Sugarfox: Recipe for kartoffelkager (Danish potato cakes)

Kartoffelkager are one of my favorite Danish cakes. The name “potato cake” refers to the look of the cake. Potatoes are not included as ingredients (except for potato flour, but you could probably also replace it with cornstarch). The cakes taste like vanilla and marzipan.

For the kartoffelkager, I used a Danish recipe from anjasopskrifter.dk, which is an original confectioners’ kartoffelkage recipe. I barely speak Danish, but had some good translations tools. I made the following changes to the recipe:

- My potatoes had a diameter of 7 cm/2.75 inches (instead of 5 cm/2 inches).

- I made 8 potatoes (instead of 6), which is why I needed more marzipan (400 g/14 oz instead of 300 g/10.5 oz).

- I added some vanilla sugar to the heavy whipping cream.
- I dipped each cake into melted chocolate.

Please note: Amounts like "5/6 cup" might be a bit unusual, but are the most accurate conversions of the amounts given in the recipe. On the page "Conversion table" you find information on how you can measure this amount using cups, tablespoons and teaspoons.

Recipe for kartoffelkager (Danish potato cakes)

Ingredients (for 8 cakes)

Cake:

- 3 eggs

- 188 g (ca. 5/6 cup) granulated white sugar

- 133 g (ca. 5/6 cup) flour

- 76 g (ca. 2/5 cup) potato flour

- 1 teaspoon baking powder

Filling 1:

- 3 egg yolks

- 50 g (ca. 1/4 cup) granulated white sugar

- 2 tablespoons cornstarch

- 200 ml (ca. 5/6 cup) milk

- 100 ml (ca. 2/5 cup) heavy cream

- 1/2 vanilla bean

- 3 sheets of gelatin

- 200 ml (ca. 5/6 cup) heavy cream

Filling 2:

- 400 ml (ca. 1 4/6 cup) heavy cream

- 1 package of vanilla sugar (ca. 2 tsp granulated sugar + some vanilla seeds)

Marzipan cake cover:

- 400 g (14 oz) marzipan / almond modeling paste

- 50 to 100 g (ca. 1/5 to 2/5 cup) powdered sugar

In addition:

- some cocoa powder (about 150 g, 1 2/6 cup)

- some melted chocolate (about 150 g, 5 oz)

Directions

Cake

- Cream eggs and sugar together with the mixer for about 5 minutes until it’s a fluffy mixture.

- Mix flour, potato flour and baking powder and add it to the egg-sugar-mixture. Mix thoroughly.
- Spread the dough on a backing sheet covered with parchment paper.

- Bake in the oven: at 200°C (400°F), for 7 to 8 minutes.

- Sprinkle some granulated sugar on another piece of parchment paper. When you take the cake out of the oven, directly turn it upside down on the parchment paper (I was afraid, the cake might break, but everything went fine). Carefully peel off the old parchment paper.

Filling

- Soak the gelatin sheets for some minutes in a bowl of cold water so that they become soft.

- Scrape the vanilla seeds out of the vanilla bean with the tip of a knife. In a sauce pan, mix together 200 ml (5/6 cup) milk, 100 ml (2/5 cup) heavy cream, and the vanilla seeds, and bring it to a boil while stirring with a whisk.

- In the meantime, mix egg yolks and sugar together thoroughly with a mixer. Add cornstarch and again mix well.

- Add this mixture bit by bit to the milk-cream-mixture as soon as it starts to boil. Bring the whole thing to a boil while stirring. Keep on stirring until the mixture thickens. When it has the consistency of vanilla pudding, take it of the stove and let it cool.

- Add the soft gelatin to the mixture as long as it is still warm (otherwise the gelatin won’t dissolve). Don’t add the gelatin to the boiling mixture, because this might destroy the gelatin.

- When the vanilla pudding is cold, whisk 200 ml (ca. 5/6 cup) heavy cream until stiff peaks form, and gently fold it in.

Putting the cakes together

- Cut out 16 small round (or oval) cake layers using a glass or a cookie cutter. I used a glass with a diameter of 7 cm (ca. 2 3/4 inches).

- Put the vanilla cream into a piping bag and pipe the cream onto 8 cakes. Put the other 8 cake layers on top. Afterwards, put the cakes in the freezer for about 1 to 2 hours.

- Whisk 400 ml (1 4/6 cups) heavy cream together with vanilla sugar until stiff peaks form. After taking the cakes out of the freezer, spread whipped heavy cream on top of the cakes. Put them back in the freezer afterwards.

- Mix marzipan with powdered sugar and knead well (I used about 50 g / 1/5 cup powdered sugar for 400 g / 14 oz marzipan, but you can also take more). Now you can roll out the marzipan. I did it the following way: take about 60 g (2 oz) marzipan and roll it to a small ball. Next, place the ball on a sheet of plastic wrap, and cover it with another sheet of plastic wrap. Use a rolling pin to roll the marzipan to a circle (21 cm / ca. 8 inches in diameter).

Recipe for Danish kartoffelkage, roll out marzipan 1

Recipe for Danish kartoffelkage, roll out marzipan 2

Recipe for Danish kartoffelkage, roll out marzipan 3

- Remove the top layer of plastic wrap. Take the bottom layer with the marzipan cover and place it over the cake. Gently remove the remaining plastic wrap. Fold the marzipan around the cake. Cut off the excess marzipan with a knife (in my case it was about 10 g, 1/3 oz) and use it for the next marzipan cover. When the cake is covered, place it back in the freezer.

Recipe for Danish kartoffelkage, marzipan cover

- Pour cocoa powder in a bowl. Take each cake, dip it in the bowl and roll it around in the cocoa until it is completely coated (in my experience, this works best, when the cake was in the freezer before). Brush off the excess cocoa powder with a pastry brush. Place the cake back in the freezer.

- Melt the chocolate and pour the melted chocolate in a small bowl. Dip the bottom of each cake in the chocolate, and let the excess chocolate drip off (you might give it a gentle shake). Afterwards, place the cake on a parchment paper so that the chocolate can dry.