Iceland review - 2012, Page 77

ICELAND REVIEW 75
streaming in, with the green-gray of the
Lögurinn valley visible through the ceiling-
to-floor veranda windows, blonde wood
tables, embroidered linens, blue-and-white
china. Add another layer: imagine that on
this Friday afternoon someone’s mother, an
unusually good cook, home-baked her cakes
just for you.
That kind of Friday afternoon is rare in
any life, so it was hard to believe our good
fortune. Yet the mouthwatering images of
my fantasy were gathered here on the buffet
table. The thirteen of us in the workgroup
arrived like it was Christmas. We were on our
best behavior.
Elísabet Þorsteinsdóttir is the chef, baker
and undisputed Queen of Culinary Wonders
at Klausturkaffi. At lunch, she’d introduce us
to Icelandic food at its best: fish casserole,
homemade soups, local wild mushrooms,
Icelandic lamb, and even reindeer pie. One
day I sat there blissfully eating her lamb,
wondering where I’d been all my life.
But on Fridays, Elísabet outdid herself
with cakes. The buffet looked so delicious it
was hard to know where to begin. Often we
solicited the advice of local writers-in-resi-
dence at the Gunnarsson Institute, who lived
on the grounds and sometimes joined us for
the buffet or for meals. In good Icelandic
tradition, practicality often prevailed: we’d
grab a plate and start from one end with
small slices of each cake, until we reached the
coffee station at the other.
Let me guide you through the feast.
For traditionalists, there was chocolate
cake. Next was Icelandic kleinur and cinna-
mon roll cake. Kleinur are small twisted rolls
of dough, deep-fried and eaten with coffee.
The cinnamon roll cake was in a pie plate,
where over two dozen tiny raisin-cinnamon
rolls nestled together as they baked into a
single pastry, edible by the slice.
One of my favorites was a suggestion from
the artist-in-residence. The Rabarbarabaka
(rhubarb pie) was replete with big chunks
of rhubarb from the back garden, studded
into a sweet vanilla cake base. There were
Skyrkaka

BiScuit BaSe:
225 grams digestive biscuits (8 ounces—you can also use graham
crackers or plain biscuits)
75 grams butter (3 ounces or 6 tablespoons)
Crush biscuits and mix with the melted butter, press into pie plate to
form the crust. Chill until filling is made
FILLING:
500 grams plain skyr (2 cups, or a pint container)
0.25 liter whipping cream (1 cup)
50 grams sugar (2 ounces, or 4 tablespoons)
1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract 
1/2 cup of berry fruit juice 
2-3 tablespoons of berry jam for topping
Whip the cream
Mix remaining ingredients together, reserve jam for later
fold whipped cream into the other ingredients
pour into chilled biscuit crust
refrigerate the cake
When it’s served, top with berry jam!
pizza rollups and date cake with caramel, as
well as delightful homemade waffles with
jam or fresh cream. Every Friday we waited
expectantly for one cake in particular. When
we arrived at the buffet, usually the first of at
least four of them had been finished by the
other guests. Then Elísabet emerged from the
kitchen with another beautiful brambleberry
Skyrkaka as twenty-six hungry eyes locked
onto it like a radar.
Skyrkaka, as the name suggests, is made
with skyr, that fabulous Icelandic dairy prod-
uct ubiquitous throughout the island. Made
with skim milk, skyr, is a fresh cheese resem-
bling thick yogurt. Skyr lends itself well to
a variety of cooking adventures; one of the
most delicious is this cake made with cream,
sugar, vanilla and fruit jam on a biscuit crust.
Elísabet serves it with brambleberry jam
spooned on top, which only adds to the taste
of an already-angelic dessert.
My fellow volunteer and friend Claire
Hamer asked Elísabet for her skyrkaka recipe
and shared it with me.