Next week, on the 11th November, Latvians celebrate Lāčplēša diena. It commemorates all the people who died during the independence fights after the WWI. In the evening, many people go to Riga castle in the Old Town where they light a candle next to one of its old stone walls. And after, if you are lucky, you get to go to a bakery for tea or mulled wine and enjoy a slice of cake. It was one of my favourite times of the year growing up. Even if I didn’t mange to visit the stone wall, I always lit a candle in the evening, have a warm drink and a pastry. So since I won’t be able to go the wall this year, but want to keep the tradition, I thought to bake something special.

In May I wrote about the first cookbook published in Latvian language and the back story behind it. As November is a very patriotic month with not one, but two national holidays, I thought it would be fitting to dust off the cookbook again and cook a few more recipes from it.

In the book there are 38 cake and tart recipes and I have bookmarked “to make” at least half of them. There are many recipes that are similar to the ones I have seen in old British cookbooks. However I thought it would be more interesting to you and me to start with the ones that are less likely to make an appearance in them. The first on the list is a Viennese cake. I can’t tell you much about the cake, except perhaps that Latvian culture has strong influence from the Germans, Russians and Swedes. So there shouldn’t be much surprise to see recipes appearing in these places.

The original cake measurements were as follows. 200 grams of butter, 16 eggs, yolks and whites separated, 100 grams sugar, zest of a lemon, 300 ml cream, 1 tbsp yeast, 1 tsp ground nutmeg and 400 grams flour. One day I will get a fresh brewers yeast to experiment with, but for today I decided to swap it for good ol’ baking powder. It also means that if you are keen to try this cake, it would be easier for you to source all the ingredients. My general rule for adding baking powder to a recipe, is to add 1 tsp to every 100 grams of flour. I also decided to half the recipe. The original instructions were the same as I have written below, except for the part where yeast was left to rise.

The first time I baked the cake I used all the ingredients as directed, apart from the changes mentioned above. The cake was good… fine. While in the oven, it made my home smell like pancakes which I think was due to the high egg and low sugar amount. Which brings me to the sugar. I almost always lower the sugar levels in a baked goods. And by that I mean that 90% of things, in my mind, always benefit of sugar reduction. Even if it is just a little bit. The only time I don’t do that is if I trust the author of the recipe. I don’t even usually buy commercial sweets from shops because I often find them sickly sweet. So when translated the old measurements into grams and millilitres, I had a suspicion that this cake would bring up the opposite issue and it did. In fact it was the only the second time when I found the cake needing more sugar. It tasted fine, like unsweetened pancakes. It also dried up quickly, which makes sense since sugar not only gives sweetness to your bakes, but also moisture. To help with this issue I cut the cake in half and spread some jam in the middle, like you would do for Victoria sponge. The second time I baked it, I increased the sugar 70 grams which helped in both aspects.

The second issue I had with the cake was the mixing and the resulting texture. At the end the recipe, it instructs you to mix in whipped egg whites to the rest of the batter. I found it quiet hard to incorporate them in which resulted with me over mixing the batter and the cake being a bit rubbery. I used a hand mixer when adding the flour and I think that is where I went wrong and overdid it. Next time I will use just a spoon for greater control.

Other than those two issues I think the cake was nice. I don’t think I would ever have put lemon zest with nutmeg together otherwise, but it was nice. Though to be honest I don’t think it is a flavour combination that I will be reaching for any time soon.

Viennese cake

100 grams butter
50 grams sugar
zest of lemon
8 eggs, yolks and whites separated
150 ml cream
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
200 grams flour

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease and line the cake tin. I used Ø 19 cm cake tin.

Mix flour, baking powder and nutmeg together. Cream the butter with sugar and lemon zest until light and fluffy. Add the yolks one at a time, then add part of the flour, then cream until you used up everything. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks and lastly gently mix in them in 1/3 at a time. Bake for about 50 minutes or until done.

Sources

Harder, Christoph, Tā pirmā pavāru grāmata no vāces grāmatām pārtulkota, Vidzemes plānošanas reģions, 2018 (You can find the book free online here if you wish to have a look. Note that it is only available in Latvian. Old Latvian to complicate things. )