In the culinary departments of the shops where cakes are sold, products based on honey cakes are widely represented - and this is not surprising, because a multi-layer cake soaked in delicate cream is the favorite taste of childhood.
Honestly, I haven’t made this cake for many years, and recently I came across a pretty yellowed leaf written in my mother’s handwriting (we used to make a cake using this recipe) and decided - why not bake it now? And did not regret it! It’s not so intricate if it’s decorated with me like a honey cake “Bee”, which some artisans make, but if you just sprinkle it with crumbs from scraps of the same cakes or nuts, it will turn out no less appetizing!
Yes, making choux pastry and baking more than 3 cakes is a little time-consuming task, but there is no need to be scared - there is nothing complicated! But please your home with your own baked, and not purchased cake.
I can tell you how to bake a honey cake. For the test we need: white wheat flour - about 4.5 cups (we will not add all at once), 3 eggs, a little less than a pack of butter or margarine (180 grams), 2 tablespoons of honey, ¾ cup of granulated sugar, 1 teaspoon of soda and some salt.
How to make a dough?
As I said, the dough for the honey is not simple - it is made in a water bath. To do this, prepare 2 containers (pots) - one larger, one smaller. All products must be ready, as there will be no time to linger with custard dough. Pour half the water into a large saucepan, and while it is heating up, in a separate bowl, beat the eggs with a whisk and set it aside for a short while, and put honey, butter, sugar and salt in a smaller saucepan. We put this saucepan in a boiling water bath and, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon or spatula, bring the mixture to a homogeneous state.
Further, without removing from the "bath", pour beaten eggs into this mixture, quickly mix everything and pour a teaspoon of soda. When the whole mass increases 1.5-2 times, pour 1.5 cups of flour. We interfere intensively all the time!
As soon as the dough thickened, it became viscous, remove the top saucepan from the steam, pour 3 cups of flour onto the table, put our warm custard dough on it and knead. It should end up with a soft, greasy bun.
We divide all the resulting dough into 6 parts and roll them along the diameter of a small plate (the thickness of the cakes is no more than 0.5 cm). I note that many manage to divide the dough into 8 parts and roll out very thin cakes, but the butter dough is quite fragile, and I manage to make only 6.
Cakes are baked in the oven at 180 degrees very quickly, no more than 5 minutes each, and the finer the roll, the faster it will bake - just keep it until it is intensely golden in color, no longer so that your creation does not turn into tasty crackers.
Soak the Honey cake very well with cream. To do this, take 1.5 cups of non-liquid, but not too thick sour cream and beat it well with one and a half glasses of sugar (but you can take a little less sugar). If the cakes are not overdried, then immediately spread thickly with cream and put them on top of each other, and if you didn’t see it and some cake turned out to be too dry, then I recommend sprinkling it with a little honey water to absorb the cream later.
When all the cakes are stacked, we will trim the uneven edges with a knife, and chop the crumbs, and this will be our breading for the cake. In layers with cream, you can add chopped walnuts, and also sprinkle with them the sides and the top of the cake. To make the cake completely soft and literally melt in your mouth, you need to give it a few hours to soak it, do not immediately put it in the cold, let it stand at room temperature for an hour (but not in the heat, otherwise the cream will float). And it’s best to cook the Honey cake in the evening, put in the refrigerator for the night, and eat in a pleasant company the very next day!
Enjoy your tea party!