Trying Childhood Desserts In Latvia

Why can't I just be skinny? I need this every day. It's so good. It reminds me of my childhood. Everything does bomba. It's good. We're about to go into an old bakery here, an old town in Riga, to try Soviet Union desserts. Hi, everyone. My name is Alla. I'm a professional French pastry chef. But right now, we are here in the oldest bakery town in Riga. We have found this traditional place, and I actually grew up on eating all these buns. I'm gonna tell you all about it because there's lots of different flavors you can see the the grandmas are baking here this is absolutely incredible i'm gonna share with you my soviet union desserts these i we asked the lady she said they bake by the traditional recipes we have everything if you were born in soviet union or you are from ex-USSR countries you're gonna love this video and obviously i'm gonna enjoy it for you we've got everything i'm very excited as you can see. Right, I don't even know where to start. I think the first one I'm gonna show you, this is called Vatrushka. Vatrushka is a basically yeast dough with cottage cheese and raisins. A lot of kids used to hate the raisins and I think I did too, but now I actually love them. I'm gonna break this in half because we're gonna be trying it all. Oh, as much as I can. Okay, let's try this. Let's see if this brings me to my childhood. Oh my god, it's so warm. It's actually warm actually just tastes like in a childhood she did say these they haven't changed the recipes so it's got soft warm dough quite a thin filling of cottage cheese and very juicy raisins so i would probably give this one eight out of ten i would need a bit more cottage cheese filling but it was pretty good next we have very unusual pastry this got it looks like a croissant but it's not a croissant it's got cottage cheese filling with marmalade marmalade is a candy which is made with fruit and gelatin and berries let's cut inside i'm actually very excited for this one it should be colorful it's it's orange and yellow look at that marmalade it's it's like shiny i wouldn't say there's a lot of cottage cheese but it's probably more like marmalade but we're gonna try it can you see yeah do you see the inside okay let's try oh wow oh look at the marmalade candy it's so weird but it's actually really it really works it's like gelatin candy inside a bun i would say with a little bit of cottage cheese pretty awesome i'll give this 7 out of 10 just because i need more cottage cheese in here and maybe more colorful candy but this is cool this is fun now we're going to try the most traditional bun it's called špeikapiradīns which is in Latvian basically bacon lard bun it's also yeast dough with fried onion garlic i think different spices and bacon filling špeikapiradīns is my favorite christmas holidays every single time reminds me of my babushka let's cut and show you oh look at that it smells so good it's got smoked ham usually smoked ham or lard yeah wow this is really good this is my favorite yeah amazing next we have the traditional rhubarb custard bun look how gorgeous this is like rhubarb is very traditional in latvia and she told us they are the only place here they do rhubarb buns and i think it's got a bit of like um short crust sort of crunchy bits on top and rhubarb jam inside so let's cut this oh my gosh look at that can see pieces of rhubarb i actually grew up eating a lot of rhubarb when i was a kid my grandma used to um pick you know the long rhubarb green and we would dip it into sugar and that was our dessert i mean we didn't have a lot when growing up let's try this oh my god wow you could really really taste the rhubarb like it literally brings me to my again i'm going again oh my god this is literally bringing me back to childhood wow this one's definitely 10 out of 10 just because it's got the sourness from the rhubarb the crunchy topping and of course very soft bun next one we have plum platinitis which is usually means it's got like a sort of short crust type of pastry maybe made with cottage cheese i know it sounds weird but trust me it's really good and it's got a plum filling i'm just going to show you look at that look how how much plum it's like poking out of there so i'm very very excited it's very very delicate let's cut into this whoa let me just show you whoa look at that ah it's falling it's so delicate it's supposed to be made with crunchy topping as well and i'm guessing it's a plum jam but we're gonna find out let's try this oh wow again this reminds me of my childhood my grandma used to make jam like this wow this is really good really really good wow it's kind of falling apart but we hate to get messy so a very crumbling very moist soft and you can really taste the plum they actually have the plum pieces i would give this seven out of ten only because it's kind of falling apart a little bit and i feel it's a little bit too sweet i think the jam could be sour. So gonna eat it. So good. Okay our next one is called Vecriga which is actually the name of this town. It's called Old Town. This cake is called Old Town. It's very traditional and Latvian. Look at that. It's a choux pastry filled with cottage cheese, a whipped cream filling. I'm gonna show you. Let's cut inside. Wow look at that. That's definitely a lot of filling in there. Let's give this a try. Oh no that's so good. Wow that is so traditional. Very delicious. I can eat like 10 of these. Okay, I'm going to give this 9 out of 10. I think the pastry could be a bit softer, but it's still 9 out of 10. Here we are. This is kanelita smaizite, which is cinnamon bun, I would say in English. But it's kind of very different. It's usually also yeast dough, very soft. Oh, it smells so good. It smells so good. Look at all these. oh, they should put a lot of cinnamon, let's cut into this, oh these were my favorites, oh look at that, oh the dough looks very moist and chewy with a lot of um cinnamon, kind of leave them oh wow, whoa, it really hits you, very fresh, what i used to like to do is just like you know peel off peel off the layers like that, oh my god, it's really good, very good, i mean 10 out of 10 if you like cinnamon, it's definitely very strong cinnamon flavor, wow this is some sort of berry, i think it's cherry, cherry jam bun, let's cut into this, it's also made with yeast dough and usually a cherry filling, oh look at that, i like the amount of jam there is in there, oh it's so oozy, oozing out, i'm gonna go for it, wow it's like sour cherry filling but it's in the form of like a jelly, you see it like jiggles a little bit, it definitely has the flavor, the bun is so soft and moist i mean it's really good, i'll probably give it 9 out of 10 just because i like more filling okay, next we have the custard bun, let's cut into this, look at that, let's try, this is latvian type of custard, i'm gonna, i'm gonna be the judge oh wow, it's got really strong vanilla flavor it's very sweet by the way but i remember eating this as a kid, i mean the flavor is really nice, i I will give it nine out of 10 again, mainly because it's just very sweet for me, but it's how it used to be made back in the day. Very, very delicious. Wow. Okay. Okay, next. Look at this incredibly weird, cute looking thing. This is called skudrupuding. So technically this is like cookies and caramel, okay? Topped in lots of poppy seed. Oh, this again used to be my childhood dessert. This was like a real treat because this back in the day used to be expensive it's like caramel cookies and this is like mini mini ants hill that's what it is basically ants hill translated into english let's cut into this oh wow it's very soft oh how cool is this oh my god whoa this is incredible they did change the recipe a bit but they added a peanut but it's so delicious this is 10 out of 10 oh my god wow honestly I want to eat it all but I have few more bits to try wow okay I've said this about every single thing but this is my favorite childhood because okay so this has got like whipped meringue cream on top it's got short crust pastry base and usually had like a sweet or sour jam inside my grandma babushka always used to make these um this is called uh grozince grozince or obaltom vjelo okay let's cut into this oh yeah you see how chewy this is oh it's falling apart and i was right look at that jam inside can you see look how cute this is so cute i'm gonna put the whole thing in my mouth and basically the trick here is the meringue should be chewy soft and chewy this place is incredible wow it's got cranberry jam brusnika at the bottom crispy pastry this is like this is what i grew up on 10 out of 10 10 out of 10 10 i don't think i've ever given so much high rating in any place here is the cherry krasilnitska this one is also uh traditional usually you can put any type berries on there it's made with a little bit of jelly on top and it should have a vanilla custard cream in the middle and short crust pastry oh wow look at that exactly how cute is this again oh wow it's nice juicy sour cherry the cream is interesting it's got like i think it's like a custard cream with something else probably is my least favorite out of everything i would give this one five out of ten um cream is not my jam okay i left the last till the best this is called nuts riešikrieks these are very very traditional in latvia you have to have a special mold to make these and they're filled with caramel i'm gonna break one here for you come here i'm gonna show you i'm gonna break one and you can see it's literally just filled with lots of caramel and this is caramel and you boil condensed milk and get this dulce de leche caramel these are the real ones oh my god so good it's actually really hard to find now good ones absolute perfection 10 out of 10. guys i am absolutely happy and full um all of this with tea and coffee cost us 17 euros nearly 16.68 and you can see like all our table left we're we're still gonna eat it all but yeah this was definitely very very cheap I don't think you can find pretty much anywhere in Europe buns or pastries for under one euro anyway this was amazing I definitely recommend this this is not a paid ad or anything like that this is genuinely just a part of my childhood here on a plate that I've experienced for 17 euros and I'm very full right now but this was amazing if you enjoyed this video let me know down in comments below and if you've tried any of the things that i showcased you here let me know as well and if you ever come to Riga you have to visit this place well that was delicious i was actually a little bit worried because i didn't want to ruin my childhood experiences of these delicious things that i ate as a kid and you know my palate has changed i you know eaten all the top french bakeries now but this was really good i was worried but you know what they literally cooked and baked the same way as they did many many years ago so that was a win win-win situation for sure