SWEDEN’S RETRO ROLL

A local take on a traditional Hungarian dessert, Budapest roll is a nostalgic Swedish classic. Words: Brontë Aurell

There’s a lot of nostalgia associated with pastry and cake baking in Sweden. And few dishes evoke it better than Budapestbakelse — or Budapest cake.

Day to day in Sweden, we make cinnamon buns and home bakes such as the chocolate kladdkaka. But for special occasions, only fancier cream cakes will do. Budapest cake is a type of Swiss roll, made from a sheet of baked hazelnut meringue, filled with whipped cream and, most often, fresh or canned mandarin segments. You’ll find it at every local konditori (bakery/cafe).

It was invented in the 1950s by Ingvar Strid, a well-travelled Swedish pastry chef, who loved the Hungarian capital. After one of his many visits to the city, he decided to adapt a Hungarian dessert called the esterházy torta — a cake with walnut meringue sandwiched between layers of ganache.

However, Ingvar added more accessible Swedish ingredients, such as hazelnuts and tinned mandarin segments, which were very much in fashion in the 1950s, and then changed the shape of the cake. His creation became an instant hit. What’s more, its appearance has barely changed since then. After all, why mess with something wonderful, even if it does look like something from a colourful 1970s cookbook?

When I included a version of Budapest cake in my cookbook, Brontë at

Home, I messed around with the fillings to try to update it a little and make it more current. But, in truth, once you remove the mandarin segments, it loses its nostalgic value, not to mention that fresh note of the orange fruit. Nevertheless, you can substitute these segments with whatever berries or fruit you fancy.