INGREDIENTS:
* 150 grams butter, softened
* 2 eggs
* 2 coffee cups sugar
* 2 coffee cups flour
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 2 teaspoons vanilla sugar
* 1 coffee cup milk

TOPPING:
* 60 grams butter
* 1 dl (100 ml) golden syrup
* 1 dl (100 ml) cream
* 2 coffee cups coconut flakes

METHOD:
1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
2. Line and butter a smaller baking pan, 20×30 cm.
3. Beat eggs, sugar and butter until fluffy.
4. Combine the remaining ingredients in a bowl and mix with the egg batter.
5. Pour batter into the baking pan and bake in the lower part of the oven.
6. Meanwhile, bring the topping ingredients to the boil, simmer for ab. 5 minutes.
7. When cake is done, remove from oven and let it cool for 5 minutes.
8. Spread the topping evenly over the cake.
9. Bake for 5-10 minutes - or until the topping is golden brown.

The recipes of old Swedish cookbooks were not precise. Baking time was determined by sight and years of experience. Baking in a wood stove oven was art and science. My mother used a coffee cup or a household scale to measure her baking ingredients. Young people of today serve coffee in rather large mugs. A coffee mug may hold about 3 dl (300 ml). The size of a tablespoon, a teaspoon and a coffee cup can vary.

When it comes to proper cooking measurements, a tablespoon should hold 15 ml and a teaspoon 5 ml. An old fashioned coffee cup only holds 1 ½ dl (150 ml). So, old-time recipe measurements are sometimes too vague and directions confusing for a younger generation.

In most of the world, recipes use the metric system. It was introduced in Sweden by a law in 1878. Not until the 1950s a new Swedish kitchenware utensil was designed - a 4-piece set of measures. To tell the truth, the inspiration came from USA and their measuring cup sets.

Rome wasn´t built in a day. Gradually litres (l), decilitres (dl) and millilitres (ml) were introduced, but only when new editions of Swedish cookbooks were published. As recently as the early 1990s, “coffee cup” and “knife’s point of” were mentioned in recipes.

Source: My Recipes