall feature. I’m sure every home in Sweden and Norway has a feature rock.

In keeping with the palace theme and Swedish baking, today’s lunch came from the palace garden café and is a traditional Swedish Princess Cake and a Raksmorgas. A princess cake is layers of sponge, jam, vanilla custard and whipped cream covered in green tinted marzipan. In 1920 a tutor to the three royal princesses used to make this cake for them and as they like it so much she named it after them. A Raksmorgas is a traditional Swedish open shrimp sandwich of boiled egg, shrimp, mayo and salad ingredients, better than the alternative which was mayo, red onion, corn and achovies.

Today’s ABBA tribute is the song title ‘I’ve Been Waiting for You’ (1974), for my Prinsessbakelse, Princesses Cake. I made a list of ten delicious sweet treats to try in Scandinavia before I left home and so far all we have had are bun like products covered in varying forms of sugar. The Princesses cake was a delicious soft sponge cake and not overly sweet. It even beats my vacuum cleaner cake I had in Norway which Sweden claims is their invention.