Lithuanian traditional foods
Grybukai
Grybukai are sweet mushroom-shaped cakes, rather than a dish made from wild mushrooms. This recipe is for a hinged mushroom mould; hand-shaped gingerbread grybukai use a different dough and method.
publicly documented contemporary baking variants
Recipe
Moulded grybukai based on Beatos virtuvė
Independently worded instructions based on Beatos virtuvė’s 2020 recipe, using its suggested meringue icing alternative for the stems. Lietuva.love has not kitchen-tested it.
Ingredients
Method
- Cream the butter and sugar. Separate the 3 whole eggs.
- Beat all 5 yolks and the sour cream into the butter mixture. Whisk the 3 whites until stiff, then fold them in.
- Combine flour, baking powder and spices, then mix into the batter. It should be thick but not a kneadable dough.
- Oil the mushroom mould, fill its hollows and close it. Cook each panful for about 3–4 minutes; turn a non-electric pan to cook both sides. Follow your appliance instructions too.
- Melt the chocolate with the teaspoon of oil over hot water. Dip the caps of the cooked cakes into it.
- Grind the meringues, then mix with lemon juice and icing sugar. Coat the stems with this pale icing.
Notes
The source’s 3–4-minute figure is a guide for one panful; mould sizes and appliances vary.
The meringue coating is the source’s alternative icing, so no extra raw egg white is added to it.
Food and heritage context
- Category
- Sweet dough dishes
- Type
- mushroom-shaped spiced cakes with chocolate caps
- Heritage status
- publicly documented contemporary baking variants
- Context
- Grybukai, spiced cakes, mushroom mould, chocolate, icing
Names and variants
Mushroom-shaped cakes, Moulded grybukai
The name describes the shape
The stem and cap resemble a mushroom. There are no mushrooms in this batter: spices provide the flavour, while chocolate and pale icing create the two colours.
Two distinct methods
Beata Nicholson’s 2020 recipe cooks a thick batter in a special pan. In a 2023 LRT programme, Karolina Voldemarienė demonstrates a different, hand-shaped version which she connects with celebrations in her Zanavykai home region. That is a named baker’s account, rather than proof of the origin of every grybukai recipe.
The doughs cannot be exchanged simply because the finished cakes look alike. The quantities below belong to the moulded version. The source does not specify a yield, so this page does not promise a number of cakes.
Questions
Do I need a special mould?
For this recipe, yes. The thick batter is intended for a closed mushroom pan; hand-shaped grybukai need a different recipe.
How long do they take to bake?
The source gives 3–4 minutes per panful. That is not the baking or decorating time for the whole batch of batter.