Rhubarb season in Estonia - cake of (happy) tears, our family´s style

The cake of tears (pisarakook) has thousands of different recipes in Estonia. The base and the filling may be different, but the one certain thing is, that the cake is covered with a layer of slightly baked meringue and when it cools down, beautiful little tears appear on top. Well, as rhubarbs are my favourites and as they always are the ones announcing the beginning of summer that we have waited for so long, then it is a cake of happy tears.

Here comes a recipe from my mom. She is the kind of person, who can take a look at what´s in the fridge and bake wonderful cakes. But this one is written down to be shared with all of you. You need:



200 ml sour cream
200 ml sugar
350 ml flour
1 ts baking soda
4 medium sized egg yolks

300 ml rhubarb (peeled and cut to little pieces), if you want, replace some of the rhubarbs with pieces of strawberries

4 egg whites
appr 100 ml sugar



Mix sour cream and sugar together. Add egg yolks and mix until smooth. Mix flour and soda and add to the sour cream mixture. Test the thickness of the batter putting a piece of rhubarb on top of it - if it doesn´t sink, the batter is ok, if it´s sinks, you should add a bit more flour. Butter a round baking tray with a diameter of around 27 cm (if you have smaller tray, you should reduce the quantity of batter also, otherwise the base will be too thick). Pour the batter to the tray and cover evenly with the pieces of rhubarb (and strawbrries). Bake in preheated oven of 180 degrees for 30-40 minutes.



While the cake is in the oven, whip the eggwhites until they reach soft peaks. Add the sugar and whisk until they reach stiff peaks.

Remove the cake from the oven and turn up the heat to 225 degrees. Cover the cake with the meringue. Return the cake to the oven for about 3 minutes until some of the meringue starts turning slightly golden. Remove from the oven and let it cool down. The cake should have beautiful little teardrops on top of it when it has cooled down!

Rabarberi pisarakook meie pere moodi

200 ml hapukoort

200 ml suhkrut

350 ml jahu

1 tl soodat

4 keskmise suuruseg munakollast

300 ml kooritud rabarberi tükke (või asenda osa soovi korral maasikatega)

4 munavalget

ca 100 ml suhkrut

Sega hapukoor suhkruga. Lisa munakollased ja sega ühtlaseks. Sega sooda jahusse ja lisa taignale. Testi taigna paksust visates ühe rabarbritüki taignale - kui see ära ei upu, on kõik ok, kui upub, tuleb veel veidi jahu lisada. Määri 27cm läbimõõduga vorm võiga kokku (kui sul on väiksem vorm, tee ka tainast vähem, kuna muidu saab koogipõhi liiga paks). Vala tainas vormi. Puista ühtlaselt rabarbritükke peale. Küpseta eelkuumutatud ahjus 180 kraadi juures 30-40 min. Samal ajal vahusta munavalged pehmeks vahuks. Lisa suhkur ja vahusta edasi, kuni moodustub tugev vaht.

Tõsta kook ahjust välja ja keera ahju kuumus 225 peale. Vala munavalgevaht koogile ja silu ühtlaseks. Pista umbes 3 minutiks veel ahju, kuni pealispind hakkab õrnalt kuldses minema. Tõsta ahjust välja ja lase jahtuda. Koogi pinnale peaksid moodustuma kaunid pisarad.