Ómós Digest #171: Happy Marriage Cake
Forced rhubarb & a traditional Icelandic sweet treat. Written by Anna Luntley.
After weeks of emails, texts, and much persuasion, I am delighted to welcome the wonderful master of bakes, Anna Luntley, to the Digest. Without question, she is the best tray-baker, pie-filling maker, cake icer, and veracious pot-wash scrubber in the industry.
Her creations achieved cult status at her bakery, two.eight.seven, in Glasgow, which she and her husband ran from 2021 to 2024. Before its closure, I had the privilege of staging with them, spending the most wholesome of weeks learning from two of the best.
I can hardly contain my excitement about sharing Anna’s bakes with you. Her cooking is honest, unpretentious, and always baked with love. She unapologetically has no time for nonsense or faff, focusing instead on provenance, texture, and flavour. Yet her experience and impeccable taste result in gloriously humble creations, each adorned with a unique touch that can only be described as Anna.
You can read about my experience staging at two.eight.seven here—but first, let’s have a slice of Marriage Cake.
I hope you enjoy it.
Le meas,
Cúán
Having become quietly resigned to the soft grey of mid-January days, the persistent silver of wet dew on the Glasgow air and mulch of dull brown composting leaves clogging up on the pavements, it is a joyful thrill that rushes through me when I spy the first of the forced rhubarb; initially on every baker or chef's Instagram feed, then finally on the shelves of our local greengrocer. Rhubarb’s mid-winter appearance brings with it not only pleasure to the eye and a bright, delicious sweetness to refresh the palate after the spiced riches of festive eating, but also a sense of hope and romance in the darkness of the season. From the turn of the year, her candy coloured, rose pink stems begin to be harvested from specially designed sheds in West Yorkshire in the North of England - an area famously known as the rhubarb triangle. The oh-so pinkness and tender sweetness of these early rhubarb stems is the result of a horticultural process of forcing, which dates back to the early nineteenth century, depriving the plants of light to stimulate rapid growth. The rhubarb crowns are allowed two harsh years outdoors exposed to the elements - the wind, rain and most importantly the frost of the bitter North - before being replanted in the dark, warm and moist safety of the forcing sheds. Indoors, gently tended to by candlelight, the rhubarb grows at a rapid rate, desperately seeking light and using the energy stored in its hardy roots from the previous years outdoors to become tall, slender stems of the most glorious hue - devoid of the green and bitterness produced in sunlight’s photosynthesis. These pink spears being harvested by hand in dark candlelit tunnels and grown by this traditional and somewhat magical sounding process, plays in my imagination like the most romantic and warming of farming fairytales. And so, in these gloomy months, when it feels most tempting to indulge in something sweet and comforting, we should celebrate this crop and bake some of its delight into our days.
I first ate a ‘happy marriage cake’ huddled with my husband amidst pebbles the size of boulders, sheltering from the elements on a cold beach near Seltjörn, on the narrow peninsula north west of Reykjavik in Iceland. When we weren’t working in the busy restaurant that brought us to the city, we often found solace in the meditative act of beach combing: searching for jewels of sea glass or foraging for shoreline herbs to take back to the kitchen. Some sweet treat from Braud & Co - the small city’s only sourdough bakery - was usually our companion, buried deep in a pocket for when we needed some comfort and sustenance. On this occasion we had chosen a seemingly oddly named bake labelled ‘happy marriage cake’, in part because of its generous sharing size and as an ode to the wedding anniversary of some far away friends. Wrapped in brown parchment paper, which fluttered persistently in the wind, this traditional Icelandic marriage cake was sweet and sticky with caramelised rhubarb jam and a soft yet crisp chewy oaty cake, comforting like a good flapjack. A homely and filling slice. As grey waves smashed in against the rugged, rocky shore and sea birds bravely fought the gusts high above, we happily crammed delicious finger fulls into our grateful mouths.
Its Icelandic name Hjónabandssæla translates directly as happy marriage cake. On first learning this, I assumed that it must be a traditional bake served at local wedding celebrations. This, however, isn’t the case (although I have since baked it for a number of wedding celebrations in Scotland). Rather, it is a more poetic allusion to the perfect harmony and balance of its main ingredients: oats and rhubarb. Embracing this idea of harmonious ingredients, in my version of the happy marriage cake I take the union further, adding almonds, honey and vanilla to the happy pairing. In Iceland, Hjónabandssæla is made year round using rhubarb jam. This is perfectly delicious but does lead to a very sweet mouthful, without much sense of the fruit itself, so I replace the layer of jam with fresh rhubarb, creating a more luscious and fruity bake, putting it somewhere between a traybake and a pudding, a flapjack and a crumble.
When we had our small bakery in Glasgow, the happy marriage cake was a great favourite and we would have it on the counter all year round. Once the forced rhubarb season was over, we would swap the rhubarb for early Scottish strawberries or raspberries, later peaches and apricots, and then apples, pears and quince, and citrus or dates in deep winter. In turn, we would vary the spices, nuts and flours used to maintain that perfect pairing, switching out almonds for hazelnuts, oat flour for buckwheat and cinnamon for vanilla. It is an easy recipe to play with and to continue to enjoy outside of the forced rhubarb season.
At the bakery, it was baked in a huge tray and cut into slices like slabs that were fit for sharing and in their own way providing for a happy marriage; both parties fully satisfied with their portion (although one customer often told me that her husband well knew the best way to happiness in their marriage was to let her eat the lot). And on a side note, it always seemed sad to me how many people were uncomfortable asking for a piece of happy marriage cake, as though that is no longer a trendy thing to aspire to in life.
HAPPY MARRIAGE CAKE RECIPE
serves 12