Labour Day (Vappu) in Finland is known for its bright colors. Usually we are quite dull and grey people, but in the Vappu spirit I decided to try something colorful aswell. Even though I often seem somewhat dark and gloomy I can be colorful from the inside. This cake has some of the same qualities.

This cake I made quite quickly from ingredients I happened to have. I've been traveling so much lately that i haven't been able to hold a good amount of fresh ingredients at home. The cake is for my sisters birthday. She likes gardening and is in many ways quite an opposite to me so I figured for the top light and fresh looking flower theme would be nice.

Colourful cake base:

Use the general white cake base recipe from for example The BMW Turbo car cake. I used 3 eggs and a bit more than 1 tsp baking powder for this base.

Once you've made the batter, divide it equally into 4 containers. Dye the batter in each container with a different food color. I used red, blue, yellow and green. Try to mix gently by folding while you dye the batter so the batter won't get lose all of its air. Bake the batter either in 4 different rectangular moulds or do as i did: divide 2 larger pans each with a piece of baking paper from the middle and pour the batter in carefully not mixing the two colors. Bake in 200 degrees celcius for 15-20 mins.

 

Mango filling:

- 2,5 dl whipping cream (Flora vispi)

- 1/2 mango

- 1/2 dl water

- 1 + 2 tbsp sugar

(- 1/2 tsp vanilla sugar)

- 100 g quarck

(- gelatine)

Whip the cream and chop the mango small. Put the water, 1 tbsp sugar and the mango in a saucepan and let it boil on low heat for 5 - 10 mins. Pour the mango mixture in a blender along with the quarck and a little of the whipped cream and blend until smooth. Let the mixture cool and then mix it in with the rest of the cream and sugar. If the filling feels too runny you can add some gelatine.

Moisten the first layer of the base with for example some juice. I had some of my home made lemonade left so I used that. Spread a layer of the mango filling on the base and continue with the next layer and so on. Moisten the top layer from below.

Even the surface and the sides of the cake out with some sugar creme. Roll a piece of white marzipan into a long flat strip with some powdered sugar. Even out one edge of it and paint some stripes along the strip. I used white, yellow, black and silver colors for this. The strip will make the pages of this book cake. Place the strip on the side of the cake so that it covers one long and two short sides. One long side is left uncovered at this stage since it's going to be the back of the book.

Roll a larger about rectangular piece of the marzipan flat and place it on top of the book. See that it covers also the remaining side (the back of the book) Cut around the "page sides" leaving about 1,5 - 2 cm and fold those under themselves. This will give the appearance of the books cover. Make another thin strip of marzipan and place it around the bottom edge of the cake so that it will look like the bottom cover. Brush off any excess powdered sugar and decorate the book the way you want.

I painted a simple leafy ornament on the book and made some blue flowers. Don't ask me what plant am I trying to mimic, since I don't know it myself either. I just did something.

The flowers i made by just cutting some strips of marzipan, shaping them a little and glueing them with water on top of a white marzipan disc. Then i placed some small different color balls made of marzipan on top and brushed with some shiny powder. I used white marzipan which i colored to two different blues leaving one part just plain white.

Here are some pictures of the finished cake:

And here's what it looked like from the inside. Hyvää vappua!

 

Vappukakku - Värikäs kakku - Kirjakakku - Mangotäyte