Red Currant Meringue Cake
A Swedish, old school, classic. You’ll have been served this sweet, thin, slice of meringue topped cake by your grandma, the recipe hand scribbled in an old notebook with a few egg and flour stains scattered over it.
The slight cake base is a heavy sponge, just enough to hold a topping of whipped currant meringue, a perfect balance of acidity and crackling sweetness.
Red Currant Meringue Cake
250 g all-purpose flour (4 dl/ 1¾ cups)
2 tsp baking powder
50 g unsalted butter, melted (1,75 oz)
3 eggs
450 g caster sugar (4 ½ dl/ 2 cups)
– 200 g of the sugar (2 dl/ ¾ cup) is for the cake base and 250 g (2½ dl/ 1¼) for the meringue.
150 ml milk (1½ dl / ½ cup and 2 tbsp)
2 tbsp water
2 tsp vanilla essence (1 tsp for the cake; 1 tsp for the meringue)
200 g red /black currants (3½ dl / 1 ½ cups)
For the cake:
Pre-heat the oven to 200 C/ 390 F
1. Combine the flour and baking powder, set aside.
2. Melt the butter, set aside.
3. Separate the egg yokes and whip them with 180g of the sugar (2 dl/ ¾ cup) until the mix is light and fluffy.
4. Slowly pour the milk, water and 1 tsp vanilla essence into the whipped egg and sugar.
5. Fold in the sifted flour, and lastly the melted butter.
6. Line an oven tray with baking paper. Pour out the cake mix, spreading it evenly over the sheet. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes, until a toothpick pushed into the centre comes out clean. The shorter time is for a fan assisted oven.
For the Red Currant Meringue topping:
7. Whisk the egg whites on a low speed until firm – they should form peaks as you pull up the whisk.
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- 8. Stir in the remaining sugar
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- 9. Add the currants slowly…
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- And fold them in gently
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- 10. Turn the oven up to 250 C/ 480 F once the cake is taken out
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- 11. Pour the currant meringue mix over the cake base, spread it out evenly
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- 12. Bake in the top of the oven for 5 minutes, or until the meringue is slightly golden.
Wait until the cake has cooled before cutting it, and VOILA!
This recipe was resurrected by Alexandra Larsson in her cookbook #Bakboken after winning The Swedish Bake-Off ’Hela Sverige bakar’ 2014, and successfully getting everyone raiding grandma’s cupboards for old recipes.
Linking Red Currant Meringue Cake with #TastyTuesdays and #CookBlogShare
For another delicious Swedish recipe check out these Baked Vanilla Knots:
This sounds totally up my street. I am not always a dessert fan but this has got me wanting. I love sponge and meringue and then some fruit added in to the mix sounds fab. Love coming here and discovering new ideas and tastes. x
Oh I could see myself devouring 3 or 4 slices of this cake with a cup of tea! Thanks for sharing, Steph. I must try it!
You girl are so talented. I love this! So original and bet the crunch with the softness of the red currants is delicious. Thanks for linking up to #tastytuesdays x
Thanks honey, I can’t take any credit for this idea though 🙂 Wonderful, classic, old school Swedish x
This looks like an interesting bake, would love to try a slice. I wouldn’t normally eat red currents but I bet the berries and the meringue do work well together. #CookBlogShare
The meringue sits like a fluffy weightless syrup over the currants, balancing the tartness of the currants perfectly 🙂
Would love to have you over for coffee!
Fab recipe! I think I have actually eaten these before (I lived in Finland so a lot of the foods are similar) but I do have to admit, I wasn’t a big fan… 🙂 Sorry! To be honest, I think it is more about my inability to enjoy red currants (or any currants whatsoever, can’t even stand ribena) than the actual bake. The idea of a meringue topper on the other hand is pretty cool, I’ll try it with another berry! #cookblogshare
Haha! Yep, I could well imagine there’d be a similar bake in Finland 🙂
Not a fan of currants? I think probably there’s a lot of people that aren’t. I also think, tasting them as children, we generally haven’t waited for them to be ripe, so that can’t have helped our ’initial experience’ of the flavour!
My kids are crazy about them (even sour) …Can’t understand it!
For me, the only reason this recipe works is the fact that they’re coated in the ultra sweet meringue, fully compensating any possible tartness… I’d really like to point you in the direction of some fudge instead – you may enjoy that more!
http://misplacedbrit.com/recipes/white-chocolate-lemon-rhubarb-fudge/
I don’t think I’ve ever cooked with redcurrants before, in fact they’re not something you see very often but I remember them from my childhood. Perhaps they need to be resurrected here in the UK as well! This cake looks really lovely, and as I love trying new bakes, is one I’ll definitely be adding to my must-try list. Thanks for linking up to #cookblogshare this week.
Thanks Mandy, no, it’s not often you see currants for sale, it’s usually just when you have a bush in your garden and then you’re looking for ANYTHING new to try! 🙂
Thanks for the lovely comment, I hope you find some x
I love finding new recipes, your redcurrant meringue cake looks delicious. Going to try this soon, my redcurrants have all gone now, do you think it will work with blackberries or are they too big a berry? Thanks for sharing Steph x
Thanks Sarah
As we’ve been tweeting 😉 …I think blackberries would be delicious. They’re not likely to get burned as the meringue and berries are only in the oven for 5 minutes, and probably the blackberries too would benefit from the additional sweetness of the meringue.
Have fun experimenting! x