Ma Niche : Russian

This month the Baking Partners Group is celebrating their first anniversary and aptly enough we were challenged to bake a cake to mark the occasion. The recipes to choose from were

the Russian Honey Cake called Medovik with sour cream filling from Coolnarika or Dulce de Leche filling from AZ cookbook , as suggested by Humi of Gheza-e-shiriin .
Lemon Glow Chiffon Cake as suggested by Saraswathi of Sara’s kitchen. Saraswathi actually adapted her recipe from The Cake Bible and shared it with us.

Both the cakes looked gorgeous and had it not been for my broadening waistline I probably would have baked both. anyway saving the Chiffon Cake recipe for later, i tried the Medovik this month and was delighted with the play of flavors in it !

The Medovik or Medovnik is a Slovakian honey-cookie-cake in which sour-cream or dulce de leche cream is sandwiched between layers of cookie-like cake sheets and stacked one on top of the other to resemble a layered cake. Apparently it is one of the oldest and most popular cakes in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. While most of the nations minimally decorate the cake with seeds, nuts and simple icing decorations, Slovakians and Czechs are known for their elaborate and tasteful decoration of the layered-honey-cake decoration. true to myself, i stuck to minimal decorations and was quite pleased with my rustic layered honey cake.

I followed the recipe from AZ Cookbook. Just cut the measure of the ingredients to two-thirds. Since I wanted to make a tall cake, i kept the cookie-discs small. they were 6 inches in diameter. and the final cake had 9 cookie sheet layers. i had two more cookie sheets in hand but after a point the cream in between made it difficult to stack anymore layers. so i served the unused cookie sheets to the boys and they thought they tasted good even without the cream..

Medovik with Dulce de Leche Recipe Source : AZ Cookbook
ingredients for the filling 1 can sweetened condensed milk 3/4 cups, unsalted butter for the cookie-cake dough 2 eggs 2/3 cups sugar 2 tbsps honey 4.75 tbsps unsalted butter 2/3 baking soda 2-2.5 cups all-purpose flour (keep the 1/2 cup in reserve) sliced almonds, for garnish special utensils required double broiler or 2 regular/medium sized saucepan such that one can be fitted on top of the other. (i used the second arrangement) - what i did for the dulce de leche filling, i put the can of condensed milk in a medium saucepan, added enough water to cover the can completely,brought the water to boil and then let it simmer for the next two hours. i then removed the can from the water, left it on the counter for the next hour and let it cool down completely before opening the can and proceeding towards the next step. once the can had completely cooled down, i put the butter in a mixing bowl and beat it for about 2-3 minutes until it became fluffy. still beating, i added the condensed milk into the bowl and beat the two together till a smooth creamy mixture was obtained. then spooning the cream into a jar and refrigerated it until the next day, i.e., till my cookie-cake sheets were baked. for the cookie-cake dough, i filled up half of a medium sized saucepan with water, brought the water to a boil. in a separate saucepan i put the eggs and sugar, stirred to mix them well, then added the honey and butter to the egg-sugar mixture. i then placed the mixing bowl/saucepan on top of the saucepan with boiling water. at this point i adjusted the level of water in the saucepan so that it would not touch the base of the mixing saucepan. maintaining a gentle boil and stirring the mixture constantly with a balloon whisk i cooked the mixture until the ingredients were well blended and the batter in the saucepan looked smooth, about 4-5 minutes. i then added the baking soda to the mixture and stirring constantly cooked for another minute or so. with the addition of the soda the mixture became a little white-ish in colour and increased in volume. then removing the mixture saucepan from the heat, i gradually added 2 cups of flour to the mixture. at this point the dough felt extremely sticky and was impossible to work with. i was tempted to add more flour to the mixture but the recipe had warned us against it. so i left the sticky dough untouched for the next one hour. after an hour i preheated the oven to 375 degrees F, lined two baking trays with parchment paper and then started working on the cookie-dough. by then the dough had cooled down and had acquired some character, i.e., had become somewhat workable, i divided it into lime sized balls. of course to do so i had to flour my hands heavily and this is where i used some of the reserved flour. the dough in hand yielded 11 lime-sized balls. placing the balls on a heavily floured surface, i rolled them into thin sheets. then using an inverted quarter plate, i cut out 6 inch diameter circles off the dough and transferred the rolled out circles into the prepared baking tray with the help of the rolling pin. i thought this was the most difficult part of the recipe, since the dough was sticky and the surface needed to be constantly floured. next placing two dough circles on a single tray i baked them for 5 minutes until they looked golden on top. i repeated the process 5 more times until all the dough had been baked. while still waiting for the remaining cookies to bake, i stacked the baked ones one on top of the other, separating them by 4-5 inch squares of parchment paper. once all the 11 cookies had been baked i began to assemble the cake. for assembling the cake, i spread the dulce de leche cream generously on a cookie-sheet, then put a second one on top and spread the cream on that and repeated the process with another 7 baked cookies. since stacking any more layers became difficult after that, i crushed one of the remaining cookies and spreading a thin layer of the cream on all side of the cake, dabbed the cookie crumbs all over the cream. though the recipe called for resting the assembled cake in room temperature, i could not trust the heat and so i transferred the assembled cake into a tall box and refrigerated it until the next day. and just before serving(taking the photographs), i garnished the cake with sliced almonds and voila ! a beautiful traditional cake was made !!

Medovik with Dulce de Leche
Recipe Source : AZ Cookbook

ingredients

for the filling

1 can sweetened condensed milk
3/4 cups, unsalted butter

for the cookie-cake dough

2 eggs
2/3 cups sugar
2 tbsps honey
4.75 tbsps unsalted butter
2/3 baking soda
2-2.5 cups all-purpose flour (keep the 1/2 cup in reserve)

sliced almonds, for garnish
special utensils required

double broiler or 2 regular/medium sized saucepan such that one can be fitted on top of the other. (i used the second arrangement)

what i did

for the dulce de leche filling,

i put the can of condensed milk in a medium saucepan, added enough water to cover the can completely,brought the water to boil and then let it simmer for the next two hours.
i then removed the can from the water, left it on the counter for the next hour and let it cool down completely before opening the can and proceeding towards the next step.
once the can had completely cooled down, i put the butter in a mixing bowl and beat it for about 2-3 minutes until it became fluffy. still beating, i added the condensed milk into the bowl and beat the two together till a smooth creamy mixture was obtained. then spooning the cream into a jar and refrigerated it until the next day, i.e., till my cookie-cake sheets were baked.

for the cookie-cake dough,

i filled up half of a medium sized saucepan with water, brought the water to a boil.
in a separate saucepan i put the eggs and sugar, stirred to mix them well, then added the honey and butter to the egg-sugar mixture.
i then placed the mixing bowl/saucepan on top of the saucepan with boiling water. at this point i adjusted the level of water in the saucepan so that it would not touch the base of the mixing saucepan. maintaining a gentle boil and stirring the mixture constantly with a balloon whisk i cooked the mixture until the ingredients were well blended and the batter in the saucepan looked smooth, about 4-5 minutes.
i then added the baking soda to the mixture and stirring constantly cooked for another minute or so. with the addition of the soda the mixture became a little white-ish in colour and increased in volume.
then removing the mixture saucepan from the heat, i gradually added 2 cups of flour to the mixture. at this point the dough felt extremely sticky and was impossible to work with. i was tempted to add more flour to the mixture but the recipe had warned us against it. so i left the sticky dough untouched for the next one hour.
after an hour i preheated the oven to 375 degrees F, lined two baking trays with parchment paper and then started working on the cookie-dough.
by then the dough had cooled down and had acquired some character, i.e., had become somewhat workable, i divided it into lime sized balls. of course to do so i had to flour my hands heavily and this is where i used some of the reserved flour.
the dough in hand yielded 11 lime-sized balls. placing the balls on a heavily floured surface, i rolled them into thin sheets. then using an inverted quarter plate, i cut out 6 inch diameter circles off the dough and transferred the rolled out circles into the prepared baking tray with the help of the rolling pin. i thought this was the most difficult part of the recipe, since the dough was sticky and the surface needed to be constantly floured.
next placing two dough circles on a single tray i baked them for 5 minutes until they looked golden on top.
i repeated the process 5 more times until all the dough had been baked.
while still waiting for the remaining cookies to bake, i stacked the baked ones one on top of the other, separating them by 4-5 inch squares of parchment paper.
once all the 11 cookies had been baked i began to assemble the cake.

for assembling the cake,

i spread the dulce de leche cream generously on a cookie-sheet, then put a second one on top and spread the cream on that and repeated the process with another 7 baked cookies.
since stacking any more layers became difficult after that, i crushed one of the remaining cookies and spreading a thin layer of the cream on all side of the cake, dabbed the cookie crumbs all over the cream.
though the recipe called for resting the assembled cake in room temperature, i could not trust the heat and so i transferred the assembled cake into a tall box and refrigerated it until the next day.
and just before serving(taking the photographs), i garnished the cake with sliced almonds and voila ! a beautiful traditional cake was made !!

though i had been grumbling a lot while making the cake, at the end i was really glad that i tried it. we both thought the cake looked gorgeous even in its rustic form and it of course tasted G-R-E-A-T ! all along as we relished the cake, i kept on planning when to cook/bake it next. it is certainly a cake to impress and i can't wait to bake it for parents and my in-laws ;-)

Thank you Humi for the suggestion. This recipe is a real find !

So that was the anniversary challenge for the Baking Partners. Happy 1st anniversary !! though I am only four challenges old in this group, i feel wonderful being a part of this group . Hope we continue to learn and bake such wonderful goodies in the years to come and celebrate many such anniversaries together !