Honey Cake

Layers upon layers of honey shortcrust pastry and creamy dulce de leche frosting

Medovik is a classic Russian honey cake made with layers upon layers of honey choux pastry and whipped sour cream. As much as my husband loves a medovik I hate making choux pastry for it. That’s why I cook a fake medovik - my husband is happy, and I continue to cook a yummy honey cake!

I love making shortcrust pastry which is similar to the French classics - pâte sucrée. I know that such dough is mostly used for tarts, but it is just perfect for this cake. Working with shortcrust pastry is a real pleasure. First, this dough is prepared very quickly. Secondly, it’s difficult to make a mistake with it, even if you put more flour or less sugar, it'll still work. Thirdly, it's easy to change a taste - there will be honey in this recipe, alternatively, you can add nuts (as I did in a pistachio raspberry cake), vanilla extract, or zest.

The frosting base is also my favorite - cream cheese, whipped cream, and powdered sugar. And again, like with the dough, let your imagination run wild! In this case, there will be honey and boiled condensed milk also known as dulce de leche. The main thing is not to overdo it with the amount of liquid additional ingredients - too much and the frosting will be runny.

Well, let's get started? I hope you're ready to make a delicious honey cake, even if it's not a classic medivik.

Ingredients:

Cake dough:

• 220 g softened unsalted butter,
• 60 g (¼ cup) powdered sugar,
• 1 large egg,
• ½ tsp salt,
• 70 g (3 ⅓ tbsp) honey,
  choose fragrant and non-liquid honey; I don’t recommend buckwheat honey - it tastes too bright;
• 340 g (2 ½ cups) flour.

Frosting:

• 110 g (½ cup) heavy whipping cream (33%),
• 500 g cream cheese,
  I like to mix Philadelphia and Mascarpone - 350 grams of Philadelphia and 150 of Mascarpone,
• 150 g (½ cup) boiled condensed milk,
• 45 g (2 tbsp) honey.

Additionally:

Flour for rolling out the dough.

Process:

Dough preparation:

In preparation this dough is very similar to pâte sucrée dough. In this article you’ll find even more information about the peculiarities of working with such a dough.

• put butter and sugar in a large bowl,
• mix until smooth using a wooden spoon,
• add honey and mix until smooth,
• in a separate bowl with a fork, combine the egg and salt,

• add this egg mixture to a butter one,
• mix until the mixture is almost smooth,
• add the flour and mix gently, it’s not necessary to mix the dough until completely smooth,

• sprinkle the contertop with flour,
• knead the dough briefly by "rubbing" until the flour is fully covered with the fat from the butter,
• shape the dough into a flat rectangle,
• wrap tightly with plastic wrap and slightly press to flatten and let it chill in place the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

Oven:

Preheat the oven to 190 °C.

Baking the cake layers:

• after the dough has been in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, divide it into 12 parts if the plate you will use for cutting is less than 17 cm in diameter, and divide the dough into 9 parts if the plate is larger,
• dust the counter and rolling pin lightly with flour,
  
• roll the dough out to 3-5 mm thickness,
  the dough will break if it is too cold, just let it sit for a few more minutes at room temperature; so that the dough doesn’t stick, lift and rotate it while rolling;
• once the dough is rolled out, cut out the cake layer - put a plate on the rolled dough and cut around; remove the dough leftovers, you'll need it later,

• cover the baking sheet with the baking paper and place the place the cake layer on it,
• place the baking sheet in the oven preheated to 190 ºC,
  if you can place more cake layers on the baking sheet - bake two or three at once;
  don’t bake on different baking sheets at the same time - the upper one will be browning, while the lower one won't be cooked through;
• bake for about 5 minutes, the cake layer shouldn’t brown,
• once done, remove it from the oven and let it stand on the baking sheet for a few minutes - the cake layer are very fragile and it can be broken easily, let it cool down a bit,
• put the cooled cake layer on the wire rack, so it doesn’t become wet,
• repeat this process until you run out of the dough,

• roll out the leftovers and cut them into long strips - so they bake evenly,
• bake the dough strips for about 5 minutes - you’ll need them to decorate the cake.

Frosting:

• whip the heavy cream on high speed; as soon as steady peaks appear, stop, otherwise you will get butter,
• in a separate bowl, using a wooden spoon or a spatula, gently mix the powdered sugar, cream cheese, honey and boiled condensed milk,
  if you still use a mixer, do it at a minimum speed, there should be no air bubbles;
• mix the whipped cream and the cream cheese mixture until smooth,
• the frosting should be placed in the refrigerator for at least an hour to stabilize and not spread during the assembling process.

Cake decoration:

Grind the baked dough strips, or chop finely with a knife. Alternatively, you can place baked dough strips into a ziplock bag, seal it, then with a rolling pin mash and roll it into crumbs.

Assembling the cake:

• remove the frosting from the fridge,
• in the center of the plate on which you plan to assemble the cake, put half a spoon of the frosting and lightly spread it, it will help to fix the bottom layer and the cake will be easier to assemble,
• put the cake layer on a plate and evenly grease it with the frosting (the layer thickness should be about 3-5 mm),
• do the same thing with the rest of the cake layers,

• once done, put the cake and the ramaining frosting in the fridge for at least an hour - the frosting in the cake will harden and it’ll be much easier to cover the cake,
• take the cake out of the refrigerator and cover it with a final layer of frosting,
• decorate the cake with the crumbs,
• let the cake settle down in the refrigerator for 12 hours.