13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
S.F.'s century-old bakeries make my favorite versions of this suddenly popular cake
The United States is discovering princess cake. Just ask Eater, which last week published a piece by Bettina Makalintal titled 'The Princess Cake Gets Its Princess Moment.'
This might be a head scratcher for San Franciscans, where legacy bakeries like Schubert's (established 1911) and the Victoria Pastry Company (1914) have been perfecting the domed Swedish cakes, layered with custard, whipped cream and raspberry jam, for generations. I grew up eating and adoring them, my childlike fascination with their smooth technicolor veneer giving way to an adult appreciation of their not-too-sweetness. The best versions are like a trifle, reassembled into a cake format. I had assumed that, like Black Forest cake or pineapple upside down cake, princess cake was ubiquitous — or, if not widely available, at least known.
Not so! When I worked at Bon Appétit, our sister website Epicurious ran a series of articles and recipes on cake, and I offered to write an ode to princess cake. Many of my colleagues had never heard of it. Did it have something to do with Disney? I lived in New York, a city of 8 million people and nearly as many bakeries, for 20 years and never spotted a princess cake in the wild.
But we are in the midst of the great mainstreaming of princess cake, perhaps thanks to Hannah Ziskin's hot Los Angeles restaurant Quarter Sheets, known as much for its cakes as for its pizza. According to the Eater article, Ziskin grew up eating princess cake from Gelson's Market in L.A., but I have to imagine her years pastry cheffing in the Bay Area (Quince, Bar Tartine, Nopa, among others) solidified her love for the marzipan-coated confection. Her version of the cake, constructed in long logs rather than the traditional domes, is a runaway hit, with over 75% of tables ordering a slice. She filmed a video about it for Bon Appétit last fall.
Last month, British cookbook author Nicola Lamb published a streamlined recipe for princess cake, built in a bowl like a bombe, in the New York Times, with its own accompanying video, and she also dropped a paywalled variation substituting mango for raspberry on her Substack, Kitchen Projects. The very next day, Food Network star Molly Yeh posted an even easier hack for the finicky cake, building a sheet cake version in an 8x8-inch pan.
I can't vouch for either recipe — although Nicola and Molly are generally quite reliable developers, I find — but I can tell you that the versions at San Francisco's bakeries stand the test of time. (Ambrosia Bakery, a relative newcomer at 37 years old, also sells them.) They may hail from Sweden, but I will always think of princess cakes as a San Francisco treat.
