Baltic Christmas Day 10 - Grybukai

Please extend a warm welcome to Nikolajs Timrots, a first-time contributor to 24 Days of a Baltic Christmas! Nikolajs is an American-Latvian who spent his whole life in the Washington, DC area until relocating to Vilnius this past September. While searching for a job, he has spent his time learning the language and about Lithuanian traditions, as well as how to cook – “because what else can you do when you’re broke?” I present to you Grybukai on Day 10 of the 24 Days of a Baltic Christmas!

Mushrooms. What can be more Baltic? Doesn’t matter if you’re talking champignons, chanterelles, or boletus, you’re sure to put a smile on almost anyone’s face with a heaping pile of them on the dinner table. I say ‘almost’ because I am one of those bad Balts who doesn’t like them. But today we are here to talk about the kind that I will eat- the funky (fungi?) dessert Lithuanians call grybukai (mushrooms) that are usually in the shape of a baravykas.

For my Lithuanian girlfriend Živilė‘s family, the tradition of making these began back during the Soviet occupation of the Baltics. Her grandmother started to make them to have something special around the time grocery stores started running out of basic items like… everything. Živilė has fond memories as a kid of her grandmother making grybukai every holiday season (and I myself have fond memories of getting a nice big box of them from Živilė for Christmas).

Everyone wants to have something special on the table for Christmas. But back in the day, grocery stores didn’t have sweets and a bakery like they do now, so you couldn’t just run to the Rimi down the street and grab a torte at the last minute. So obviously, making a savory food into a sweet is the way to go. Mushroom picking season is at the end of August, so it may be strange to have them again in December, but honestly, they do look nice. And maybe there’s a bit of nostalgia for summer, which I can now fully understand having survived my first Baltic fall.

Source here

So now you’re saying, I wanna make this too! Let me warn you, there is one caveat- the baking form. The best and easiest way to make this is with a special form that is for the stovetop. The good news is, it can be found online for delivery in the US, so you don’t need to ask your cousin to rush order you one from the Baltics. However, it is possible to make in the oven by baking each half of the mushrooms separately and putting them together later. Either way, this is sure to be a crowd-pleaser.

Here is how you can make the sweet treat yourself (thanks to Živilė‘s friend Indrė for kindly sharing her recipe and directions!):

Ingredients

350 g flour

3 eggs

2 egg yolks

150 g white sugar

          Add vanilla sugar to preference (2 tsp recommended)

          OR: Sub white sugar + vanilla sugar with 300g brown sugar (and no honey)

150 g honey

200 ml 30% fat sour cream

200 g butter

1.5 tsp baking powder

2 tsp gingerbread seasoning

          Or ½ tsp each cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, and cardamom

Oil for the baking form

For the mushroom cap color (black):

100 g 70% cocoa baking chocolate

1 tsp sunflower or rapeseed oil

For the mushroom stem color (white):

1 egg white

1 tsp lemon juice

300 g powdered sugar

Poppy seeds (optional)

Directions

1. Heat the honey to make it a bit more liquid.
2. Separately, melt the butter.
3. Mix the honey and butter, add your gingerbread seasoning, mix to combine, and then leave mixture to slightly cool.
4. Separately, beat the eggs and egg yolks with sugar until the mixture becomes white.
5. Add the sour cream to the egg mixture and mix.
6. Add the butter and honey mixture to the egg mixture.
7. Separately, mix the flour with the baking powder.
8. *Sift* your flour mix into the mixture (sifting is the key to making it fluffy). Mix well until flour can no longer be seen.
9. The dough should be very soft, almost like a yogurt texture, and should easily spread to fill the form.
10. Put oil on your baking form.
11. Take a spoon and put your dough into the baking form, almost filling it, but not completely (to allow room for expansion).
12. Put your baking form on medium-high heat, for about 5 minutes on the first side. The goal is to get a light brown color, and you won’t hurt anything by opening it to check.
13. Once the first side is light brown, flip it over and lightly brown the other side.
14. While that’s going on, melt your 70% cocoa chocolate, adding a tablespoon of oil to keep it from thickening again, so that you can dip the mushroom caps.
15. Separately, mix your mushroom stem color ingredients together, and cover the stems with this mixture once baked. Feel free to dip them in poppy seeds as well for added color and flavor. 

Yum! Sėkmės ir skanaus! (Good luck and bon appetite!)

Paldies, ačiū Nikolaj! I have previously seen photographs of these delicate cookies, and always wondered how they were made. I love how glossy the caps are, and the poppy seeds make a perfect accent!

Nikolajs will be returning to the series later in the month for a look at this year’s Vilnius Christmas market – I can’t wait! Until then, we have a whole slew of recipes and other posts to keep counting down the days until Christmas; join us tomorrow on Day 11 for vegan piparkūkas!