Šakotis Recipe: Traditional Lithuanian Tree Cake on a Spit

What is Lithuanian Šakotis?

Šakotis is a tall, hollow Lithuanian celebration cake baked by pouring a rich egg batter onto a rotating cone in front of strong heat. As the cone turns, part of the batter sets in thin layers while part of it runs outward and forms the pointed branches that give the cake its unmistakable shape.

The Lithuanian name šakotis refers to its branched appearance. Older and regional names include ragius, raguotinis and bankuchenas, the last of which is connected with the German name Baumkuchen, literally tree cake.

A finished šakotis is hollow through the center and covered with irregular golden branches. Cutting across the cake reveals the thin baked layers created by repeatedly adding batter while the cone rotates.

The history of Šakotis in Lithuania

Šakotis is now one of Lithuania's most recognizable festive cakes, but its Lithuanian history should not be pushed back to the Middle Ages without evidence. Spit cakes related to Baumkuchen were known elsewhere in Europe earlier, while Lithuanian historical sources place the establishment of šakotis in the nineteenth century.

The Visuotinė lietuvių enciklopedija states that tree cakes began to be baked in Lithuania in the second half of the nineteenth century, initially in manor houses and parsonages. Culinary historian Rimvydas Laužikas points to an even earlier local written source: Jan Szyttler, a Vilnius cook and cookbook author, included a spit-baked Baumkuchen-type cake in his 1830 book Kucharz dobrze usposobiony.

Szyttler's recipe used forty eggs and equal quantities of butter, sugar and wheat flour, seasoned with cardamom, cinnamon and lemon peel. By the middle of the nineteenth century similar recipes appeared in cookbooks used in Lithuania and the wider Polish-Lithuanian culinary area. Over time the cake became deeply rooted in Lithuanian festive baking and developed the strongly branched form now associated with šakotis.

A cake for important celebrations

Šakotis was never an inexpensive everyday cake. It requires large numbers of eggs, plenty of butter and sugar, specialist equipment and several hours of work. That made it especially suitable for important celebrations.

Lithuanian ethnographic sources associate šakotis with weddings and christenings, and it later became common at Easter, Christmas, anniversaries and other large family gatherings. It remains an important celebration cake in Lithuania today.

Traditional ingredients

The ingredient list is surprisingly short for such an impressive cake. Lithuanian sources consistently identify wheat flour, eggs, butter, sugar and cream or sour cream as the basic ingredients. Eggs are particularly important and are used in much larger quantities than in an ordinary butter cake.

This recipe uses thirty eggs with 600 g each of butter, sugar and flour, plus rich cream. Those proportions are close to a Lithuanian formula published for traditional šakotis (bankuchenas). They also fit the older pattern of using approximately equal weights of butter, sugar and flour with a very large number of eggs.

Special equipment is part of the recipe

Traditional šakotis cannot be separated from its method of baking. The batter is applied to a heated, rotating, tapered form positioned in front of a fire or another controlled high-heat source. A tray underneath collects batter that falls from the cone.

Modern professional šakotis machines reproduce the same basic process with more controllable heat and rotation. Because machines differ in cone size, distance from the heat source and rotation speed, there is no useful universal oven temperature or rotation setting for this recipe. Follow the instructions for the equipment you are using.

A normal cake tin can produce a layered cake from similar ingredients, but it cannot reproduce the hollow center, irregular branches or traditional baking process of šakotis.

How the branches form

The first layers create a firm base around the rotating cone. More batter is then applied in successive thin additions. Each layer must have enough time to set before more batter is poured over it.

As the cake grows, changes in rotation and the way the batter is poured allow some of the liquid batter to travel outward before it sets. Heat fixes these streams into the characteristic branches. Traditional bakers judge the batter consistency, heat, pouring rate and rotation from experience.

The number and shape of the branches will never be perfectly uniform. That irregular appearance is part of a handmade šakotis rather than a defect.

Texture and flavor

A traditional šakotis is rich in eggs and butter, moderately sweet and relatively firm. The outside becomes deeply golden while the inside shows the repeated baked layers. Depending on the recipe and baking technique, some šakotis are softer while others are considerably drier and more brittle.

Lemon zest is a well-established flavoring in older recipes. Some recipes also include a little cognac, while nineteenth-century versions could contain spices such as cardamom and cinnamon. These additions are secondary to the basic flavor of eggs, butter and caramelized cake layers.