And coincidentally I got : Swedish Chef. Go Figure.
So I decided to honor that role of a Swedish chef and work in a kitchen on a Saturday.
In my first week back from Christmas vacation, my friend Kacey mentioned how on every Saturday the nation Norrlands host a fika every Saturday from 12-3 and they need workers to work 7AM-5PM prepping food and working the fika, plus pay. She asked if I wanted to help work, since she thought I would enjoy it.
So the past two Saturdays (minus this one), I have woken up at the crack of dawn (like 6AM) and have gone to Norrlands, located in downtown Uppsala, and worked for 10 hours.
It was fantastic.
Just being in the kitchen before the sun rises and preparing food for 5 hours was so therapeutic.
I cut and slice tomatoes and zucchini and made salami and brie sandwiches and decorated a smörgåstårta.
What's a smörgåstårta you ask?
It's like a sandwich cake, but not the sandwich cake like dessert sandwich cake.
Like a literal sandwich cake.
The cake part is more bready and not as sweet-tasting as regular cake is and the inside doesn't contain frosting or any cake topping sweets. For our fika, we made a salmon and shrimp cake, chicken curry cake and a vegetarian hummus and avocado cake.
To make a smörgåstårta is simple but takes a long time.
First you make the filling for the cake-
The first one I decorated was a salmon and shrimp one then the second one, I made the filling of chicken curry which was my first time ever making something with curry. (Note: the smell of curry sticks to you, when I walked out of the cafe after hours of making it, my shirt smelled of it)
Then you take the bread-ish cake and place on layer on a glass plate, then you cover it with as much filling as you can. My boss my first day taught me that it was better to put too much filling on the cake than too little, which makes sense.
After the first layer of cake is covered, you put another layer of the bread-ish cake on top and then another layer of filling, and then you put the last layer of bread-ish cake and wrap it up in saran-wrap tightly and lightly cool it until the next day.
The left over filling is saved for sandwiches or is saved for the workers during a break or for any events going on.
Now decorating it:
The next day at around 11AM before the Saturday fika starts, the cake decorating begins.
Starting with the salmon/shrimp sandwich cake, my boss taught me how to decorate and what decorations to use. Turns out that the decorations show what's inside the cake. So instead of poking through the cake or playing the guessing game of what kind of cake it is, you can just look at the top and you know.
To decorate the cake you take creme fraiche and a little bit of mayonnaise and mix together in a big bowl until well incorporated.
Then comes the fun part: with gloves you scoop the creme fraiche mixture and cover the cake until it is well covered with it. It's weird, I know and it kind of brings me back to my pre-school days where I would finger paint. Covering that cake with my hands was weirdly calming.
Once the cake was fully covered, I took some dill and chopped it up and then covered the sides of the cake with it.
Then I took 2 hard boiled eggs and with an egg slicer, sliced them neatly and put them in the middle of the cake to help guests know how many slices there are and where they are under the creme fraiche mix. Then after the eggs, I took a lemon sliced into slices and then cut the slices in half, then took the half slices and cut a tiny triangle right in the middle, twisted them and placed them on the edge of the cakes.
Then lastly, I took small shrimp and covered the white spots on the top of the cake, thus finishing it at 11:45AM right before we opened.
Ta Da!!! My very first smörgåstårta!
It's actually really good, trust me, I know the look of it and the thought of having a cake filled with salmon, shrimp, mayonnaise, dill, egg and lemon is weird, but trust me and the Swedes, it's good.
The table for fika!
Sandwiches of salami & brie, lax and cream cheese, chicken curry sandwiches, sun dried tomatoes and olive sandwiches and chicken and bacon sandwiches (<---which are my favorite)
Then chocolate brownies, raisin coffee cake, cinnamon rolls, carrot cake and gluten- free chocolate cake
The sandwich cakes
Salmon & Shrimp as pictured above
Yellow- Chicken Curry
Top left- Avocado & Hummus
Gluten-free Chocolate Cake and pictured on top right is Chokladbolls.
Saturday fika was a success and all the sandwiches and two of the cakes were gone within an hour and a half.
Let's just say that after this, my Saturdays will be filled with many hours in the kitchen or attending this fika and supporting my friends working it.
Either way you will find me at Norrlands on Saturdays.
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