Smáterta í afmælisgjöf

Small cake as a birthday present

Last week it was a special friend's birthday and we celebrated here at the Island House. The birthday child took over all of the culinary care, but as a little surprise I baked this little cake.

I had already baked this birthday cake (afmæliskaka) "in large" for my husband's birthday in 2023. Now I spontaneously baked it again “in small size”. I had previously bought a mini springform pan with a diameter of 5 inches (12 cm). The result...? Small, tasty and really makes a nice visual impression!

And if you don't have a birthday coming up in the near future - next Sunday on February 23rd this year is konudagurinn, Icelandic Women's Day. Maybe that would be a nice opportunity...?

Ingredients

Ingredients for the floors

110 g soft butter

120 g sugar

2 eggs

180 g flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 pinch of salt

1 pinch of ground vanilla

80 ml milk

2 Tbsp chopped almonds

Ingredients for the buttercream

130 g soft butter

250 g powdered sugar

1 Tbsp whipping cream

1 pinch of salt

1 pinch of ground vanilla

Ingredients for the brittle

1 Tbsp butter

1 Tbsp sugar

3 Tbsp chopped almonds

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 350 °F (180 °C) upper/lower heat.

In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar and eggs until fluffy. Add flour, baking powder, salt, vanilla and milk and stir. Fold the chopped almonds into the dough and stir in.

Then pour the dough evenly into three small springform pans (diameter 12 cm) lined with baking paper and bake in a preheated oven at 350 °F (180 °C) upper and lower heat for approx. 20 - 25 minutes (toothpick test!).

While the layers are in the oven, prepare the buttercream:

In a bowl, mix butter, powdered sugar, whipping cream, salt and ground vanilla until you have a nice, uniform cream. If necessary, let the cream firm up a little in the refrigerator if the butter was very soft while the baked cake bases cool down.

Prepare the brittle:

Melt butter and sugar in a pan and toast the chopped almonds in it. Then remove the pan from the heat and let the brittle cool completely.

Place the first base on a flat plate, spread some buttercream in the middle and cover with approx. 1/4 of the brittle. Pour more buttercream into a piping nozzle and pipe small "mounds" of the cream all around the cake base. (Simply spreading it with cream works too, of course, but the sprayed heaps look much more impressive!)

Place the second cake layer on top and do the same as with the first.

Place the third cake layer on top, spread it with some buttercream and spread the remaining brittle on top. Then pipe the remaining buttercream all over with a cake piping as decoratively as possible.

Let the cake firm up a bit in the fridge and serve from the fridge.

The little cake was really well received here as a birthday surprise and we were able to celebrate a wonderful birthday, even with the northern lights in the evening!

[Translated from here.]