How to soak biscuit with cognac: syrup preparation, application methods

In many cake recipes you can find the following phrase: "Next, soak the cakes with cognac ...". And this is mentioned as if this is the most elementary action that even a novice cook can handle. But this is not so. If you pour cognac on the dough, the cakes will become very soft, and too alcoholic, alcoholic smell will come from them. In this article we will tell you step by step how to soak a biscuit with cognac.

For this, of course, you need to prepare the liquid itself. And cognac in it will be just one of the ingredients. There are many recipes for such treatment. Cognac gives them only aroma and a light aftertaste. Is impregnation necessary in any case? If a liquid cream (for example, custard) is provided for your cake, you can do without it. But the impregnation is able to return the "second youth" to the dried biscuit. It is also necessary for cakes with thick cream. And you can’t do without it in the preparation of rum women.

Sponge cake with brandy

Today there are plenty of recipes with photos of the most delicious cakes on the culinary portals. Appetizing in appearance, soft, juicy, literally melting in your mouth, these desserts beckon you to the kitchen - as soon as possible try to prepare such a miracle yourself. But alas ... It is quite difficult for a beginning cook to bake cakes for a cake. Biscuit dough is considered the most moody of all. It may not rise due to the fact that a drop of yolk has fallen into proteins. Or fall, because the oven door slammed too much. But you can make the biscuit dough become malleable and problem-free. To do this, you need to ... "drink it." Drunk dough is easily kneaded, it can be put even in a cold oven. In a word, even a novice cook can cope with the preparation of biscuit on cognac.

At what stage in the batch do you need to add alcohol? We study the recipe completely:

1. Beat six eggs (without separation into proteins and yolks) with an incomplete glass of sugar and half a bag of vanillin.
2. When stable peaks begin to appear in the mass, add two tablespoons of brandy.
3. We must have cooked, that is, sifted through a sieve, flour. It is necessary to take 1.5 cups.
4. Stir the eggs with sugar and cognac from the bottom up. You can do this with a mixer.
5. In two or three doses, add the flour.
6. Pour the dough into a greased form and bake like a regular biscuit.

Alcohol in cakes is not felt at all. Only a faint smell and pleasant humidity indicate that brandy was added to the dough. Impregnation of such cakes is no longer necessary.

The classic recipe for biscuit cakes

Children's cakes are usually made without the addition of alcohol. But you still have to infuse the cakes, otherwise they will become very dry and tasteless. To do this, boil regular sugar syrup. For impregnation of a biscuit with cognac, it will also work. You can enrich the taste of the cake by adding various ingredients to the syrup - fruit juice, coffee, plain or mint tea. But before experimenting, let's learn the basic recipe:

1. We take an equal amount of water and sugar. For an average cake of three to four cakes, it will be enough to take six tablespoons.
2. First, pour sugar into the saucepan.
3. Fill it with water (preferably warm) and stir.
4. Put the saucepan on a small fire.
5. Constantly stir until all crystals are dissolved.
6. Remove the syrup from the heat.
7. Cool it to room temperature.

Biscuit brandy soak recipe

Now that we have mastered the cooking skills of ordinary syrup, we will try to diversify its taste. Light acidity impregnation will give fruits or juices from them. An interesting taste of the syrup will provide strong coffee. Get along well with syrup and tea. You can create a milk treatment by adding condensed milk to the base treatment. But if you decide to enrich the aroma of sugar syrup, then the best way to do this is to add distillate with a characteristic odor. It could be:

• cognac;
• liquor;
• dessert wine.

At what stage do you need to add alcohol? So that the alcohol does not disappear immediately, the syrup must be cooled. 6 tablespoons of distillate should be added to the amount of sugar and water that was indicated above. Stir and begin to impregnate.

Other brandy syrup recipes

For beginner cooks, a completely logical question arises: which distillate is best added to the cake? Cognac has a strong aroma. But it tastes absolutely savory. Therefore, it is added to syrup to increase the proportion of sugar in the confectionery product. But you can use other distillates. For example, liquors have both sweetness and aroma.

In addition to the classic syrup for biscuit (with cognac), there are others. You can buy one of the many syrups that are sold in stores - strawberry, mint, chocolate or some other to your taste. This will save you time - after all, boil water with sugar, it is no longer necessary to cool it. Just add a little brandy to this syrup for flavor, stir - and you're done.

Syrup-free recipes

It is not necessary to moisten the cakes with water and sugar. After all, the last product is not very useful. Let's change the basic recipe for soaking for biscuit (with cognac and sugar). To make sweet cakes we will use honey. If it is too thick to soak cakes, heat it in a water bath. When it is slightly liquefied, pour cognac on it.

Instead of purchased syrups, you can take toppings for ice cream. They also have different tastes. Algorithm of actions:

1. Let's breed them with a small amount of cognac. This distillate goes well with coffee.
2. We make a cup of espresso.
3. Let’s drain the liquid from the coffee grounds.
4. Let’s cool and mix with cognac to your taste.
5. Want to saturate cakes with condensed milk? We breed milk with drinking yogurt. To soak the dough, condensed milk should be more liquid.
6. In this milk mass we introduce cognac.

The impregnation process. Step one

We have already informed you a lot of cognac impregnation recipes. It's time to put them into practice. Now consider how to properly soak the biscuit with cognac. Cakes during baking are covered with a dense, crispy crust. If you pour syrup or other impregnation on it, then it will not let the liquid inside. You just make puddles.

The first thing to do is cool the cakes. Then they must be carefully removed from the baking dish. This can be difficult to do, because the biscuit dough often sticks. Therefore, bake cakes are recommended in silicone form. If you don’t have one, oil the metal well with vegetable oil. It will be better if it is a detachable form.

It happens that the cake is damaged when pulled. It doesn’t matter: then pieces of dough can then be held together with cream. With the impregnation begins the assembly of the cake. But first, with a very sharp knife or a harsh thread, we divide each cake into layers. If the biscuit turned out high, then three or four, and if low, then two.

Second step

We lay one of the layers of cake on a flat beautiful dish on which we will serve our cake. The fried side should be on the bottom, and on top - a slice. How to soak sponge cake with brandy syrup? In no case should you simply pour liquid from above. For such purposes, there is a pastry brush. Silicone is an ideal option. On this material, the liquid does not linger, flows down evenly. Silicone "bristles" are soft, they will not damage the surface of the cake.

Dip the brush in syrup and draw it on the surface of the whole cake. The porous structure of the biscuit slice absorbs the syrup like a sponge. Therefore, it is important not to overdo it. Otherwise, the dough is not soaked, but simply fermented. Cakes will lose their shape, swim, a puddle forms on the dish. And the cream will not stick well to such a wet test. If you notice that you have gone too far with the impregnation, make this cake not lower but upper. The liquid under gravity will go down, and thus this drainage will save your cake.

Dry sponge cake with a very sweet cream

Do not like the cloying taste in confectionery? Then you can do without syrup at all. Then the question arises: how to soak a biscuit with cognac in this case? Very simple - using the same pastry brush. Cognac can be mixed with a small amount of liquor. But even if the liquid is not too thick, it can also evenly soak biscuit cakes.

Dip the brush in cognac and shake it, knocking the handle on the finger of the other hand. Then the distillate droplets are evenly distributed on the surface of the cake. After that, you need to wait a bit. Do not immediately apply the cream. Better yet, cover the cake with cling film for a quarter of an hour, because cognac is a volatile substance. So we will more effectively soak the biscuit and add flavor to it. Then remove the film and proceed to smear the cakes with cream. This technique - sprinkling biscuit with cognac - will help restore freshness to stale pastries.

Impregnation with a thicker substance

We have already examined how to moisten the cakes with simple alcohol and “drunk syrup”. But in many recipes it is proposed to make a thicker impregnation. Tightly boiled purchased syrups and honey require a special approach. Silicone brush will help you out in this case too. But how to soak a biscuit with cognac if it is not?

Take an ordinary teaspoon. We scoop it with impregnation. You need to recruit not a full spoon, but about half. The back side will also be coated with impregnation. Perhaps a drop even forms there. It is with her, that is, the back of the spoon, that we draw along the surface of the cake. When it is so wiped off, we tilt it a little. A thick liquid is required to slide from the edges of the spoon to its convex bottom. We draw it on the surface of the biscuit. But here you should not overdo it. We only need to slightly moisten the cakes.

Very thick impregnation

If the cream is not very much and it is only enough to decorate the sides and top of the cake, the confectioners use confiture for the layer. Jams, toppings and condensed milk are rather dense substances, and remain so, even if diluted with distillate. How to soak a biscuit with cognac in this case? This time we need a knife with a wide blade.

Spread the impregnation like butter on a sandwich, but with a very thin layer. Since the substance is dense, it does not immediately go deep into the test. It is necessary to let the cake stand. But wrapping it with cling film is not recommended. After half an hour, we begin to collect the cake. As already indicated, smearing with creams in this case is not necessary. But it won’t hurt the cake. The cream will only improve the taste of the confectionery.

Decorate the cake

We have already told you how to soak a biscuit with cognac. It's time to give advice on decorating the cake. When working with cakes, crumbs and trimmings of dough always remain. And after impregnation - a certain amount of unused liquid. They can be used for camouflage not too beautiful sides of the cake. Grind the dough into crumbs. And mix it with cognac syrup or other impregnation. Cover the sides of the cake with the resulting sticky mass.