Happy Father's Day!

It's a good day to be a dad!

Todays post is going to differ a little bit from what I have usually written here. It's basically baking but today's version is going to be a salty cake. For the father's day I treated my dad with this beautiful modern version of salmon sandwich cake. This is actually one of the cakes I made for my graduation party and it was absolutely the favorite one!

Sandwich cakes are very traditional festive food in Finnish culture. There's a lot of bread in it so it was nice to find an updated version of this cake. In this one the cream cheese replaces the bread but it definitely fill you up with only one piece. This cake was actually my dad's only wish for the brunch table so let's dive in it.

Bottom crust:

185 g (6,5 oz) Finn crisps

100g (3,5 oz) Butter

4 tbsp (or more) Milk

Cream cheese filling:

4 Leaves of gelatine

250g (9 oz) Cold-smoked salmon

1,5 Pots of dill (compare to the pot in the picture)

1 Red onion

4dl (1,7 cup) Whipped cream

400g (14 oz) Unflavored cream cheese

75g Roe (prefer salmon roe)

Ground white pepper

Juices from 2 Limes

Decoration:

100-150g (3,5-5 oz) Cold-smoked salmon

200g (7 oz) Unflavored cream cheese

1 Lime

Parsley

+ 24-26cm, 9,5-10 inch cake tin (this one is made with 26cm and I ran out of fish to decorate the top with so make sure to have some more of that salmon if you're making the cake with a bigger tin)

Okay, let's start by covering the bottom of the cake tin with some greaseproof paper. I also added one of those plastic strips on the edge to make sure to have a pretty cake. The recipe also suggested to oil the edge but I prefer the strip.

Then we move on to the bottom crust. Melt the butter and chop the finn crisps in the mixer. Make sure that the crisp crumbs aren't too big because we want to have a nice and tight crust on the bottom. When you're done with smashing them, mix the crumbs into the butter and make sure the butter has gotten everywhere. Then you can spread it on the bottom of the cake tin. Spread it evenly and press it lightly with spoon so it gets tight. Add some milk on it after that so it get a bit moist and stays together.

Chop the salmon into pieces or use mixer for that. Don't cut it into too little pieces so theres some texture in the cake. Just a couple of turns with mixer!

Alrighty buddy! The we chop the onion and the dill to go with the salmon. Whisk the cream and add the salmon, onion, dill, roe and cream cheese in it. It's pretty thick paste at this point but don't be scared. When you add the lime juice in it, it's easier to spread into the cake tin. :)

Okay, at this point there might be differences with products so make sure to read the instructions for the gelatine leaves. For my leaves, put them into the bowl with 4dl of  cold water for 5 mins. When there's about 2 mins left, start to heat up the lime juice. When time's up, squeeze the extra water off from the leaves and bring the juice up to boil. When you see the first bubbles, melt the leaves one by one into the liquid while stirring.

When each of them have dissolved in there mix it with the filling we made earlier. Make sure to mix it well so the cake settles properly. The we can pour it into the tin and let it settle for 3h before detaching the edge.

Here you see my attempt to fix my mistake. I made the cake for my graduation party with a smaller tin so I didn't take in consider that since the tin is bigger, of course I need to have more salmon.. So I did my best to make it look good. What do you think?

Anyways, whisk the cream cheese, until it softens a little bit so you can pack it all up into the piping bag and decorate the edges of the cake with the cheese. Finally add some parsley around the cake as you will.

So that's it for today folks! For the next couple of weeks I'm going to dive into the world of candy. I can already tell you that nothing beats the home made chocolate or marshmallows! ;) Stay tuned chicsters!