I can barely live without these chocolate-glazed cottage cheese bars that are sold in every supermarket in Riga. They make a perfect lunchtime snack, or you can grab one in the morning while you’re making your breakfast (personally I always wake up super-hungry!). They are not a diet food though, with their 12 to 26% fat and 24 to 32% carbohydrates.
Cottage Cheese bars (Tvorozhnie Syrki in Russian, Biezpiena Sieriņi in Latvian) have a dense texture and are normally coated in dark chocolate. They may as well be coated in colourful fruit glaze, but to my mind this looks and tastes way too artificial. The “forefather” of cottage cheese bars is the vanilla-flavoured, chocolate-glazed cottage cheese bar produced under the “Kārums” brand since 1994. In fact, cottage cheese snacks have been produced in Riga since 1949, and until 70’s, they were handcrafted!
The choice of cottage cheese bars in Latvia is huge nowadays. The best are still produced under the “Kārums” brand name. They also boast a nice thick chocolate glaze that doesn’t crack or melt. My absolute favourite is triple chocolate – chocolate-glazed, chocolate-flavoured, with chocolate chips. Another flavour I love is coconut. I like it straight from the fridge, it tastes almost like ice-cream when chilled! Some other Kārums flavours include candied orange, blueberry, hazelnut, as well as larger, round-shaped cottage cheese snacks: Tiramisu/Cherry/Orange Marmalade/Cranberry Marmalade with biscuit. Other manufacturers offer cottage cheese bars with berry jam filling, caramel, or even ground rye bread:
And, as usual, I’m curious to know if you have anything similar in your countries? Or can you buy some cottage cheese bars in your Eastern European supermarkets?