And last, but not least...

If you've been wondering why my posting has been somewhat erratic recently, then here's the reason:

 


Our third baby was born yesterday morning, on November 4th. She weighed 3710 grams and was 50 cm tall - our biggest baby yet :)

Our oldest - a daughter born in January 2009 and our second child - a son born in January 2011 - are still quite small, 3 years 9 months and 1 year 9 months, respectively. So being heavily pregnant with two small kids needing the attention and trying to write a foodblog - the latter has often had to wait. But I'm still here, and hopefully you'll be patient enough to wait for my future posts - which will be about food, and not kids, I promise :)

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Estonian cookie cake (küpsisetort)

Here's a true Estonian classic - a layered cookie cake. If you've been reading Nami-Nami blog, you may remember that an Estonian cookie cake was also featured at the festive spread we served for Average Betty few weeks ago. It's a popular cake on children's birthday parties and on September 1st (the day all Estonian kids go back to school).

I suspect these are the main reasons for its popularity:
* There are just a few ingredients.
* It's pretty cheap and affordable.
* It's yummy :)
* There are endless variations - you can use different flavoured cookies, different cream, different decorations.
* The cake takes about 10-15 minutes to assemble, and every kid can make it, even small ones.

The cookie cake above was made with the help of my 3,5 year old daughter - she did all the cookie-dipping and cookie-placing, I was left with spreading the sour cream between the layers. And she's made this cake before - here's a family portrait taken in January - few days before our son's first birthday and few weeks before our daughter's third birthday:


Photo by Hele-Mai Alamaa (Pere & Kodu) as part for the cover story back in February. 

I make two main versions - one with halva and sour cream filling, the other with plain sour cream filling. That's right - plain, unflavoured sour cream - the cookies are sweet enough and there's absolutely no need to sweeten the cream that goes between the cookies. However, there are lots of people who add thinly sliced bananas between the layer, but I haven't tried that myself. I guess I like the classics remain classic :)

As far as the cookies go, you need rectangular unfilled cookies - either plain or chocolate-flavoured or any other flavour you like. The cookies shouldn't be more than 5-6 mm (1/4-inch) thick. In Estonia any flavour produced and distributed by Estonian Kalev or Latvian Selga would work, elsewhere you could try with Bahlsen Leibniz's Butter Biscuits, or LU's Le Petit Beurre biscuit cookies, for instance.

Sounds familiar? There's a similar, yet different popular cake in Germany, called Keller Kuchen (Cellar cake) or  Kalter Hund (Cold Dog), or radiokaka in Sweden, where butter cookies are layered with chocolate and coconut butter cream.

NB! Make this cake at least 4 hours earlier, preferably day before, so the sour cream has time to soften the cookies and make the cake more cakey. You can top the cake with chocolate glaze and decorate it just half an hour before serving.

Estonian cookie cake
(Kõige parem küpsisetort)
Serves 12 to 15

 

4 packets of square/rectangular cookies (180 g/6 oz each)
100-200 ml milk or coffee for dipping the cookies
750 g thick sour cream (about 20% fat content)

Chocolate glaze:
100 g dark chocolate
50 g unsalted butter
4 Tbsp double cream

To decorate:
crispy pearl sugar
fresh berries
coconut flakes/shredded coconut

Dip 12 to 15 cookies into the milk or coffee and place onto a suitable cake tray (I usually use 3x5 cookies or 15 in total, depending on your cake tray, you may prefer 3x4 pattern, resulting in 12 servings).
Now spread about a third of the sour cream evenly on top of the cookies. Continue with 3 more cookie and 2 more sour cream layers, finishing with the cookie layer.
Cover the cake with a cling film and place into the fridge to soften.

To make the chocolate glaze, break the chocolate into pieces and place into a small saucepan with butter and fresh cream. Slowly heat on a medium heat, stirring regularly, until the glaze is smooth and glossy. Spoon over the cake, spreading it evenly all over the top. (If using shredded coconut or pearl sugar for garnish, do it now, so it sticks into the chocolate glaze). Place back into the fridge to harden.

To serve, cut the cake into neat squares (or rectangles, if your cookies weren't square), or smaller slices, if you prefer. Garnish with berries, if you wish (I used the wonderful green variety of blackcurrants, Vertti, that I was talking about in a recent post).

Here's exactly the same cake, using chocolate-flavoured cookies and garnished with crispy pearl sugar granules:


Similar recipes in English-language foodblogs: 
Easy 7-layer cake  @ Steven and Chris
Kellerkuchen / Cellar cake  @ Light Recipes

Similar recipes in Estonian foodblogs:
Küpsisetort kohupiimakreemi ja banaaniga @ Sööme silmadega (Dagris)
Šokolaadine küpsisetort  @ Kiilike köögis (Anneli)
Kohupiimakreemiga küpsisetort  @ Siit nurgast ja sealt nurgast (Mari-Liis)
Vale-napoleoni kook  @ Kokkama Ragnega (Ragne)
Šokolaadi-toorjuustukook küpsistega @ Kokkama Ragnega (Ragne)
Hapukoorekreemiga küpsisetort @ Tassike.ee (Marju)
Küpsisetort  @ Magusad fotod (Marit)
Kohvimaitseline küpsisetort  @ Hea toit, parem elu! (Merit)
Küpsisetort @ Head asjad (Neve)
Halvaa-küpsisetort @ Maitse asi (Jaanika)

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Kahvliahvi Kokakool aka Kitchen Monkey's Cookery School

Here's a children's poem in Estonian, written by Heljo Mänd in 1960s, describing small elephant's Bumbu's birthday party in the jungle, where monkeys were eating wafers ("vahvel" in Estonian) and the crocodiles were eating forks ("kahvel" in Estonian). If you combine the monkeys and the forks of this poem, you'll get kahvliahvid aka kitchen/fork monkeys.

Tingel-tangel-tungel,
kära täis on džungel.
Sünnipäev on Bumbul,
elevandijumbul.

Tangel-tungel-tingel,
pidulaual kringel.
Ahvid pistsid vahvleid,
krokodillid kahvleid.

Tungel-tingel-tangel,
limonaad on kange,
jookseb mööda lonti
justkui sada tonti.
 


Couple of weeks ago I got a phone call from a well-known journalist and party organiser, asking to give a cookery demo to a group of kids and their parents at a small music festival in a small Estonian town of Kilingi-Nõmme.  The workshop, called Kahviahvi Kokakool ("Fork Monkey's Cooking School", or probably better translated as "Kitchen Monkeys"), was to have four cookery sessions/demonstrations, and I was asked to give one of them. I agreed - it was a chance to get out of town and listen to some nice music in fresh air before and after the cooking demo. We were discussing the possible menu options, taking into consideration what the other sessions were focusing on, and finally agreed I'd teach the kids and their parents (26 in total) how to make cold soups. Not your usual gazpacho, mind you, but a kefir and a buttermilk soup, respectively - one savoury, one sweet.

It's summer, after all! As it turned out to be a really hot on Saturday (the music festival and the culinary workshops took place on Saturday, July 7th), cold soups seemed to have been a wise choice indeed :)


My cold summer soup workshop was at 5.30 pm, third one of the afternoon:


I tied the apron strings and was ready to begin. Note the sweet monkey-fork/fork-monkey design:


The kids were all anxiously waiting and ready to start chopping:


We began with the savoury kefir soup. Basically we made this chlodnik, but adding beets/beetroots and grated horseradish was optional, and everybody added some cooked mortadella-style sausages as well, to make the soup a bit more substantial. I must admit that about 3/4th of the kids asked for both the beets and the horseradish, which made me very happy indeed :)

Small (and some slightly bigger) kitchen monkeys in action. Note the high concentration of fathers - at least four - who were accompaning their children:




My role was to make sure everyone has understood the instructions and are progressing nicely:


Cutting the sausages into small dice for the soup requires some serious focusing and concentration:
 

Me, making sure that everyone got some vitamin-rich green onions:

Here's a close-up of the cold kefir soup with scallions/green onions, finely chopped sausages, beets and cucumbers (you can only guess there's beetroot at present at this point, as the stirring of the soup was a serious and time-consuming job as well):


Once everyone had finished making and eating their cold kefir soup, it was time to start making the dessert. I had chosen the wonderfully summery Danish buttermilk and strawberry soup koldskål - you'll find the recipe here on Nami-Nami. We did use kama cereal balls instead of crushed biscuits/cookies, however.

The main component - local Estonian strawberries, which are at their peak just now:


Mint, destined as garnish of the cold buttermilk-strawberry soup (lemon balm works just as well)

 Choosing the prettiest strawberries for the buttermilk-strawberry soup:



Here's our daughter (3 y 5 m) enjoying the buttermilk-strawberry soup she made all by herself:



Thank you, Merle Liivak, Kahvliahvi Kokakool & Schilling, for inviting me! I had a lovely day indeed :)

All photos by my food-blogging friend Liina Vahter .

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