Smörgåstårta (Swedish Sandwich Cake)

Smörgåstårta is a fabulous, old-school Swedish sandwich cake, and I've long been a fan. This version features savory smoked salmon and shrimp salad fillings.

Why we love this recipe

I'm a huge fan of so many elements of Swedish culture, not least of all the unabashed affinities for deeply savory flavors and a generous dose of whimsy. This traditional recipe is a great example of both, and it's easy to make at home.

This smörgåstårta has:

• Satisfying, easy-to-assemble fillings made with smoked salmon, delicate shrimp, and hard-boiled eggs
• Layered between slices of lightly buttered sandwich bread and frosted with pillowy whipped cream cheese
• Simple, playful decorations made from thinly sliced vegetables and herbs
• And for some reason, the vibe of a cute little camper van? It wasn't intentional, but I'll take it.

I first published this recipe here way back in 2011, adapted from Lotta Jansdotter's Handmade Living. I've since updated the post for clarity and made some tweaks to the recipe itself. If you're a fan of old-school food blog narrative, you can scroll down beneath the recipe card to read the original text.

What you'll need

Here's a glance at the ingredients you'll need to make this recipe.

For the smoked salmon filling

• You can use your favorite variety of smoked salmon or gravlax — whatever makes you happy. 
• Whipped cream cheese is nice and soft, making it easy to incorporate into the delicate filling. You'll use it in several elements of this recipe.
• A good-quality grocery store mayo is a perfect fit for this recipe.
• Here's how to make perfect hard-boiled eggs.
• Prepared horseradish is grated horseradish that's been mixed with vinegar and salt. It comes in a bottle but is not the same as horseradish sauce, which is creamy and not what you're looking for here. Drain it well before adding to the mixing bowl.
• I prefer to use fresh dill when possible, but a smaller amount of dill weed (dried dill) can work as a substitute if necessary.

For the shrimp salad filling

• Small wild shrimp from the freezer section are perfect here. They're less expensive than larger shrimp, and you'll be chopping them anyway. I like to buy them peeled and cleaned, either with tails on or off. You can transfer them straight from the freezer to a pot of simmering water and cook just until opaque.
• I sometimes include a couple of hard-boiled eggs in the shrimp salad filling layers, too — you can see them in the assembly photo and the video. It's totally up to you.

To assemble and decorate the sandwich

• Arnold Country White is my bread of choice for this recipe. It's not too thin, not too thick, and easy to work with. You can use virtually any sandwich bread that you like in this recipe, from dark rye to sourdough, depending on the flavor profile and shape you'd like to achieve.
• You'll lightly butter the top of each bread slice (or both sides, if you'd like) to add flavor and create a barrier against the filling. Here and virtually everywhere, I start with a cultured, salted butter from grass-fed cows. This sounds fancy but doesn't have to be. Kerrygold, for example, is sold in most supermarkets at a reasonable price.
• Whipped cream cheese acts as the frosting for this savory cake. Most brands are light and soft enough at room temperature that all you'll have to do is spread it on. If not, you can whisk in a tablespoon or two of milk.
• Traditional Swedish sandwich cake decorations usually include thinly sliced vegetables, herbs, and sometimes filling ingredients such as small shrimp, smoked salmon, and hard-boiled eggs. Here I've used a mandoline slicer to thinly slice some rainbow radishes and English cucumber, and a vegetable peeler to create long, thin ribbons of carrot to roll up into rosettes. I've plucked a few pieces of flat-leaf parsley from their stems and added those as well. You can get as creative as you like with this part of the process, or keep things very simple.

How to make it

Here's an overview of what you'll do to make this old-fashioned Swedish sandwich cake. You can see the steps in action in the video that accompanies this post, and get all the details in the recipe card below.

1. First you'll make the fillings.
2. Remove crusts from bread and cut slices in half, then lightly butter them.
3. Assemble the cake, alternating bread and filling layers.
4. Frost the cake with whipped cream cheese and decorate with vegetables. That's it!

Expert tips and FAQs

More favorite Scandinavian recipes

• How to cure salmon
• Swedish cinnamon buns
• Norwegian gold cake

Here's the 2011 text

Something of a Swedish fetish

Having already shown you how to cure your own gravlax and promised you the recipe for a savory Swedish birthday or tea cake called Smörgåstårta, I probably don’t need to spell out in further detail that I have something of a Swedish fetish. It’s a good thing, too, because Smörgåstårta is kind of a nightmare to spell.

And even once I’d wrangled those umlauts and A’s into submission (or wised up and made Command + S the Smörgåstårta key on my computer, because what could go wrong there?), I still wouldn’t be able to enunciate the term “Swedish fetish” with any accuracy, replicability, or lack of projectile saliva.

Challenges

Finally, I doubt many of you have tried to style a Smörgåstårta for a photo shoot. If you have, please get in touch with me privately to pass along any suggestions you may have for post-traumatic-stress recovery. At any rate, I’m grateful at least that I don’t have a Finnish fetish, because that would be even harder to say, and people might think I’d said I have a spinach fetish, which I do. I have no idea where that would leave us, but I’m certain it wouldn’t be anywhere good.

Solutions

Despite all of that, the moment I first became aware of Smörgåstårta, I knew I wouldn’t be able to rest until I’d made one. (That was even before I realized it would give me an opportunity to say things to the toddler such as, “Finish your Smörgåstårta and then you’ll have your nap,” and “No, this is not your birthday cake.”) Anyway, I first laid eyes on a Smörgåstårta six months ago, so I’m pretty exhausted at this point. That could explain a lot, actually.