BRUNSVIGER ALA MARTIN BORCH JENSEN

Brunsviger
A traditional Danish cake, roughly pronounced “brun-SPHERE”. Simple but delicious.
Ingredients, dough:
• 40g butter or margarine (butter is tastier, margarine healthier).
• 2 dl whole milk
• 20g sugar
• 1 cake of live yeast, or ½ pack dry yeast
• ½ teaspoon cardamom
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ~400g wheat flour
Ingredients, topping:
• 250g dark brown sugar
• 225g butter or margarine
Procedure:
Warm the milk and butter for the dough, until the latter is melted. Add yeast, directly if live cake, in warm water with a bit of sugar if dry (I’ve had best results with live cakes, but hard to find in America). Add cardamom, salt, sugar, flour in a bowl, knead thoroughly and let rise until doubled or tripled in size (~45 minutes if placed warm. Always cover with damp cloth).
Transfer dough to a flat, greased pan, spread it out and pull the edges up along the sides of the pan. Let it rise for ~20 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the topping: simply heat the butter and brown sugar until it blends together and forms a homogenous caramel-y mass. You need sufficiently high heat for this, and constant stirring, but it’s critical for a good cake. I use setting 5 of 10 on my electrical stove. Let this cool before pouring on the cake. Turn oven on at 200 degrees Celsius (400-450 degrees Fahrenheit).
When the dough has risen, pull the sides back up on the pan if needed, then make deep indentations all over the surface (this is to get a heterogenous distribution of topping; the deeper the better, and you can even make holes through the dough if you want, letting the topping seep through). When the topping starts to solidify, pour it on the dough, spreading everywhere. Make sure to get some on the bumps as well as in the holes, and on top of the sides. Everywhere basically.
Stick it in the oven for about half an hour. The topping should start to bubble, and the dough get a little brown. Like a loaf of bread really. Do not insert into mouth immediately after removing from oven, or you will get burned.
Et voilá, the greatest cake that will never win an award.

I have nothing to add except YUMMMM!