A Taste of Latvian Food: Layered Rye Bread Dessert

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From sour cream & mushrooms to herbal liqueur & hemp seeds, discover the delights of Latvian food, including an authentic recipe for the Latvian layered dessert, Rūpjmaizes-Kārtojums.

Despite it being almost a whole year since I last stepped foot outside the UK, recently I was lucky enough to dip my toes into an entirely new cuisine, when Traverse Events invited me to join them for a virtual Christmas party and cookalong with Magnetic Latvia. We were joined by Latvian celebrity chef and restaurauteur, Mārtiņš Sirmais, with the soundtrack to the evening provided by Latvian folk singer and former Eurovision contestant, Katrīna Dimanta.

What better way to kick things off than with a drink and, luckily for us, we’d kindly been sent a bottle of Riga Black Balsam to cook with; who knows, perhaps we might even end up putting some of it in the food! 😉

Dating back as far as 1752, this award-winning Latvian herbal liqueur is thought to be one of the oldest bitter brands in the world. It’s available in several varieties including blackcurrant and cherry and while it tastes rather strong if you drink it alone, it works well in cocktails and some people prefer drinking it warm.

A popular part of Latvian drinking culture, sipping on Riga Black Balsam is a wonderful way to get a taste for Latvian culture. However, if you’ll be visiting Latvia soon and you really want to make the most of your experience, you could always try to learn Latvian language. While it’s unlikely you’ll be a fluent speaker by the time you travel, it would help if you could at least pick up a few basic greetings and phrases ahead of your trip.

Rūpjmaizes Kārtojums (‘layered rye bread’)

This Riga Black Balsam (Cherry, in my case) is one of the key ingredients in our first dish of the evening, a traditional Latvian dessert known as Rūpjmaizes Kārtojums (‘layered rye bread’). Likened by Mārtiņš to a “Latvian take on tiramisu”, this is a popular dessert throughout the whole of the Baltics, not just in Latvia. After just one mouthful, I can see why!

Under Mārtiņš’ watchful tutelage, we begin by heating the Riga Black Balsam liqueur with white sugar in a saucepan over a low heat, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking or burning. The aim is to reduce the liquid down to a syrupy, caramel-like consistency. Once complete, we remove the pan from the heat, pour the mixture into a bowl and leave it to cool.

Once cooled, the liqueur is mixed with mascarpone cheese, turning it a beautiful beige-brown in colour. This sweet, creamy mixture forms the first layer of our rye bread desserts, as we dollop a big spoonful onto our plates and use the back of our spoons to form a little nest on top. Traditionally, whipped or sour cream (very popular in Latvian cooking) may be used here in place of mascarpone.

Moving on, we break the rye bread (immensely popular in Latvia) up into bitesize chunks and roast it in the oven for 15 minutes or so, until crisp.

Removing it from the oven, we soak the bread in apple juice and mash it up using a spoon, before adding some brown sugar, ground cardamom and ground cinnamon (you can leave these out or use different spices if you like, but we were aiming for a festive touch). We can now spoon some of this rye bread mixture into the nests we made inside our liqueur-infused mascarpone layers.

Next, top the rye bread with a a tablespoon or so of cranberry jam or jelly. However, as Mārtiņš explains, you can actually use any jam you like here and, having done my research, it’s quite common for other fruits to be used in this dessert, like apricots or berries.

Repeat the layers of liqueur-infused mascarpone and rye bread, finishing with a dollop of jam. You could serve your Rūpjmaizes Kārtojums in a trifle jar or smaller glasses if you really want to accentuate the layers, but I’ve stuck with Mārtiņš serving suggestion as I think it looks great; it’s almost like a deconstructed trifle!

Grey peas with porcini mushrooms

With dessert out of the way, we made a start on our second dish: grey peas with porcini mushrooms, usually eaten in Latvia throughout the Christmas season and on New Year’s Eve. While I haven’t featured the full recipe in this blog post (one for Christmas 2021 perhaps!), this dish is still fully-deserving of a mention!

Mārtiņš’ grey peas with porcini mushrooms makes use of some of of Latvia’s most common cookery ingredients. Mushrooms are a traditional part of Latvian culture and cuisine and you’ll find porcini mushrooms growing all over the country. According to Mārtiņš, many poor families eat mushrooms as an alternative to meat and it’s not uncommon to see people picking them, as Latvia is one of few European countries that allows people to do so.

Similarly, grey peas (also known as carlin peas, maple peas or black peas) are another common ingredient in Latvian cooking and actually make an appearance in the country’s national dish, pelēkie zirņi ar speķi (grey peas with fried onions and diced speck). I couldn’t find grey peas locally so I used Indian kala chana (black chickpeas), which work well because of their slightly toughened skins.

Mārtiņš’ grey peas with porcini mushrooms also call for the use of hemp seeds. Although I’ve never cooked with hemp seeds before, they’re used widely in Latvian cuisine, often as an alternative to nuts (which can’t be harvested year-round in Latvia). However, they first grew popular in Latvia due to the rope industry, which uses hemp as one of its main raw materials.

The finished dish is served warm with crispy rye crackers. Mārtiņš describes this as a Latvian-style hummus and, as he claims, the best hummus is always served warm. Having tasted his grey peas with porcini mushrooms, I think he just might be right!

I really enjoyed exploring Latvian food and drink with Magnetic Latvia and Traverse Events and perhaps when we’re able to travel more freely again, I’ll be able to visit the country to explore its cuisine in more depth.

In the meantime, I’m going to leave you with Mārtiņš’ recipe for Latvia’s popular layered rye bread dessert, Rūpjmaizes Kārtojums. Izbaudi! (That’s Latvian for ‘enjoy!’ 🙂

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Rūpjmaizes Kārtojums

Popular throughout the Baltics, this traditional Latvian dessert sees dark rye bread layered with whipped cream or cream cheese, followed by cranberry jam.

Course Dessert

Cuisine Baltics, Latvian

Keyword cranberry jam, marscarpone, Rye bread

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes minutes

Total Time 20 minutes minutes

Servings 2 people

Calories 271kcal

Author Mārtiņš Sirmais

Cost $3

Ingredients

• Marscapone cheese or soured cream SC very popular in Latvian cuisine and traditionally used, but Marscapone more common now
• Organic Ceylon Cinnamon Powder
• Ground cardamom
• Apple juice
• Riga Black Balsam or Jagermeister Best drunk cold or warmed, nice with cherries, apple or blackcurrant juice
• 80 % Rye bread like pumpernickel but not as sweet
• Brown sugar
• White sugar
• Lemon orange or lime zest

Instructions

• Boil around 75g black balsam down along with one cup of white sugar. Reduce to the consistency of syrup, over a low heat. Don’t let it burn. It needs to resemble caramel.
• Grate a little lemon, orange or lime zest into the mixture.
• Break 3-4 slices of rye bread into small chunks and then transfer to a baking tray. Roast in the oven over a high heat or alternatively, toast it in a dry frying pan.
• The caramelised black balsamic should now be ready. Pour it into a bowl and allow it to cool.
• Put soured cream or Marscapone cheese into a bowl and add the cooled syrup to the bowl. Stir to combine thoroughly.
• Once the rye bread is roasted/toasted, remove it from the oven or the hob. Place the rye bread into a bowl and soak it in apple juice. Mash to form a ‘chunky mash’ and then allow it to cool down.
• Sprinkle a little brown sugar, cinnamon and cardamom over the soaked rye bread.
• Dollop a large spoonful of the creamy mixture onto a plate, then make a small bird nest or well in the middle. Heap the rye bread into the centre of the nest. Spoon some cranberry jam on the top. Repeat with another layer of cream, topping with a final layer of cranberry jam.

Nutrition

Calories: 271kcal

To find out more about Magnetic Latvia, visit their website or check out their Facebook page.

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