Recipe: Danish Brødtorte (rye cake)

A few weeks ago I went to Copenhagen to have a behind-the-scenes look at the Lakrids by Johan Bulow factory. Read all about my trip to Copenhagen and the visit of the Lakrids factory in this blog post. Lakrids is mostly known from their chocolate covered liquorice balles, but they also have regular liquorice and a Cuisine line. The Cuisine line contains liquorice powder and liquorice syrup which you can use in the kitchen. They have a raw liquorice powder and a fine liquorice powder, the latter can be used in liquids such as milk or coffee and they can both be used as sprinkles on a dessert. The liquorice syrup comes in a salty and sweet version. The salty liquorice syrup tastes great with blue cheese and can also be used for marinades. The sweet liquorice syrup is great with ice cream, fresh fruit and a wide range of desserts.
I decided that I wanted to create a dessert with the sweet liquorice syrup from Johan Bulow.

A while back I heard about Brødtorte, also called Brøtorte or Rugbrødslagkage. All meaning: Danish rye bread cake. This layered bread cake is made with rye bread and normally has a layer of whipped cream in between.
I wanted to create a healthy recipe for this Danish rye bread cake. As rye bread is a healthy ingredient, much better than white flower because it contains more fibre, I wanted to keep this bread cake as healthy as possible.
I didn’t use any added sugars in the recipe and I swapped the whipped cream for skimmed vanilla quark.
This Danish Brødtorte is a great cake to surprise your guests with something original and healthy enough that you could eat it for breakfast!

Recipe Danish Brødtorte

Ingredients:
250 gram (2 cups) rye bread
1 teaspoon baking powder
180 ml (3/4 cup) plant-based milk (I used unsweetened almond milk)
6 medjoul dates (about 125 grams)
2 tablespoons cacao powder
1 tablespoon sweet liquorice syrup (I used Johan Bulow)

jam
skimmed vanilla quark

cacao nibs and mixed nuts for decoration

Small cake tin

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Put all the ingredients except the jam, quark and decorations in a food processor. Blend until smooth. Line a small baking tin with parchment paper. Fold half of the mixture in the plate. Bake for minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean). Repeat with the other half of the dough. Let them cool on a wire rack.
Cover each half with jam and vanilla quark. Put one half on top of the other and decorate the brøtort with the cacao nibs and chopped nuts.