This weekend we drove a couple of hours to finally celebrate Natasha's birthday. It was a beautiful, sunny, cold day in River City area, but the warmth of the welcome received made it a special day.As a special birthday treat, we brought a Swedish Princess Cake made at nearby bakery, Village Bakery in Sebastopol. The owner is from Scandinavia and their version is light, rich and delicious. The traditional Princess Cake is covered in a pale green cloak of marzipan, but for the holidays the bakery is decorating the cake like a gorgeous present, right down to the bow. It was almost too pretty to cut into, but too delicious not to.
The Princess Cake is a Swedish national passion. It seems that the cake was created in the 1930s for the birthday of a Swedish princess. It is often served as a graduation cake, but apparently can be found throught the country and can be found as a treat to go with tea or coffee, usually as a slice of cake. The distinctive thing about this cake, other than the marzipan, is the rounded top of the cake, usually created by mounding pastry cream or whipped cream in the center of the top layer, then smoothing the cream to make a dome shape on the top. 
Although we did reserve a piece to bring home to our nephew, somehow the four of us managed to polish off the rest. It was the small version, but still quite a dose of cake, jam, cream and marzipan. You would think that it would be very sweet, but it isn't. With some coffee and good conversation, it was the perfect dessert for celebrating the birthday of a wonderful sister.
