Sklandrausis

As tradition built it

Makes 22 to 26 (EU registered recipe proportions, Latvia's Ministry of Agriculture). Bakes at 220 to 250°C for 15 to 30 minutes, until the rye base is dry.

Ingredients

• 1 kg rye flour, 100 g wheat flour, 120 g butter or margarine, 350 to 400 g water, salt to taste stiff rye dough, unleavened, for the base
• 1.2 to 1.5 kg potato, mashed, for the filling
• 3.2 to 3.5 kg carrot, mashed, for the filling
• 150 to 180 g butter, 600 to 800 g sour cream, 300 to 500 g sugar, egg and semolina to taste butter, sour cream, sugar, egg or semolina, to enrich the filling
• to taste cream, for the top layer
• to taste cinnamon, for the top layer
• to taste caraway, for the top layer

Method

1. Make a stiff, unleavened rye dough and shape into the tart base.
2. Fill with a layer of mashed potato, then a layer of mashed carrot, enriched to taste with butter, sour cream, sugar, egg or semolina.
3. Top with a layer of cream, cinnamon and caraway.
4. Bake (historically raked directly into hot hearth ash).

Notes

The first documented recipe, from 1893, used no potato at all: only rye dough, a barley-and-soured-milk middle layer and a mashed turnip or carrot top. Potato only entered the now-standard version as it stabilised in published cookbooks between 1980 and 1990.

What a modern chef changes

A whole-roasted carrot layer and a torched caraway custard top

Method

1. Roast the carrot whole in its skin at low, even heat, rather than boiling it, then mash and blend with a touch of brown butter for depth.
2. Rest the unleavened rye dough under vacuum for several hours before rolling, relaxing its gluten more evenly than a bench rest, so it rolls thinner and bakes with a cleaner shatter.
3. Finish the caraway-and-cinnamon top layer as a torched, thin custard rather than a baked cream skin, for a genuine crème brûlée crack.