Sweet Soups of Youth

- childhood treats

Desserts used to be a very important part of the Icelandic diet. A few decades ago, a dessert of some sort was served at least once and often twice a day in every Icelandic household. As desserts are now rarely a part of an everyday meal, some of the simpler desserts have turned into real treats, just because people who remember them from their childhood seldom get them any more, so they appreciate them all the more when they are served. Sweet dessert soups are largely unknow outside Northern Europe but in Iceland they come in many forms.

Cocoa Soup
Kakósúpa
Serves 4

This unusual soup often surprises visitors to Iceland, who will not encounter it at restaurants but may be served it in private homes or canteens. Cocoa soup is rarely seen elsewhere but it came from Denmark and I’ve seen recipes in old Danish cookbooks.

It is very popular with children and can be a very nice occasional treat. But it shouldn’t be served too often. My father worked with a bridge-constructing crew in his youth and soon noticed that none of his workmates seemed overly fond of cocoa soup, to say the least. When he asked why, he was told that a year or two earlier, they had been building a bridge close to a remote farm and the farmer’s wife had undertaken to feed them. They were served cocoa soup for dessert at lunch and at supper, and got the leftovers for breakfast, every single day for three weeks.

3 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
3 cups milk
1 tablespoon potato starch or cornstarch
Salt

Mix cocoa powder, sugar, cinnamon and 2 cups water in a saucepan and stir until smooth. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the milk, heat again to boiling point and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes.

Mix the potato starch or cornstarch with a little cold water, stir it into the soup and remove from the heat. Salt to taste. Serve with crushed zwiebacks.

For a more fancy version, use 3 ounces semisweet chocolate instead of the cocoa powder and serve the soup with whipped cream instead of zwiebacks.

Elbow Macaroni Soup
Makkarónusúpa
Serves 6

A simple milk soup, usually very popular with children. This was virtually the only form of pasta I encountered before my tenth birthday – using macaroni for anything other than a sweet dish would have been considered a revolutionary idea.

Soups of this type are traditional in Iceland and there is even a version in the earliest Icelandic cookbook, published in 1800. That one uses homemade pasta strips and the soup is called “worm milk,” as the strips are said to resemble worms. However, few Icelandic housewives ventured upon pasta making for another 190 years or so.

1 cup elbow macaroni
3 cups milk
4 to 6 tablespoons sugar or brown sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Salt

Bring 2 cups water to a boil in a saucepan and stir in the macaroni. Simmer until tender, stirring occasionally. Add milk and sugar, bring to a boil and simmer for 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in vanilla extract and a pinch of salt and serve.

A little cinnamon is sometimes added to the soup, or sprinkled over it before serving.

Spiced Fruit Soup
Krydduð sætsúpa
Serves 6

Sætsúpa, “sweet soup,” usually means a soup containing dried fruit, and often pearl sago as well. Although it is optional in this recipe, I like the texture it provides and wouldn’t want to leave it out.
Various versions of sætsúpa used to be a very common Sunday dessert in Iceland. Some recipes use spices, others omit them. Other dried fruit, such as apple or pear, may be used. The fruit is usually chopped for soup but in a compote, it is left whole.

1 tablespoon pearl sago (optional)
½ cup raisins
¼ cup pitted prunes
¼ cup chopped dried apricots
1-inch piece of cinnamon stick
3 whole cloves
1 cup fruit or berry juice (cranberry juice is fine)
Sugar
Freshly squeezed lemon juice

Heat 4 cups water in a saucepan. When it boils, stir in the pearl sago, if using. Add the dried fruit and spices and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes.

Stir in fruit juice. Add sugar and lemon juice to taste and cook for a few minutes more. Serve hot, perhaps with some cream.

Rhubarb Compote
Rabarbaragrautur
Serves 8

In the virtually fruit-less Iceland, rhubarb was used to make jams, juices, cakes, and soups, but the most popular dish was rhubarb compote, a common Sunday dessert, sometimes eaten hot but usually cold, sprinkled with sugar and with a generous amount of milk, light cream or sometimes whipped cream poured over it.

The same recipe was also used to make rhubarb soup, using less rhubarb and less thickener. This soup, which was more of an everyday dish, was served hot, usually with crushed zwiebacks, and people would spoon the zwieback crumbs into their soup and stir until the crumbs were soaked and beginning to soften.

Both compote and soup could be made from rhubarb jam, when fresh or preserved rhubarb wasn’t available, but those versions were not as popular.

2 pounds red rhubarb stalks
1 cup sugar, or to taste
Red food coloring (optional)
3 tablespoons potato starch or cornstarch
Light cream

Wash and trim the rhubarb and cut it into 1-inch pieces. Place it in a saucepan, add sugar and 2 cups cold water, and bring slowly to a boil. Simmer at low heat until the rhubarb is very soft, stirring often. Add a few drops of red food coloring, if wished.

Mix the potato starch with a little cold water, remove the pan from the heat, and stir in the potato starch mixture. Take care to stir back and forth, not in a circular motion, until the compote thickens. Do not let boil after adding the potato starch. (If using cornstarch, do not remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the cornstarch and boil until thickened.) Serve the pudding hot or cold, with sugar and light cream.

If the compote is to be served cold, it is poured into a serving bowl and a little sugar is sprinkled on top to prevent skin forming.

Nanna Rögnvaldardóttir