Skyrterta – Skyr cake

Let’s cut to the chase. You know what skyr is. How else did you end up here? This article isn’t about skyr. We’ll save that for a snowy day. The most popular way to eat skyr is straight from the tub with a spoon. If you feel fancy you add a few blueberries, or bilberries if your Icelandic, and a healthy amount of cream (meaning a lot). If you want to be extra fancy, and want to impress Gina from your potluck, you bring skyr cake. ‘Skyrkaka’ or ‘skyrterta’ in Iceland, FYI. Skyr cake is a no-bake cake, served cold. The idea of skyr cake is, according to our very own decade-old research, probably maybe perhaps from the sixties. Back then it was baked like a cheesecake. Because skyr is technically fresh cheese! You didn’t know that, did you? Don’t worry we’ll get to it someday later. The no-bake kind might, perhaps, we presume, be an 80’s or a 90’s invention during big electricity blackout… kidding. Digging through the Icelandic news archive we’ve found no trace of no-bake cheese until the early ’90s.  Our recipe includes blueberries but in the words of Fleetwood Mac: You can go your own way! Do you want to make a lemon skyr cake? Go ahead, make a lemon skyr cake! Want to make a matcha skyr cake? Go ahead, make a matcha skyr cake! You get the idea.

Recipe

The biscuit base

  • 250 g  Lu – Bastogne biscuits (We’ve instead used Digestives and Biscoff to substitute the spice)
  • 100 g butter
  • 2 tbs flavourless oil (not olive oil)
  • Pinch of salt

Skyr filling

  • 450 gr of plain skyr (try to find an Icelandic brand, flavoured skyr works too)
  • 450 ml Double cream
  • 2 tsp icing sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • A handful of blueberries (or any type of berries or fruit)

Method

Crumble the biscuit into sand-like consistency and add melted butter and oil. Press the butter-biscuit mixture into the base of a springform and chill for an hour or so. To make the skyr filling you whip up the cream with the powdered sugar, once stiff you add the skyr and vanilla extract and fold until homogenous. Then you can add you flavourings and fold a bit more. We chose blueberries but feel free to do what you want, we won’t be hurt if you’ll choose another fruit. IT’S FINE. Next, put the skyr filling on top of the cooled biscuit base. Top it with some blueberries (or that other fruit you picked out, whatever) and refrigerate for three to four hours, enough time to make yourself presentable to your guest.

Gjörið svo vel!

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We’ve got a few more recipes, go ahead, they won’t bite.

2020-04-18T16:06:17+00:00