This December I tackled them all, vinatarta, kúrenukökur and lastly pönnukökur - all Icelandic baking that my mother did at Christmas time. As a child we watched her do this every year, maybe not the pönnukökur's, but for sure the vinatarta and kúrenukökur. We had images of licking the bowl and getting a "taste" of the goodies. You would think after age 10 we would know better and quit hoping.
How to explain....my mother is a perfectionist and a "tad" on the obsessive compulsive side of the spectrum. What maybe we took for perfectionism was probably more her inability to let things go until it was done "just so". Baking was no exception and let's just say that what was left in the bowl after she was finished mixing the batter was "even too small for a mouse". There are four of us children - divide that up and you can see a little disappointment creeping in. Add in that mom grew up on a farm outside Gimli, Manitoba during the depression and then you will know that she was only baking once for the Christmas season. That meant no tasting of the goodies until Christmas time. She packaged that baking so it could survive a nuclear attack and then hid the goodies until Christmas. The "sneaky" ones in the family found her spots and stole the baking at their peril (I wasn't one of them). In our adult years, mom had her "stashes", which our sister-in-law "found" and raided. Because we were no longer home and she baked well before Christmas and she had that habit of not bringing out the goodies until a certain time, she would forget that the baking was there and you would be eating stale kúrenukökur's by the time you found them. That's how desperate we are, better stale than none.
As an adult I had made kúrenukökur's (currant sugar cookies) for Christmas and realized how easy they were. You mixed up the batter, rolled it out, cut the cookies, baked and voila! kúrenukökur's! What I had never attempted was vinatarta and there was a good reason for that. As a child, I had watched mom make vinatarta and it was a three-day process - yes! 3 days! She started with the prune mixture. She bought prunes with the pits still in them because she didn't trust that "pitted" prunes would really have all the pits taken out. Pitting one pound of prunes = 1 hour of work. Add in pitting "Alda" style and you could double that time. After that, she boiled them and then had an old-fashioned meat grinder that she hooked up to the kitchen sink and ground the prunes. The meat grinder is probably 60 years old and it still looks brand new. How is that possible?, you may ask. Because mom meticulously cleaned it after the once per year use for grinding the prunes. The cleaning process took a minimum of 1 hour, and that was just the washing of the parts. She then dried each part with a tea towel, carefully laid each part out on top of the stove to completely dry, wrapped each piece carefully in brown paper, put elastics around to hold the paper close to the grinder for a snug fit and then put all of that into at least 2 or 3 plastic bags to seal it tight. You can see how a whole afternoon could be used up just in the cleaning process alone.
Was she done? Absolutely not! After the prune mixture was ground, she put it back on the stove to add the sugar and cook until dissolved. From there she put the mixture into a container in the fridge and just scraping every bit of the mixture from the pot to the container took a minimum of a 1/2 hour. Again, no "licking" of the pot or spoon -- what was left over was "even too small for a mouse" - certainly too small for four children to share.
Next process - the dough for the layers of the cake. Vinatarta is a 6 layered cake with prune filling between the layers topped off with a butter cream icing. The cake layer is really a sugar cookie dough thinly rolled and cut into rounds (or square). You use a round cake pan to go by and cut the layers out and bake. Here is where mom's obsessive compulsiveness really shone. Each layer had to be exactly the same thickness and perfectly round. If you left the kitchen during this stage and came back a 1/2 hour later you would find her still working on the first cutout. After she was done and a whole day was gone, the layers would be cooled completely, stored and put away for the next day of putting it all together.
Putting the cake together was a sight to behold. Each layer was examined to find the one that was the least perfect which would be used on the bottom. Cue the magnifying glass to find the imperfection! The first layer had to be placed "just so", which took about 15 minutes and then the prune mixture put on. This required precise measurement because every layer had to have the same amount of prune mixture. From there she spread the prune mixture over the first layer and it had to be the same thickness right across and go to the very edge without going over. Another 15-30 minutes for that. Next came an examination of the other layers to pick the next one to fit on top. She would hover the 2nd layer over the first turning it round and round to try and line it up so it would fit perfectly. That layer could hover for about 15 minutes before being put on and then she had to examine the fit to make sure it was right. She would repeat this all day until all 6 layers were put together. Now she wrapped the cake like it was going to be shipped overseas by boat in a hurricane and still get there in perfect shape. And she still hadn't iced the top!
So is it any wonder that it took me until my 40's to attempt baking vinatarta? For many years I didn't think I had the time required or the skill set to achieve the desired results. When I finally decided it was time to take the plunge I was surprised by how easy vinatarta is to make. While I may be like my mom in many ways, especially in the obsessive compulsive department, I am different in one very unique way. I don't have the patience of a saint. In fact, I inherited my dad's patience - NONE! I do like things to be neat and tidy without the work of getting it that way. That's why I don't have "stuff". You can be neat and tidy with minimal effort when you don't have a lot of things requiring cleaning and moving. That's also how I like to bake/cook - I am always trying to make good food with minimal effort.
As long as you can settle for "good enough", which I can, you can make vinatarta in 1.5 hours of effort. Buy pitted prunes, throw into a crockpot with water, turn on and leave overnight. In the morning take out, put into a food processor with the sugar and mix. Dump into a container and put in the fridge if you aren't ready to make the layers. Don't worry about getting every last drop out and throw the parts of the food processor in the dishwasher to do all the work. When ready to do the layers, mix the dough, slap on the counter, roll out quickly and eyeball the thickness, cut the rounds and bake. Let them cool. In between have a glass of wine and read a good book. When layers are cool pick the first one that is closest and spread the prune mixture. If it drips over the side it will give your vinatarta some "character". When done, wrap once because you will be eating it soon! If you have left-over dough, which I always do, make cookies and use left-over prune mixture to make "vinatarta cookies" - a big hit with the crowds that want a taste NOW!
Did mom's vinatarta look better - YOU BET! Does mine taste as good, I like to think so. Maybe next year I will try "turducken" and see if I can simplify that process as well.
