Dessert Imitating Life

Dessert is another culinary area where my daring palate was denied the full wish list of treats desired. I read about Hjónabandssæla (“wedding bliss”), strawberry rhubarb filling packed into a flakey rolled oats crust; Ábrystir, a thick, rich pudding made with first milk from cow or sheep after giving birth; and Kakósúpa, a warm chocolate soup.

Skyr is the most well-known sweet in from Iceland and is easily accessible in most parts of the world. I did however opt to try one from a local grocery and it did not disappoint. It was dense and delicious. 

One of the local sweets that left a lasting impression was Rjomaterta or cream cake. This comes in various forms and includes heaps of merengue and cream, usually placed on a bed of chocolate cake and laced with chocolate covered malt balls or other cookie-like substance. I tried cream cake on two occasions at different locations in the town of Akureyri, North Iceland’s largest city with 13,000 residents.

Cream cake with merengue and cornflakes topped with chocolate cookie bits and sitting on a bed of chocolate cake

In both instances the cream cakes included cereal – grocery store shelf cereal – in one case corn flakes and the other chocolate rice puffs. This gave it a pleasant texture, but also added to the appearance. The cakes uncannily resembled the Icelandic landscape of fluffy white peaks and lumpy lava fields. I wondered if this was an intentional effort to create a dessert that reflected Iceland’s all-consuming nature.