Swedish Sandwich Cake (Smörgåstårta)

The Swedish “Smörgåstårta” or Sandwich Cake, is a savory sandwich cake that you might have heard about at IKEA… and then I am not saying “Smörgåsbord”, which is something else. The Swedish Sandwich Cake is a savory cake made out of layers of bread, filled with layers of different fillings and decorated with either fish, meat or vegetables depending on what kind of cake you make. Yes, there is literally thousands of different ways to create your Sandwich cake, so if you don’t like fish (which is very common in the original cake) or you are vegetarian, just adjust things to suit your tastes.

We normally serve the sandwich cake when we celebrate something. We think it is perfect for when we have many guests over and those days when your guests never seems to eat at the same time, like for parties, brunches etc.

I have decided to do a fish/seafood version. The Mayport shrimps are much bigger than the once we have in Scandinavia, but I think it works very well. I also took one layer with avocado which I haven’t tried before, and that worked absolutely perfect.

This might seem as a very questionable dish for you, if you never heard about it before. But to help you to imagine what it is, I would say a shrimp or tuna salad sandwich which you end up overfilling a bit. 🙂 Try it out and I am sure you will like it!

Ingredients (4-6 pers):

The bread

• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 cup milk (whole or 2%)
• 2 tsp dry yeast
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 2 1/3 cup all purpose flour

Sandwich Cake

• 16 oz sour cream
• 8 oz mayonnaise
• 1 tsp fresh ground horseradish
• 1/2 tsp salt

Layer 1 – Shrimp filling

• 1 tsp fine chopped dill
• 15 chopped shrimps
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• black pepper

Layer 2 – Avocado 

• 1 avocado
• black pepper

Layer 3 – Tuna and mustard filling

• 1 can tuna in water (4 oz)
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• black pepper

Decoration

• 10 green leaves (salad)
• 20 shrimps
• 10 cherry tomatoes
• 1/3 cucumber
• 1/2 lemon
• 3 figs
• fresh dill

Bread

Melt the butter in a saucepan on medium heat. Take the saucepan from the heat and add the milk into the saucepan with butter. Make sure the temperature is not higher than 98ºF.

Add 2 cups of the flour (keep the rest to the baking part), dry yeast, salt and sugar into a mixing bowl. Use a stand mixer and add the milk and butter mixture into the bowl and let all the ingredients mix together for 5 minutes until the dough is losing from the sides and is well mixed together. The the dough is ready. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and let the dough ferment for 30 minutes. You should now have a double sized dough.

Take the dough onto a baking board and knead carefully the dough with your hands. Place the dough in a greased bread pan (4×10” or if you prefer a round cake, you can use a cake pan). Ferment again and this time for 20-30 minutes.

Pre heat the oven to 400ºF. Bake the bread in the lower part of the oven for approximately 12-20 minutes (until the bread has a light golden brown color). Tip the bread over on a baking board and let it cool down (important before doing the next step). Cut the bread (horizontal) into four layer.

Sandwich Cake

Mix sour cream, mayonnaise, horseradish and salt in a bowl. This cream will be part of all the coming layers.

Cut off all the bread crusts from each side of the all four layer sandwiches.

Start with the bottom layer of bread and place it on a serving plate.

Add 3-4 tbsp of the cream mixture into a bowl. Add the fine chopped dill, shrimp pieces, lemon juice and black pepper and mix. Spread the first shrimp filling over the first bread layer.

Place a the second bread layer about the shrimp filling. Spread 2 tbsp of the cream mixture on the second bread. Slice the avocado in thin slices and place them on top of the cream. Flavor with some fresh black pepper.

Place the third bread layer above the avocado.

Add 3-4 tbsp cream mixture into a bowl and add the tuna, mustard and black pepper and mix. Spread it out over the third bread layer.

Place the last bread layer on the top. Now, take the rest of the cream mixture and spread it on and around the cake to cover all sides.

Time to decorate the sandwich cake. Start with washing the green leaves and them place them on all sides. Cut the tomatoes in half, slice the cucumber in thin slices and peel the shrimps. Cut the lemon in thin slices and then place them all on top of the cake. Finish with some fresh dill. Cut the figs in quarters and place them around the cake.

You can serve the sandwich directly, but I prefer to keep it in the refrigerator for a couple of hours before serving, which will give the cake time to set and get more of the flavors.

Smaklig måltid!

My plate is from Danish “Royal Copenhagen”.