Prinsesstårta

Powdered sugar and a small rose sit on a smooth green dome. Prinsesstårta is a Swedish cake of layered sponge, vanilla custard and whipped cream, wrapped in marzipan made from almonds and sugar. Cream is heaped high between the layers of sponge baked in a tin and on top, and the cake is shaped into a round form. Bearing a name associated with princesses, this cake also appears at family birthdays, weddings and on a day celebrating a dialect.

The naming legend involving the princesses, and the records of the “green cake”

The cookery teacher Jenny Åkerström opened a domestic science school in Stockholm in 1907. Besides cooking, the school taught cleaning, washing-up and the care of young children. In the 1920s, the three sisters Margaretha, Märtha and Astrid, daughters of Prince Carl and Princess Ingeborg, attended the school. The connection with the princesses raised the prestige of the school, where daughters of wealthy families studied, and of her cookbooks, which were read throughout the country.

According to tradition, the three sisters were fond of Åkerström’s “grön tårta,” the green cake, and so it came to be called the “princess cake.” The recipe (ingredient proportions and method) for the green cake survives in Åkerström’s Mera god mat, published in 1939. In that recipe no fruit jam is sandwiched between the layers, and a colored almond paste forms the outer covering. Åkerström also published Prinsessornas kokbok in 1929, but the method for the green cake survives in the 1939 book.

As a cake sold in shops, it already appeared in a Konsum advertisement in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter on January 24, 1936. The marzipan-wrapped form was being sold before the 1939 cookbook. On the other hand, a sweet of the same name from 1924 was piped with cream and decorated with chopped almonds and pistachios. Not everything called “princess cake” was a green dome from the beginning. Today’s prinsesstårta carries on not only the legend involving the princesses but also the changes in its name and form in shops.

Baking the sponge, then cooking and cooling the vanilla cream

One method for the sponge is to warm whole eggs and sugar before whisking them. When the whole eggs are warmed to about 60°C, removed from the bain-marie and whisked until cool, they become a pale, light batter. The flour is folded in three additions so as not to deflate the foam, and finally a small amount of melted butter is mixed in before baking. The baked sponge is cooled completely and cut into three layers.

For the vanilla cream, milk, heavy cream, egg yolks, sugar and cornstarch are combined with a vanilla pod and its seeds and cooked while stirring until thickened. The cooked cream is strained into another container and stirred over cold water to cool. Finishing the baking of the sponge and the cooling of the cream in advance makes it easier to move on to assembly.

Building a dome of sponge and cream and wrapping it in marzipan

Vanilla cream is spread on the bottom layer of sponge, and the next layer of sponge is placed on top. On the middle layer, cream is again heaped high in the center, and the last layer of sponge is placed on top. More whipped cream is heaped on top of that and also spread over the sides, shaping the whole cake into a round dome. The rounded shape comes from the cream heaped inside and the whipped cream covering the surface.

In another method of assembly, the top layer of sponge is turned over so that its cut side faces up. The sponge is baked, the cream is cooked and the whipped cream is whisked, and finally the components are layered and finished as a single cake.

The green marzipan is rolled out thinly into a circle large enough to cover the whole cake. It is draped over the dome and smoothed against the sides by hand, easing out the folds, and the excess at the base is trimmed off. Dusted with powdered sugar and decorated with a rose made of pink marzipan and green leaves, the cake takes on its familiar appearance.

Single-serving domes and frog-shaped little cakes

The small single-serving version is called a princess pastry (prinsessbakelse). The small version is also given its round shape with cream. In the small-format recipe from the dairy company Arla, a thin sponge is spread with vanilla cream and raspberry jam, each layer is frozen, and rounds are then cut out. Whipped cream is piped into silicone hemisphere molds, the sponge is pressed in as the base, and after freezing the domes are removed from the molds and covered with marzipan. Instead of cutting a single large cake into slices, this method serves small domes assembled upside down, one per person. They are kept refrigerated or frozen, and powdered sugar is dusted on when they are eaten.

Green marzipan is also used for a sweet named after the frog (groda). At Ullas Kondis, a pastry shop in Umeå, sponge is combined with vanilla cream and strawberry-flavored whipped cream and covered with thin green marzipan. Even among sweets with the same name, groda, the composition of the filling differs from maker to maker. Both the smooth dome and the little frog face are made by shaping marzipan.

Cakes with jam, and marzipan colors chosen for celebrations

The old green cake contained no jam, and a version with jam in the lower layer is sometimes distinguished by the name operatårta. This is a different cake from the French opéra, which layers coffee and chocolate.

Today, on the other hand, raspberries or jam are sometimes added even to cakes called prinsesstårta. Scattering raspberries over the custard in the bottom layer adds the tartness of fruit to the cream layer. The color of the covering also varies. At an event celebrating a royal christening in 2012, an industry association sold pink cakes as prinsesstårta and linked the sales to donations. In addition to the classic green marzipan and rose, versions with the outer color or the flavor of the filling changed to suit a celebration are also made.

A week supporting children, and a day celebrating the Småland dialect

In the last week of September, the baking and confectionery industry holds a Prinsesstårta Week, which has linked cake sales to support for children.

In Småland, the cake also appears in a new custom celebrating the first Thursday in March. The standard Swedish första torsdagen i mars, “the first Thursday in March,” becomes fössta tossdan i mass in the local pronunciation. marsipantårta (marzipan cake) likewise becomes massipantåta. People enjoy this shared sound, in which the r sound weakens or disappears before certain consonants. Greetings are written on a green cake to express affection for the dialect and the region. In 2025, the event was added to Sweden’s national inventory of intangible cultural heritage.

Glossary