Louise Cake

Louise Cake is a classic New Zealand Baking recipe, with a buttery shortbread base, a layer of raspberry jam, and a coconut Swiss meringue topping.

Louise Cake - a traditional New Zealand Baking Recipe.

Hi hi! I am just popping in here to share the updated recipe for my Louise Cake! Louise cake is a classic New Zealand Baking Recipe, and one that was my Grandad's favourite and one I remember baking with my Grandma from a super young age. I figured it was about time to give my recipe a refresh - the original was posted here in 2017!

What is Louise Cake?

Louise cake is a super delicious homemade slice (or bar) recipe, made up of a buttery vanilla shortbread base, a layer of raspberry jam, then a coconut meringue topping. The whole thing gets assembled before it is baked, which makes things super easy, although there are a few components to it. You really can't beat baked from scratch.

This recipe comes from my Grandma's recipe book, however in my research I found that a lot of Louise cake recipes are super, super similar - I am sure they all come from a similar source!

Components of Louise Cake

There are three components to Louise Cake - the butter biscuit base, a raspberry jam middle layer, and the meringue topping. The original recipe used three eggs and three yolks, with the yolks going into the base and the whites into the topping, but I bumped up the meringue quantity to have five whites in the topping to increase the base to meringue ratio.

This leaves you with two left over egg yolks, but I have a whole bunch of recipes that are a good way to use up egg yolks if you are looking for ideas - these cookies are especially good.

• Shortbread base. This is a super simple buttery shortbread base, which is cakey and chewy from the egg yolks. It comes together super quickly and the batter is pressed into a lined pan. I keep mine super plain but you can play around with whatever you like - it would be super delicious with some lemon zest added into the louise cake base.
• Raspberry Jam. I use Raspberry jam here as this is what is 'traditional', but you are welcome to use whatever you like here - another berry flavour or a homemade jam would be delicious as the middle layer of your Louise Cake.
• Coconut Meringue Topping. I love adding coconut to desserts, and this meringue layer is no different. It is a thick layer of coconut swiss meringue, spread over the base and jam layers before the whole thing goes into the oven.

How to make Swiss Meringue

The original recipe for Louise Cake uses a French meringue, which involves whipping sugar and egg whites together until thick and glossy, then adding in the coconut and spreading over the Louise Cake base.

I prefer a thicker meringue, so bumped the meringue up to use five egg whites. However when I tried this with a French meringue, it was way too eggy. So I switched to my old faithful, Swiss meringue. Swiss meringue is made by cooking together sugar and egg whites over a double boiler. This dissolves the sugar, and heats the whites, bringing them to a food safe temperature, which means Swiss meringue can be used in things that aren't going to be baked, and is perfect for torching.

Swiss meringue is super stable, so it is a great base for a pavlova or a buttercream, and also works perfectly on the top of this Louise cake.

• Make sure the bowl and equipment are very clean. Meringue works best when there is no fat at all in the bowl - I like to give the bowl and beaters a little wipe with a cut lemon to help remove any grease.
• Cook together egg whites and sugar. I do this over a makeshift double boiler with a metal bowl. Whisk constantly until the mixture registers 160°f / 70°c on a thermometer. Alternatively you can check to see if it is ready by rubbing some of the mixture between your fingers. You want to make sure you can't feel any grains of sugar. It is going into the oven so heating it to the exact temperature needed isn't as important here.
• Remove from the stove. Do this carefully - the edges of the bowl will be hot and you don't want to drop hot egg white syrup all over your kitchen (trust me).
• Whip the Swiss meringue. You can either do this with a hand mixer, which will take about 5 minutes, or you can use a stand mixer. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks are just starting to form. This gives the mixture some time to cool down, although it is fine if it is still a little warm going onto the Louise cake. We aren't relying on the meringue for structure like we would a pavlova, where whipping it correctly is important.

Can the meringue topping be made thinner?

Yes, if you would still like a thinner meringue layer you are welcome to scale back the quantities to use three egg whites rather than five. The process and bake time will be exactly the same. You will just need to scale the sugar back to 170g.

The original topping recipe was super similar to this but a French meringue method - whip three egg whites until foamy, then add 185g sugar and beat until a stiff meringue forms. Fold through 100g coconut and proceed as written.

Desiccated vs Shredded Coconut

My original Louise Cake recipe used desiccated coconut, which is very finely shredded coconut. I use it quite a lot in baking - in Anzac Biscuits, Chocolate Crackle, and Peppermint Slice. Is it much finer in texture than shredded coconut, also called 'long thread' coconut.

I tested the recipe with both kinds of coconut and much prefer the shredded / more coarse version. However, if you only have desiccated on hand, that will work just fine. Just use the same amount by weight as the recipe calls for (this is why we love grams!)

Using binder clips in baking

I use binder clips on the sides of my baking pans, to secure the parchment to the sides of the pan. This stops the parchment from flapping around, and keeps things nice and clean.

Provided your binder clips are metal, they are fine to go in the oven. Just make sure that whatever you are baking doesn't rise too much so that they get baked in. The Swiss meringue on this Louise cake rises a little. It will just touches the clips, but will sink back down once out of the oven.

Frequently Asked Questions for Louise Cake

What pan did you use?
I used a 9" pan, which I double lined with parchment paper to form a 'sling' over the sides to make removing the baked louise cake easy.

How to do you store Louise Cake?
Store Louise cake in an airtight container at room temperature. It stores for up to 3 days.

Can Louise Cake be made ahead?
Louise cake is best eaten on the day it is made because of the meringue topping, but is still great a day or two after making. It doesn't keep super well so wouldn't be ideal to make ahead.

Do I have to use Caster sugar?
I used caster sugar in the initial tests of the recipe, as I needed it to dissolve well in the French meringue. However, because you are now cooking the egg whites together with the sugar which dissolves the sugar, you can use granulated sugar if that is all you have!

What is All-purpose Flour?
All-purpose flour is often also called plain flour or standard flour in other countries.

For more New Zealand Recipes, check out:

• Tan Square
• Iced Buns
• Squiggle Slice

Recipe for Louise Cake

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