This “cake” is a meringue shell, filled with fruit and cream. It’s spectacular and unusual. It’s also deceptively light. The meringue is weightless, crunchy, and melts in the mouth – providing the perfect foil for the luxurious whipped filling. The sharpness of the fruit is fantastic against the sweetness of the meringue.

Often called “the fanciest cake in Vienna”, the Spanish Windtorte is a dessert that became popular during the Baroque period of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  The “Spanish” reference may be due to the Austrian House of Habsburg and their fascination with Spain. “Windmasse” is the Austrian word for meringue. Mary Berry chose this cake as a technical challenge on an episode of The Great British Baking Show, which I’ve binging. Although strawberries and currants are popular additions to the filling, I could imagine all sorts of additions – chocolate shavings come quickly to mind.

On your marks, get set … BAKE!

What you need to make one 8-inch cake, serving 12:

For the French meringue shell

8 large egg whites, room temperature
½ tsp cream of tartar
475g (2½ cups + 2 Tbs) superfine sugar (see notes)

For the fondant violets

25g (1 ounce) lavender, ready-to-roll fondant
25g (1 ounce) purple, ready-to-roll fondant
10g (⅓ ounce) yellow, ready-to-roll fondant
Powdered sugar

For the Swiss meringue decoration (optional)

4 large egg whites
250g (2 cups minus 2 Tbs) superfine sugar

For the filling

600ml (2½ cups) heavy whipping cream
50g (½ cup) powdered sugar
425g (15 oz.) strawberries, stemmed and diced into pea-size pieces
225g (8 oz.) raspberries
225g (8 oz.) pitted sweet cherries

How to do it:

You’re going to build a foundation and frame (which need not be pretty), and a roof and siding (which do need to be pretty).

1. Line 3 large cookie baking sheets with baking parchment.  Draw two 8-inch circles on two of the trays and one 8-inch circle on one of the trays.  (You should end up with five, 8-inch circles).  Preheat the oven to 250°F.
2. For the meringue shell, place the whites in a mixing bowl, add the tartar, and start whipping on speed 3 (of 10). Let this go until the whites are decidedly foamy, about 2 minutes. Then, raise the speed to 6 and whip until the mixture thickens and turns to an opaque white, about 30 seconds. Raise the speed to 8 until soft peaks form, about 30 seconds. Now begin adding sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, in a leisurely manner. Once all the sugar’s in, go to the highest setting until you achieve a very firm meringue, about 5 minutes or more.
3. Spoon the meringue into a piping bag fitted with a ½-inch plain tube.  Pipe a thick ring inside one of the circles on the baking sheet and continue spiraling until the entire circle is filled. Repeat with a second circle. These create the base and the top of the meringue cake.
4. Repeat the process with the three remaining circles, except don’t fill in these circles, so you have 3 hoops of meringue.  These create a frame for the sides of the meringue shell.  Bake for 45 minutes, or until the meringue can be lifted off the baking sheet: if you can peel away the parchment easily, it’s ready. If not, continue baking, checking for doneness every few minutes. Once done, turn off the oven, prop open the door a crack, and let the meringue cool for 25 minutes. Continue to cool out of the oven.
5. Meanwhile make the fondant violets. For each fondant violet, roll 2 small pieces of lavender and 3 small pieces of purple into small balls (about the size of an orange seed). Dust 2 pieces of wax paper with powdered sugar, place the balls between the sheets, and flatten each ball out with your fingers, to a thin circle, between ⅓ and ½ inch in diameter. These form the petals.  Roll a tiny piece of yellow fondant into 3 teeny balls, to form the stamens.

6. Using a small paintbrush and a miniscule amount of water, stick the petals and stamens together to form a violet, with the 2 lavender petals at the top, 2 purple petals below them, and the remaining purple petal on the bottom, in the middle. Press the yellow stamens into the center. Repeat to make 13 violets.  Leave to dry on wax paper for at least 1 hour.
7. When the meringues are stone cold room temperature, pipe 8 small blobs of meringue, evenly spaced around the top of one of the filled-in circles. Place one of the meringue hoops on top and press down very gently to stick the hoop to the base.
8. Repeat the process with the other 2 hoops of meringue.  Roughly pipe the remaining meringue around the sides to disguise the hoops. Using a bench scraper, smooth out the meringue so the sides are smooth and straight and look like a cake. Take extra care to make the sides as straight up and down, and as smooth and neat, as you can. Bake for 45 minutes.  Turn off the oven, use a wooden spoon to prop open the door a crack, and let the meringue cool in the oven for 25 minutes. Remove from oven.

This next part, I did not do. I planned to, but realized that I didn’t have the right size piping tip. After not doing it, I was crushed, realizing that there was no way I was going to get “star baker.” However, upon reflection, I decided that I like the simpler, less Baroque look of my cake – and I didn’t have to make a second meringue! I think that next time I make this cake, I will deliberately forego the Swiss meringue, or at least consider it optional.

1. For the meringue decoration, set a large mixing bowl over a pan of gently simmering water. Tip the egg whites and sugar into the bowl and whisk until the sugar is dissolved and the meringue reaches 160°F on a candy thermometer.
2. Remove from the heat and continue whisking until cool and stiff. Spoon the meringue into a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle. Pipe a pretty border around the base, the middle and the top edge of the meringue shell.   Pipe a border around the outside edge and the middle of the meringue circle that will become the top of the meringue cake.  Bake for 30 minutes.  Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

To decorate, use tiny blobs of meringue to stick 6 violets around the middle piped border on the sides of the cake, 6 violets around the top of the cake and 1 violet in the center of the top of the cake.

At this point, you can hold the cake for up to two weeks. I suggest keeping it in a tightly-sealed cake tote.

When it comes time to fill the cake, do it this way:

1. For the filling, whip the cream and powdered sugar together to soft peaks: speed 3 for 2 minutes, increasing to speed 6 for 1 minute, and finally increasing to highest speed for 30-45 seconds (watching carefully during this segment). Gently fold in the strawberries, raspberries, and cherries.  Spoon into the cooled meringue cake shell. Top with the meringue lid.
2. Serve the torte within an hour of filling it. I find that the best way to cut servings is to use a thin, sharp, long blade. Stab it, tip first, straight down into the cake’s center, imagine the point to be fixed, and move the handle down quickly and deliberately through the cake. Avoid the fondant. Use a cake lifter to very quickly move the slice to a plate and toss it fast but gently onto its side. Don’t expect to get wedge-shaped servings, but they’ll still look quite tempting.

Notes:

It’s easiest to separate the whites from the yolks when the eggs are cold, and then let the whites come to room temperature. However, if you’re in a hurry, place cold eggs in a bowl and cover them with the hottest water that your tap will produce. Let them sit for 15 minutes, changing the water a few times for fresh, hot water. Then, be very, very careful about separating them.

You can make your own superfine sugar by blitzing granulated sugar in a food processor. You can process two cups of sugar in 15 seconds. Superfine sugar will dissolve into the whites quicker than granulated.

Ready-to-roll fondant might go by “icing” on the box. If you can’t find lavender, you can roll some purple and white together to make it. Go easy on the purple, and knead more in until you get what you want. You can also make your own fondant with leftover marshmallows (which isn’t the usual way, but it’s fun) and you can color it with food coloring. Making these flowers is a lot of work. You could consider a different type of design, or you might consider pre-made, store-bought cake decorations.

If you can’t remember what to call that thing you had in grade school that you put your pencil in and drew circles with (a pencil compass) – let alone where to find one – you can draw eight-inch circles by tracing an eight-inch baking pan.

I cannot fit three cookie sheets in my oven at once, so I baked two of the sheets, rotating them half-way through, and then the other one. However, with some creativity, I think I could rig my oven by placing my microwave’s rack, inverted, on the bottom of the oven, and spacing my oven’s racks evenly over it.

I’ve always hated – hated! – piping, so making this cake was a big deal for me. Here are some tips: you need a big piping bag – not just for this recipe, but for any recipe that requires piping. Years ago, I bought a nine-inch, reusable bag, and its small size is probably a big part of why I hate piping. It’s a mess. However, I removed the nozzle from my crappy little piping bag and MacGyvered it onto a gallon-size freezer bag. Much nicer!  Even though you’ll zip the bag closed, still fold over the top of the bag a couple of times to make sure that you don’t accidentally coax the meringue into popping the bag’s seal. Also, no matter what kind of bag you use, don’t squeeze it too hard; use just enough pressure to make it work and no more.

A ½-inch plain tube is, for me, the piping nozzle without any tip.

You’re going to be piping a base and a top for your cake. The real way to look at this is that you have two chances to pipe a nice-looking top. The uglier of the two will become the base. If your piping isn’t the best, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take a small spatula to the meringue and try to pretty it up with minimal modifications. The hoops, they don’t have to be pretty, but the neater you can make them – and the more cylindrical – the better. It’ll allow you to be neat when you finish the sides of the cake, and will allow a greater cavity for the filling.

Here’s a great way to pit cherries: find an empty, thin-necked bottle, like a wine or beer bottle. Position a cherry onto the opening of the bottle such that the stem is hanging down into the neck of the bottle. Use the small end of a chopstick, positioned opposite the stem (there is a small dimple in this location), and push straight down, through the cherry. The cherry pit and stem will either fall into the bottle, or will dislodge and may be easily picked away from the cherry. This method leaves the cherry looking fairly intact, and doesn’t get cherry juice all over the place.

Logistics: fondant and meringue have long shelf lives. You can make them way in advance. That’s perfect, because this cake is quite a chore; it’d be a mistake to make it the same day you were planning to make dinner for someone. I’d suggest that you prep the fruit in advance of dinner, then – after clearing the table – whip the cream, fold in the fruit, and fill and top the cake. At that point, it doesn’t need to be served with urgency, but soon.

How long a whipped filling can sit out is up to you and your relationship with science; obviously, long-term storage needs to take place in the refrigerator. I served mine about an hour after filling it, and served seconds an hour later – and that whole time I had the cake out on the counter (in a room air conditioned to 72°F). It was perfectly magnificent. Eva, from Kitchen Inspirations, says that meringue is a good insulator (see comments). Perhaps that’s why this worked. When I eventually did move the cake to the fridge, the whip was still cool. Although I’m sure that people smarter than I am would think of two hours to be too long for a whipped filling to be left out, I’m fine with it. This needs to be up to you, though.

Regardless of what you do, in about four-to-six hours, the cake will begin to seep – it’ll still be fine for leftovers, but you would not want to serve it this way to guests. Instead, at that point, scrape the whole thing into a bowl and think of it as a pudding, lightly folding the seeping liquid back into the mixture as you scoop out servings with a large, rubber spatula – perfectly delicious this way.

My hoops were much thicker than they probably should have been, which decreased the cavity’s capacity – so I had more filling than I needed. I decided to overfill the cake, and leave a strip of filling visible between the cake base and its top. Next time I do this, I will push the filling to the edge of the base, and let it start to puff its way over the edge, without actually falling. That would look fantastic once the top was in place. However, I think I’d also work harder next time to make thinner hoops and straighter sides. It occurs to me that this cake’s filling is not far off from a “fool,” which gives me lots of ideas for making future versions of this cake. Also, because you wind up with so many egg yolks, using lemon curd in the filling seems tempting.

This recipe comes from The Great British Baking Show’s website. I’ve kept the metric measurements, but have added Imperial equivalents. I’ve also Americanized the instructions, modified them for clarity, and added notes galore. Also, I increased the amount of fruit, and added cherries to the fruit mix. On the show, this cake was given as a four-hour challenge. My husband and I completed it in … nine hours. OK, OK, they were leisurely hours that included writing notes, researching meringue-making tips, walking the dog, having lunch, watching tennis, and cleaning up the kitchen at various intervals as we worked.

Spanish Windtorte

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! Thank you, Kesor. While researching this post, I discovered that meringue and merengue as not the same thing. 

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