Drømmekage

Drømmekage aka dream cake is a traditional cake to be baked and served in Denmark. Here is a photo of the main ingredients. I will list them in Danish and you should try to guess which one means in English : hvedemel, sukker, mælk, kokosmel, brun farin, og smør.


In my new office, there is a rule that every time you leave your desk, you must lock your computer. In order to enforce this rule and to teach you a lesson, if you forget to lock it, my boss will send and email from your account to everyone in the office saying 'I'll give you a song and dance performance' - see weekend post - or 'I'm going to bring a special baked good in on Thursday'. Well Tuesday I forgot to lock my computer two times. After the second mistake, I decided well I have to follow through and bring something sweet into the office. It was also a nice excuse to bake ! When I asked my Danish coworker, Andreas, what he likes and what would be a good thing to make, he suggested the traditional dream cake. It is a simple pound cake on the bottom with a coconut caramel topping. I found a recipie online - in Danish - and decided to go for it.

I made the cake at the dorm, because when you are baking in Europe, everything is described in grams, and you need a scale to measure out the ingredients. I knew there was a scale at the dorm, and I knew I would definitely need some help translating parts of the recipe.


I started out by combining 4 eggs with 250 grams of sugar with an electric hand mixer. Then in a separate bowl I combined the dry ingredients - flour, baking powder, and vanilla sugar. I slowly added the wet mixture to the dry and blended it with the electric mixer.



The next step was to warm some butter and some milk on the stove and then gently add it to the existing mixture. This was the last step to make the batter. So I poured it into a baking paper lined pan and put it in the oven for 20 mintues.

Meanwhile, I combined coconut flakes, brownsugar, butter and milk in a pan on the stove and cooked it until the butter melted and everything began to combine into a thick goopy substance. After the cake had cooked for 20 minutes, I removed it, covered the top with the coconut topping, turned up the oven, and cooked it all for 5 more minutes.


The cake looked perfect when it was done and it also tasted very good ! It was pretty simple, but the contrast between the moist and light cake with the gooey and chewy topping made it delicious, not to mention all of the butter and sugar that went into it !! My boss and coworkers were very happy and surprised that I brought it in, but they said they loved it as well. My first attempt at Danish baking was a definite success. Next time I want to try something a bit more complex and maybe with some fruity flavors.

mmmmmm !