Christmas

Kronans Kaka (Swedish Almond Potato Cake)

by:
October 29, 2017
5
1 Ratings
Kronans Kaka (Swedish Almond Potato Cake)
Photo by Rocky Luten
  • Makes one 9-inch cake
Author Notes

This recipe is a riff on the one I found in the book 'Fika: The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break" by Anna Brones and Johanna Kindvall. If you like cardamom, buns of all stripes, and dense, rye bread it is worth checking out. Kronans kaka was originally developed in the 1800's as a way to reduce flour usage, as wheat was particularly expensive at the time. However, the recipe also comes in handy any time you find yourself with a glut of leftover mashed potatoes and a sweet tooth. (Bonus: it's gluten-free, too.) —Catherine Lamb

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • 7 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 1/2 cup natural cane sugar (or granulated sugar)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup raw almonds, finely ground
  • Zest of 1/2 an orange
  • 1 large potato (like russet) or 2 small potatoes, peeled and boiled until tender (or 1 cup mashed potatoes, as long as they aren't flavored with garlic, chives, or savory things)
  • 1 teaspoon Vanilla or almond extract, if desired
Directions
  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease and flour a 9-inch round baking pan.
  2. Cream together the butter and sugar. Mix in one egg at a time, stirring until you get a creamy consistency. Add the almonds and orange zest and stir until smooth.
  3. If you're not using already-mashed potatoes, mash them now with a fork or ricer. Add to the batter and stir until well blended.
  4. Pour the batter into the baking pan and bake for 40 to 50 minutes, until the top is golden brown. If the cake starts to get a golden brown color earlier (check it after 30 minutes), remove it from the oven, cover it with aluminum foil, and put back in the oven. This will prevent the top of the cake from burning.
  5. Remove from oven and let cool, then cut into slices. The authors recommend pairing it with a dollop of whipped cream, creme fraiche, or rhubarb jam, all of which would be wonderful.
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6 Reviews

Quinnificent
Quinnificent October 10, 2020
Made with 1 cup almond flour. Used 1/2 t of both almond and vanilla extract. Eaten with homemade plum jam. Delicious.
 
Bascula
Bascula November 25, 2017
Sorry to nitpick, but is it "one cup of almonds, finely ground", or is it "one cup of finely ground almonds"? These could be quite different yields. Listing a weight here would help a lot.
 
JoAnn D.
JoAnn D. November 25, 2017
It says "one cup raw almonds, finely ground" so that is what it should be
 
Kayu
Kayu December 31, 2017
It’s rather unusual for a recipe to call for cooks to make almond meal/flour themselves - most people won’t have equipment capable of grinding nuts that finely. Weight measurements would definitely help clarify things.
 
Kayu
Kayu December 31, 2017
I used 1 cup of sieved fine-ground almond flour and 1 cup of sieved mashed potatoes (I should probably have weighed both for future reference), and it turned out very well.

Worth noting that these quantities make a very thin cake in a 9-in cake pan. 35 mins at 350°F baked it to a lovely mahogany golden brown (rather than the pallid beige-tan in the photos).
 
stefanie
stefanie October 11, 2018
I happen to own this cookbook, and the recipe calls for 142g raw almonds, finely ground.