Serves: n/a
Approx cost: €1.50
Approx calories (per slice if cut into 16 slices): ~180
Approx preparation and cooking time: 30 mins
I’ve been meaning to post this for a while and finally got around to it today. Tuppkaka, pronounced “T-uh-pp-kar-ka”, or literally “Rooster Cake”, is a Swedish cake which I first tried when my wife’s mother made it. Doing no small amount of searching I wasn’t really able to find much information about its history, or the reason as to why it’s called “Rooster Cake” – my Swedish family don’t seem to know either, so if anyone has any idea, I’d love to know! It’s a very sweet cake, so small slices are advised, but it’s deliciously gooey and squidgy and unbelievably fast to make. The whole thing is thrown together in literally 5 minutes, and then it’s just 20 minutes in the oven and it’s all done. Perfect to whip up in case of unexpected guests! The only “expensive” part in the whole cake are the flaked almonds – everything else is normally something you’ll have at home. Give it a try and tell me what you think!
Ingredients
– 300g Caster Sugar
– 200g Plain Flour
– 75g Butter
– 2 Eggs
– 60g Flaked Almonds
Instructions
- First of all, turn on your oven to preheat, at 200 degrees Celsius. Next, start off by breaking the eggs into a bowl and mixing well with the sugar.
- Next, melt the butter (fastest way is to stick it in the microwave on high for about 10-15 seconds), add to the egg/sugar mixture, along with the flour and mix well.
- Pour the mixture into a tin that is sufficiently large that the mixture is about 0.75 cm – 1 cm thick all over. Bear two things in mind here. Firstly, try to use a tin which is non-stick. The cake is sticky and gooey and a “non non-stick tin” will cause problems. Secondly, try to use a tin which has a removable bottom. If you don’t have one – buy one. Seriously! They’re like €7 from IKEA. Sprinkle the flaked almonds evenly all over the top of the mixture.
- Place carefully into the oven and bake for about 20 minutes, by which time the almonds should be nicely brown and toasting up. Take out of the oven and set aside to cool before removing from the tin and slicing up. Make sure to store in an air-tight tin when not eating, and enjoy!
That’s almost too simple! I love how thin it is, looks like it’s kind of dense.
Yeah, it’s definitely a different style from a sponge-like cake. It’s a little like a crumbly, soft cookie, and just so easy to make!
I love gooey cakes! And I love easy cakes! This looks great! It also sounds like this would be a nice cake for summery weather. I’m saving this one for when we take our cooking adventures to Sweden. (Then again I may have to make this sooner than that.):)
Oooh, if you need any help deciding on some dishes, I’m your man! I’ll be posting another recipe this week which is just so delicious and awesome… Matjessill – Literally translates to “Matje’s Herring”, although I’m not sure who, or what, Matje is, it’s really good if you like pickled/preserved herring though. No trip to Sweden is complete without trying “vofflor” (waffles), with whipped cream and cloudberry jam (seriously, you haven’t tasted heaven until you’ve had a swedish waffle with cream and cloudberry jam!). Then of course there’s the really satisfying, cheap dish “Korvstroganoff” (Sausage Stroganoff), the meatballs, although I prefer something called “Persilje Järper” (spelling?), which is like a meatball in a elongated pyramid shape with *loads* of parsley inside, and then of course Cinnamon Swirls and the Christmas dish Jansen’s Temptation and… and.. ok, I could go on and on so I’m going to stop now :p
The waffle sounds divine! The kids would go nuts for that too. Yep…I’ll be coming to you when we head to Sweden. 🙂
I am a big fan of almonds in any form and quite happy about the 5 minute throw together – that works for me! Thanks Charles, a very yummy looking treat.
Thanks Kelly! Let me know what you think if you end up trying it! 🙂
I’ve never tried anything like this before, but it looks too simple and delicious to pass up! Looks pretty too. 🙂
It’s quite sweet, but really yummy! Let me know what you think if you have a chance to try it! 🙂
Loving those few ingredients! Almond flavored desserts are my favorite! I'm thinking there could be many possibilities to top this cake or simply serve with fresh berries?
Oh absolutely. A big pile of fresh raspberries with a dollop of whipped cream in the centre…. yummy!
I never had Tuppkaka before but this really looks like a easy and delicious dessert. I love an easy recipe. Thanks for sharing this.
Thanks! It's certainly very moreish – let me know if you try it out! Hope you had a good weekend 🙂
Perfectly Scandinavian! I love this cake!
Now I have an oven again I'm going to make kladdkaka soon too, yay 🙂
I think I'll bake this tonight. We have friends driving up from Illinois with their 35 foot motor home (I call it the 'Rock Star Bus'). We're tagging along for the ride to Montreal this weekend. The bus literally devours gas, so I thought I would bake a bunch of yummies to give them as a 'thank you' gift. A winner for sure. I simply adore almonds!
We'll see how this pans out…my motto has always been: Roughing it to me, is slow room service! I'm not much of a camper 😉
Haha, great motto! I used to go on camping holidays when I was younger. I'm not sure I could do it now… I'm a wreck if I fall asleep anywhere hard so sleeping in a sleeping bag on a hill in some lumpy field would play havoc on me I think! I remember I always used to be amazed at the equipment people had… they'd turn up, pitch their tent and then pull out all sorts of things… TVs, refrigerators, big bed frames with large, plush air mattresses perched on top…. everything to make it seem as if they'd never left home in the first place!
Let me know if you make the "rooster cake" and how it turns out – hope it all goes well 🙂
This is interesting, I have never heard of it. I have posted a recipe for toscatårta – also almond topped cake but slightly different. Your recipe has no milk/cream. I will give this a try hopefully in the near future.
I made this yesterday! I halved the recipe because I only have a 20cm cake tin, and reduced the sugar further to 125g instead of 150g. It turned out perfectly and was so easy, everyone loves it! I’ll be making it again for sure. Half of this recipe fits perfectly in a 20cm/8″ tin, by the way, for anyone who wanted to try it. It is still quite sweet with the reduced sugar, I think it would have been too sweet for me if I hadn’t reduced it.
In your introduction to the cake you wrote “Perfect to whip up in case of unexpected guests!”. That is exactly to the point!
I got the recipe to the Tuppkaka 65 years ago from a classmates mother. And I got the story behind at the same time. Here it is, at first in swedish:
“Historien bakom Tuppkakan.
Det berättas i Söderhamn att tuppkakan kom till tack vare att en fiskarhustru
på ön Tuppen i Söderhamns södra skärgård stod i köksdörren och såg mannen
komma seglande. Han hade någon med sig i båten, en gäst. Hustrun hade inget
att bjuda på, men hon fann på råd och gjorde en smet på ägg, socker, smör och
vetemjöl, som hon gräddade, och så föddes tuppkakan.”
For those who don´t understand swedish, I will try to translate it:
“It is told in Söderhamn that the Tuppkaka was created when a fisherman´s wife on the island of Tuppen in the southern part of the archipelago of Söderhamn, from the door of the kitchen saw her husband come sailing. He had someone in the boat, a guest. The wife had nothing to offer, but she got an idea and mixed eggs, suger, butter and flour, which she put in the oven, and the Tuppkaka was born.”
Since I got the recipe I have made this cake many times, but in a bit more radical way in comparison with your instructions: More butter, 100 g. Mix the ingredients only by stirring, never whip any air into the mixture. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees Celsius. Yes, 250. Bake it for 10-12 minutes, not more. The cake shall be creamy in the middle.
As you see, this way of doing it, is even quicker, in 20 minutes it is ready.
Hi Leif, that’s awesome — thank you so much! I’ve asked my mother-in-law and other people here in Sweden a few times and no-one knows why it’s called a Tuppkaka (and even fewer people have actually heard of it). I’m so pleased to finally find out the reason for the name. I had no idea there was an island called Tuppen either (not surprising since Sweden has hundreds (or thousands) or little islands on the coast.
Thank you again — I can’t wait to tell my mother-in-law tomorrow!