Many of us remember how delicious desserts were in childhood. A particularly fabulous delicacy was the Soviet cake. And this is not surprising, because all the confectionery products were prepared from natural products and had limited shelf life, in contrast to modern products. In our article, we want to recall the recipes of Soviet cakes, perhaps someone will decide to make a delicious dessert from childhood at home.
A bit of history ...
Historically, there were practically no cakes in Russian cuisine. But desserts were understood as mousses, jellies, puddings, baked apples and croutons, pancakes and pies with canned fruit. There are no cake recipes in old cookbooks, except for desserts made from cookies and cottage cheese. Soviet cake entered the diet of our citizens in the fifties of the last century.
Elegant dessert very quickly fell in love with people. And already in the second half of the fifties, the Soviet cake became the main attribute of any holiday table. The most famous desserts were: “Cornucopia”, “Napoleon”, “Tale”, “Kiev” and many others.
Recipes of Soviet cakes in those days were approved by the Ministry of Food and Industry, only natural ingredients were used for their preparation. What was the price of delicious oil roses decorating the finished confectionery! Soviet cake was something special, not a trivial dessert. Unlike modern products, all cakes were incredibly tasty and satisfying. According to experts, 142 recipes were approved during the Soviet era, according to which all the workshops of a huge country worked.
Cake "Kiev": the story of the appearance
Remembering the legendary cakes of the Soviet era, you immediately need to pay attention to the beloved "many" Kiev. In 1956, Nadezhda Chernogor and Konstantin Petrenko (workers of the famous confectionery factory in Kiev named after Karl Marx) created a real masterpiece, which later became known as Kievsky. The dessert consisted of air hazelnut cakes, which used up to five varieties of nuts. Fermented proteins were taken for preparation. In the mid-sixties, the USSR Ministry of Food Industry approved a cake recipe. Initially, it was based on the use of cashew nuts, but such a nut was quite expensive, so in the future it was replaced with hazelnuts, and later with peanuts.
For the preparation of the "Kiev" cake used egg cream (better known as Charlotte cream). But in the 70s it was replaced by a creamy butter. Such a cream was more saturated and heavy. The “Kiev” Soviet cake became a legend of its time. He was so loved by everyone and popular that all business travelers brought this dessert home from Kiev.
Ingredients for the Kiev Cake
As we already mentioned, Soviet-era cake recipes were based on the use of natural products. Of course, in our time, preparing a dessert will cost a lot, but still we want to bring a classic version of the recipe. So, for cooking cakes, we need:
- Egg whites - 200 g (these are approximately the proteins of six eggs).
- Vanilla Sugar Packet.
- Cashew - 55 g.
- Sugar - 235 g.
- Flour - 55 g.
For cream:
- Butter - 255 g.
- Sugar - 225 g.
- Egg.
- Milk - 150 g.
- Cocoa Powder - 10 g.
- A packet of vanilla sugar.
- Cognac - 2 tbsp. l
And for decoration you can take a few candied fruits.
"Kiev" cake: a classic recipe (Soviet time)
The preparation of the dessert should start with the fermentation of egg whites. They must be left in a warm place for a day. The next day, beat the prepared proteins in a thick foam, not forgetting to add 50 grams of sugar and vanilla. All ingredients should turn into a very dense mass. Next, mix the flour with chopped cashew nuts (they can be replaced with cheaper hazelnuts or peanuts), add 185 grams of granulated sugar. The whipped proteins are gradually introduced into the resulting mixture and the ingredients are gently mixed. The mass must be divided into two parts and decomposed into two forms, populated with oiled parchment. Cakes are baked at 150 degrees for two hours. You need to cook them at the same time, if the size of the oven does not allow this, then the dough must be prepared separately for each cake. In the process of cooking, in no case should you open the oven, the finished product should acquire a cream shade. Cakes should be left in parchment for a day, so that they completely cool down and become more durable.
To make charlotte cream, you need to boil syrup from milk, sugar and eggs. Then let it cool. Then - in cold form - introduce pre-whipped butter into them. In this case, the mass must be mixed all the time. Already add vanilla sugar and cognac to the finished cream, and beat again.
Next, we separate 200 grams from the resulting mass and add cocoa powder, after which we beat the components.
Now it remains only to collect the cake. Put the cake on the parchment and grease it with cream, cover with a second cake on top and apply another layer of cream. Lubricate the sides of the dessert with a chocolate mass. If you have crumbs left over from the cakes, then you can sprinkle them on the side surface. The top of the cake is decorated with cream and candied fruit.
Bird's Milk: A Story
Considering the classic cakes of the Soviet era, it is certainly worth mentioning “Bird's milk”. In 1978, a group of confectioners, led by the head of the workshop of the famous Moscow restaurant "Prague" V. M. Guralnik, created a recipe for this amazing cake. The dessert recipe quickly went to other confectioneries and restaurants, but it was the tastiest in Prague. Since the beginning of the eighties along the Arbat every day there has been a line of customers wishing to purchase a cake. After all, he was worth it. A thin airy biscuit with soufflé and chocolate has become incredibly popular. If at the beginning the workshop prepared just 60 cakes a day, then production soon increased to 500. The recipe itself quickly spread throughout the country through Mosrestorantrest.
If some Soviet-era cakes are not so difficult to make at home, then reproducing Bird's Milk is not easy at all. Making a sustainable souffle is not easy.
Ingredients for Bird's Milk Cake
The most important secret of cake preparation is the use of agar-agar, which cannot be replaced with anything. It is very important to know that agar agar is different. It dissolves well when boiled, but at 120 degrees it sharply loses its gelling properties. It is very difficult to work with him, so only a real pastry chef can cook such a cake.
For cake you will need the following products:
- Flour - 145 g.
- Sugar 100 g.
- Butter - 105 g.
- Two eggs.
For souffle:
- Two egg whites.
- Sugar - 460 g.
- A pack of butter.
- Agar –agar - 2 tsp. (4 grams).
- Vanillin.
- Condensed milk - 100 g.
For decoration:
- Chocolate - 75 g.
- Butter - 55 g.
Recipe "Bird's milk"
First, let's cook the cakes. Beat sugar with butter and add one egg at a time, while not stopping the beating mass. Then pour in the flour and knead the dough. Smear the resulting mass on parchment in the form of two circles. Bake cakes for ten minutes at a temperature of 230 degrees. If they turned out to be a bit too big, then they should be cut and put on a uniform while they are still hot. Cakes should cool in parchment and only after that paper can be removed.
Then you can proceed to the preparation of soufflé. Pour 150 grams of water into the pan and put agar-agar in it, leave it to swell for a couple of hours. Oil from the refrigerator must be removed one hour before the preparation of the syrup. By the appointed time, it should be at room temperature. Egg whites, on the contrary, need to be cooled, so they are first sent to the refrigerator.
We take a detachable form and put parchment on its bottom, and on it - the cake itself.
On a small fire we put a pan with swollen agar-agar, without ceasing to interfere, bring the mass to a boil, and cook for about a minute until completely dissolved. Pour sugar into the solution and bring to a boil again, do not forget to stir. At that moment, when the sugar is completely dissolved and begins to boil, the fire should be turned off, since the syrup is ready. Now it has to cool.
In the softened oil, add vanillin and condensed milk, beat the components with a mixer until fluffy.
In a separate container, beat the whites (chilled) to a thick foam. Then add citric acid and whisk again. The resulting mass should hold well on the whisk. Without stopping whipping, slowly pour the syrup into the squirrels. We should get a very thick and dense foam. Next, at the lowest speed, beat the condensed milk with butter and proteins. Here is our souffle and done. In the prepared form we spread only half the mass, put the second cake on top and again apply another layer of souffle. We level the surface of the cake and send it to the refrigerator for three hours.
The classic Soviet Bird's milk cakes were decorated with bitter chocolate on top. Therefore, we will not retreat from the recipe. Chocolate must be melted with butter (best in a water bath), when it cools down a little, apply it to the surface of the cake. The dessert is ready.
History of Napoleon
Soviet cake "Napoleon" is still incredibly popular. This confectionery has a very long history. There are many legends about its origin. Which one is reliable is hard to say. It is believed that the history of the cake began in 1912, on the day of the centennial of the victory over Napoleon Bonaparte's army. Competitions between confectioners who prepared all kinds of desserts were timed to the day of the celebration.
Everyone wanted to surprise Emperor Nicholas II. The most attention was attracted to the cake, prepared on the basis of custard. The confectioner divided it into triangular pieces and decorated it with cream. Such cakes were incredibly similar to Napoleon's cocked hat. According to legend, later dessert was called "Napoleon". Over time, the dessert recipe spread throughout Russia and became incredibly popular.
Products for Napoleon
To prepare the Napoleon cake of Soviet times, we need the following components:
- Flour - 455 g.
- Oil - 420 g.
- Salt - 4 g.
- One egg.
- Sugar - 100 g.
- Water 160 g.
- One gram of citric acid.
- One yolk.
- Milk - 70 g.
- A packet of vanilla sugar.
- A tablespoon of brandy.
- A tablespoon of powdered sugar.
Cake "Napoleon": Soviet recipe
The classic butter cream cake recipe includes four steps:
- Making and rolling dough.
- Baking cakes.
- Cooking Charlotte Cream.
- The assembly of the dessert.
In order to simplify the preparation of the cake, you can buy ready-made puff pastry in the store. However, the taste of such a dessert will be significantly different. The recipe for Napoleon cake (Soviet times) still involves making the dough yourself. In this case, the finished dessert is incredibly tasty. To simplify the task, the dough and cream can be prepared on different days.
To prepare the dough, mix 400 grams of flour and salt. Add citric acid to the water, mix and pour the solution into the flour, add the egg and knead the dough. In finished form, it should not stick to your hands, but at the same time it should be soft and plastic. Then for half an hour we send the dough to the refrigerator.
Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, cut the butter into slices, add a little flour (20 grams), and beat until smooth. You can put cling film on the table and transfer the oily mass onto it, giving it a square shape of no more than two centimeters in height. Next, close, remove the oil in the refrigerator for thirty minutes. The mass should not spread.
Now you can begin the process of rolling out the dough. To do this, sprinkle flour on the table and form an envelope in the center. We put oil in it (which we previously put in the refrigerator) and cover it with dough. Next, with a cooled rolling pin, we evenly roll out the mass into a layer, the thickness of which should be no more than one centimeter. The resulting cake is folded in half, covered with a film and again sent to the refrigerator. After half an hour, we again repeat the process of forming puff pastry, after which its edges are minimized and sent to cool. The ritual must be repeated four more times. Ready dough can be placed in the refrigerator for several days until the moment when you decide to bake cakes.
The most difficult stage is passed, now we need to go to the baking process. Take a baking sheet and cover it with paper, and preheat the oven to 220 degrees. Roll out the dough into separate layers, up to five millimeters thick. We bake each cake for about half an hour. The baking should cool.
Now you can proceed to the preparation of Charlotte cream. It is necessary in advance to get butter and milk from the refrigerator so that they have time to warm up to room temperature. Beat 70 grams of milk with egg yolk and filter the mixture through cheesecloth. Then add one hundred grams of sugar and vanilla, put the pan on a small fire and cook constantly stirring. The mass must be brought to a boil, after a couple of minutes the syrup will acquire the consistency of condensed milk. After that, turn off the fire, and pour the contents into another dish, allowing to cool.
Cut the butter into pieces and begin to whisk until it becomes lush. Then add the syrup (room temperature) and continue whisking. As a result, we should get a magnificent cream. You can add cognac to it to add taste. Charlotte butter cream is ready.
Now you can proceed to the assembly of the cake. We spread the cake on the tray and spread it evenly with cream. Cover with a new cake top and gently press it with your hand, apply a creamy mass. Do the same with all layers. On top of the cake, as a rule, is decorated with crumbs from cake scraps and powdered sugar. So our Napoleon cake is ready. The recipe (classic) of Soviet delicacies, as you can see, is not so simple, since it takes a lot of time to prepare a real puff pastry. But then the result exceeds all expectations.
Instead of an afterword
Among the Soviet cakes, “Prague”, “Gift”, “Leningradsky”, “Enchantress” and many others were incredibly popular ... Unfortunately, it is impossible to describe all the cakes of the Soviet era within the framework of the article. We hope that the above recipes will interest the housewives and replenish their culinary piggy banks.