Vivel Patisserie and prinsesstårta! - Dubai

I once used to work for the London Underground. Most of the time I tend not to mention this as it's usually met by a barrage of abuse about anything from the closure at High Barnet station yesterday morning, the audacity of a penalty charge on the Oyster card for that uncompleted journey last weekend, to the train drivers threat to strike on Kate and Wills big day. However, I wasn't let anywhere near the trains nor the war mongering strikers. Instead I was contracting in the buzzy communications department as part of a brave and fearless team of intranet specialists who desperately tried to restore the LU intranet to its former glory. I don't really know how well we succeeded as the contract ran out before the project finished and the poor LU employees were left with a skeleton of an intranet and a lot of dull content no one ever read to re-write into something exciting.

One of my colleagues at LU was a slightly scatty but lovely girl from Iran. As a patisserie fanatic I frequently told her in detail of my cafe visits, baking disasters at home and how unique the Swedish 'konditori' and cakes are. I showed her a photo of my latest baking effort, a Swedish 'prinsesstårta' or princess cake that I made for my friend Dave's birthday.

Princess cake is one of the most famous Swedish cakes.  Originally it had the rather dull name 'Grön tårta' - Green cake, doesn't sound that tempting really. It featured in a classic cook book from the 1930s called 'Prinsessornas kokbook' - The Princesses' Cookbook by a home economics teatcher called Jenny Åkerström. Ms. Åkerström taught the royal Swedish princesses Märtha, Astrid and Margaretha and it was thought that the girls were particularly fond of her Green Cake and it was from then on raised from obscurity and given a royal stamp of approval now as Princess Cake.

My colleague took one look at the cake and exclaimed,
- That's not a Swedish cake, that cake is from Iran! Well, needless to say I argued that it couldn't possibly be from Iran, as far as I know Sweden didn't have any links with Iran in the 30s, well we might have done but I didn't have a clue and I was not going to let this scatty girl claim OUR national cake! Besides I very much doubt our cake recipe writing home economics teacher Jenny from Stockholm had ever visited good old Persia.

We went through the ingredients one by one, sponge base - tick, whipped cream - tick, vanilla cream -tick and green marzipan tick. It's worth noting here that a proper Princess Cake doesn't include jam, despite a lot of patisseries insisting on adding this. Eventually we had to come to the conclusion that there are Princess Cakes being eaten in the patisseries of Tehran as well as in Stockholm. I was still not convinced. Maybe they had a similar cake, I guess green cakes tend to sort of look the same after a while.

So imagine my slight annoyance when I stumbled across Vivel Patisserie on Jumeirah Beach Road, an Iranian chain of cafes, and there behind the counter was one lonely looking slice of Princess Cake!
Vivel itself was a hidden gem behind some boarded up shops. Jumeirah is the Chelsea of Dubai, and what they call Jumerirah Janes (wealthy expat women with very little to do) popping in and out of the cafes and art galleries that line this long stretch of road. After the financial problems a couple of years ago a lot of shops have closed though and you have to know where to look to find the great cafes.

The Iranian princess cake did look a little hot, dry and unloved so I have to confess that I gave it a miss. Instead I tried a collection of tiny, tiny little mini cakes that were just delicious. My favourite was the Chocolate Nocochi, a melt in the mouth sensation made of cocoa powder and ground chic peas with some cardamom, sounds odd but it was delicious. Other amazing mini cakes were the Vanilla Kipfriel, a vanilla flavoured hazelnut biscuit and the lovely little pistachio log.

Vivel Patisserie

Now I love macaroons and I am reluctant to report that the vanilla and lavender versions I tried at Vivel weren't as nice as I had hoped. The filling was far too buttery and tasted a bit like a slab of Lurpak had been spread between the fragile meringue. I think I have been very spoilt at Laduree around the corner though. Vivel, like Laduree, serves specialty teas and a good tip is to order tea rather than coffee here. I tried a Chai latte coffee which was watery but had a very nice chai flavour. I am sure they do an amazing Chai tea though. Vivel has very pretty gift baskets, artistically decorated with the cakes creating patterns and colours, so it's a brilliant place to pick up a last minute gift for someone special!