The Hirshon Nordic Party Sandwich 'Cake' - Smörgåstårta or Brauðterta — Smörgåstårta/Brauðterta Image Used Under Creative Commons License From goodeatings.com

My Citizens! I am feeling rather celebratory this day, and as such the Nabob of the North – YOUR TFD! – has turned His boreal gaze once again towards ‘Ultima Thule‘ to find a suitable dish to slake My hunger and as a proper centerpiece to the feast I will prepare! Lo and behold, I discovered this delightfully whimsical gastronomic ‘trompe l’oeil‘ recipe from Sweden – and a quick bit of research informed Me that an IDENTICAL dish also exists in Iceland too! For the GLORY of TFD Nation, I am honored to share My version of smörgåstårta (Swedish) or brauðterta (Icelandic) sandwich cake!

Smörgåstårta (Swedish: smörgåstårta, (pronounced smoorgawstawrta) ‘sandwich cake’ or ‘sandwich torte’) is a dish of Swedish origin popular in Sweden, Estonia (called ‘võileivatort’), Finland (called ‘voileipäkakku’ and smörgåstårta ) and Iceland (called brauðterta (Brayth-tayrta – bread cake)). It is NOT a cake, but has large amounts of filling and garnish, similar to a layered cream cake but it is in point of fact a gigantic sandwich MASQUERADING as a cake.

A smörgåstårta is normally made up of several layers of white or light rye bread with creamy fillings in between. The fillings and toppings vary, but egg and mayonnaise are often the base; additional filling may vary greatly but often include one or more of the following: liver pâté, olives, shrimp, ham, various cold cuts, caviar, tomato, cucumber, grapes, lemon slices, cheese, and smoked salmon. Smörgåstårta is served cold and cut like a dessert cake.

The types of sandwich cakes vary from meat, fish, combinations of cheeses and meats, to vegan. The top garnish often reflects the ingredients used as a filling. In Finland, voileipäkakku is a standard dish at family gatherings such as birthday parties, weddings, or funerals.

If you wanted to make it into Guinness Book of World Records, what would YOU do? Well, in 1985, a man named Hasse “Hasse P” Pettersson decided that he would put his hometown Köping on the map by making the world’s longest sandwich cake, or smörgåstårta. The record-winning cake turned out to be 510 meters and 69 centimetres, or 1675 feet and 5 inches…and yes, the record still stands to this very day!

Swedish food historian Richard Tellström has done a splendid job writing about the history of smörgåstårta at Taffel.se, which I shall share excerpted and in translation:

In 2012, some people came up with the idea that the sandwich cake should have its own day in the calendar in line with other food days. The choice of day was to draw attention to a pastry chef in Östersund who claims to be the inventor of the sandwich cake and that he did it in 1965. The date of the sandwich cake day then became November 13 because it coincided with the said pastry chef’s birthday. But is it really the case that the sandwich cake was invented by a single person and as late as 1965? Let’s go into the historical sources and see what they tell us. But we start with a definition:

The sandwich cake itself is a very Swedish idea. The cake itself can be described as an open Swedish sandwich in several layers and in its construction not unlike sweet cakes. And just like them, the sandwich cake is made with bread that is usually spread with butter and given some filling with toppings. The pieces are then put together and spread mayonnaise or crème fraîche on the outside. The sandwich cake is then given a very careful and elaborate decoration. There is probably almost no other Swedish dish that has as many artfully-cut decorations as a sandwich cake.

In the food history detective work, you quickly go back much further than 1965. The Swedish Academy’s Dictionary gives its first evidence for the word ‘smörgåstårta’ itself to 1958, but already in 1951 Vår kokbok uses it for a cake made with one (1) layer. That recipe (page 408) describes a single layer sandwich cake and the bread is a custom cake or tea cake where toppings such as smoked salmon, mayonnaise, egg wedges, radishes and chopped nuts are placed on the cake which is first coated with soft cheese.

The cookbook was created by KF Provkök and was edited by rural home economics teacher Anna-Britt Agnsäter. The serving instructions state that you should place “the sandwich cakes on serving plates and cut[a] them at the table into small triangular sandwiches” and the cake with salmon cones “so that each person gets a cone”. In the 1950s, the sandwich cake then became very popular, not least after a decade of war rationing on fat and toppings. But this was a one-layer sandwich cake, so how old is the multi-layer cake?

If you analyze the construction itself, i.e. several grants with sandwich toppings and filling in between as well as an artistic decoration, we come even a little further back in history. Already in 1947, the food writer Jochum (actually John Sjöstrand) describes how to make a sandwich-type cake that he calls Jönköpingtårta.

Why he chooses that particular word, I have not been able to find out, but the cake is made in three layers of bread with, among other things, a butter and liver pâté filling and a filling made of raw minced meat, and is finally decorated with eggs, boiled carrots, parsley, cucumber slices or smoked salmon, among other things . The recipe can be found in his book Alla tieders smörgåsar from 1947 on page 48, and the appearance is like sandwich cakes from today, let alone that the filling ideal has changed.

But as early as 1940 in the then newly-published Stora kokboken, the book’s editors Edith Jonsson and Britta Hallman-Haggren mention the word cake for the first time in combination with the word sandwich, which was then the usual word for a finer appetizer or soup sandwich. They give recipes for a multi-portion sandwich cake in two layers, filling between the layers and then a beautiful decoration on the outside.

In the same year, i.e. 1940, the home economics teacher Maj Thermænius-Göransson writes a recipe for a portion sandwich in three layers of bread where each layer should be a little smaller than the previous one so that a pyramid shape arises when you put it together. She calls this sandwich a pyramid sandwich, and between the layers you spread butter, mustard, tomato puree or venison pate. It should then be garnished with tomato, cucumber, hard-boiled egg and finished with an anchovy or anchovy fillet.

If you sum up the age of the sandwich cake linguistically, then the oldest topping is right now from 1951. If you choose instead to look at the shape and construction with several portions with filling in between and garnished abundantly on the outside as the oldest topping, then the sandwich cake is a sandwich cake and can therefore be coated until the year 1940. What happens then is that the word sandwich becomes unfashionable and in the 1950s the word smörgåstorta takes over. It is also interesting to see that it is found early in the food culture of the home.

It is women who write cookbooks and home economics teachers who first describe the cake, not professional pastry chefs. Instead, they come after and pick up a trend that has been going on for a long time in homes. Among other things, Svensk konditori & konfektyrtidning writes in its July 1965 issue that “sandwiches are an article to be reckoned with”. It was a tip for the confectioners to start investing more in fine sandwiches and sandwich cakes that were already popular in homes.

Even today, the sandwich cake belongs to the home party culture, although it is often bought ready-made and this year it celebrates at least 75 years (at least!). But who owns an older dish? Cooking descriptions are not covered by ordinary copyright and asserting the right to a recipe has been tried in court but proved unsuccessful. Instead, food combinations are more of a kind of intangible creations of food culture and as such lack legal protection.

They are the property of all of us. And nobody’s. But who owns an older dish? Cooking descriptions are not covered by ordinary copyright and asserting the right to a recipe has been tried in court but proved unsuccessful. Instead, food combinations are more of a kind of intangible creations of food culture and as such lack legal protection. They are the property of all of us. And nobody’s.

Despite the exceptional research in the above excerpt, it is worth noting that a bakery ad in Svenska Dagbladet mentions smörgåstårta as early as the 30th of May, 1945, using a loaf of bread that is cut into layers. The filling is flavored with sprats or salmon and cheese or liver paté, then was decorated with piped salmon cream, egg slices, and dill. An even older ad in Svenska Dagbladet, from 1929, mentions something called sandwichtårta, “sandwich cake”, but sadly, there are no further details on how this creation looked.

One of the oldest known mentions of smörgåstårta is found in Söderhamns tidning in 1934 – to make the cake ‘extra festive’, the recipe author suggests using different colors for coloring the butter used for spreading the bread – I heartily accept this idea, but have instead colored the FILLINGS for a more dramatic look for the ‘cake’ when cut.

As to how brauðterta migrated to Iceland, where it is considered a very traditional dish to enjoy, I have not been able to determine. All that I DO know is that it didn’t really become popular in Iceland until the 1950’s. Brauðterta’s popularity may have waned since the ’50’s, but it has started to make a major comeback. So much so that there is actually an entire Facebook group called Brauðtertufélag Erlu Og Erlu, which has almost 15,000 members (that is approximately 4% of the ENTIRE ICELANDIC POPULATION!).

If you decide to make the Icelandic version, be advised that you should make My version with regular rye bread – NOT rúgbrauð, another form of Icelandic rye that has…unfortunate…gastrointestinal side effects if you eat too much! If you have a strong constitution (and a strong enjoyment of ‘fart humor’) read the horror story at the link above related to My honeymoon in Iceland that proved DRAMATICALLY memorable. Enjoy rúgbrauð in moderation in another meal, just trust Me on this one! 😉

Taking a cue from that first smörgåstårta recipe, I have chosen to dramatically (and naturally) color my sandwich cake fillings as red, white, green and yellow – they are either in minced form or finely-chopped, to make cutting and eating the sandwich cake a simple process.

The colors, fillings and flavors hold especial meaning for Me – the smoked salmon filling calls back to both Iceland and My NYC Jewish upbringing; the yellow egg salad is an homage to the yellow in the Swedish flag with an Indian zeitgeist; the green chicken holds Georgian herbal flavors and the white is classic Scandinavia with a hint of China – it’s basically a more rustic version of har gow filling!

Above all else, please be sure that you decorate the ‘frosting’ (actually a mix of sour cream, cream cheese and horseradish with some white pepper and salt added). I strongly endorse using the best white pepper as the Scandinavians do and this gourmet Icelandic sea salt for pure authenticity.

When it comes to decorating – GO NUTS! These are My preferred ingredients for decoration: cucumber and half-sour pickle slices, very thin slices of chiogga beets and watermelon radishes, very thin slices tjälknöl (or braseola), red & yellow peppers, dill, red onion, parsley, edible flowers (TFD especially likes blue borage flowers for their vibrancy and cucumber flavor), smoked red trout roe, yellow whitefish roe, black lumpfish roe and green wasabi-infused flying fish roe.

Note that it is My affectation to use both white AND rye bread to make up the layers of the ‘cake’ – traditionally, only white is used. Feel free to use only white bread if you are so inclined – also know that the classic Icelandic brauðterta is typically ‘frosted’ with mayonnaise. I have chosen to use the more modern approach of using a mix of sour cream and cream cheese instead.

My Citizens – this is a unique, rather retro and totally delicious feast from the North that will delight you and your guests equally – it is not at all difficult to make and My recipe (of course) bears all the hallmarks of My unique culinary genius and especial gift for adaptation of ingredients and techniques towards new horizons. I have every confidence this will be the next showstopper at your next soirée of choice! 😀

Battle on – the Generalissimo