It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in Ottawa.  The snow was falling today and it truly looks like a winter wonderland. Gorgeous! Well...minus having to snow blow the driveway twice..

Our work Holiday gathering is on Wednesday and I decided to bring as my contribution an Icelandic Vinarterta.  I always look forward to it at this time of year.  Thankfully, my Mom agreed to help me make the Vinarterta since I've only done it once before. 

Vinarterta is an eight layered cake with a delicious thin layer of prune filling between each of the thin layers of cake and topped with a dusting of icing sugar.  Even though we call it a traditional Icelandic treat - Icelanders no longer make this cake so don't expect to find it served in Iceland unless you time warped back about a 100 years or so!  It was one of those recipes that happened to become a tradition with the descendants of Icelandic immigrants to Canada but didn't remain popular back in Iceland.

Making Vinarterta is time consuming but very worth it.  It's best to make this dessert at least a few days before you plan to serve it as it tastes even better if the flavours have some time to meld.

Here are some pictures of some of the steps in making the Vinarterta.  Enjoy!

Creaming the butter and eggs.

Prune puree with rum.

Dividing up the dough into 8 equal amounts.

Pressing out the layers onto circles of wax paper before baking them.

Spreading out the prune filling onto each layer.

A delicious Vinarterta!