Honey cake

Ryzhik, bee, honey cake, sour cream – these are all the callsigns of almost the most ancient Russian cake – honey cake. The story of its origin has dubious plausibility, but it gives the right to have this cake the title of royal. Today this honey dessert has gone through many changes. Cream can be creamy or sour cream, nuts are added to the cakes or sprinkled on top of the cake. But all this cannot interfere with boundless love for the most famous Russian sweets or “snacks”, as they were called before.

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  Put a saucepan with water on the stove, let it warm up well. Place a bowl of honey on top, wait until it becomes liquid, add pieces of butter. Stir the mixture with a whisk until the oil dissolves and leave on the stove over low heat.
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  In the meantime, start beating the sugar and eggs at high speed: this will take about eight minutes, and you should end up with a strong white cream.
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  Mix flour with baking soda and sift through a sieve: this way the cakes will be lighter.
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  The honey mixture should have acquired a brown tint by this time. Remove it from heat, add the egg mixture and stir with a whisk, making movements from top to bottom. Add flour and stir again, but from the bottom up.
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  For the cake, you will need six layers with a diameter of 20 cm, 2 mm thick each. In production, they use such metal rings, but at home the cakes can be planted by eye. Part of the dough will remain: it needs to be baked in a single crust – it will go into honey crumbs for decoration.
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  “Azbuka Vkusa” uses huge ovens similar to refrigerators. The home oven, on the other hand, needs to be heated to the highest possible temperature and the cakes should be baked for three to four minutes: they should become the color of buckwheat honey and remain soft. When ready, put them in the refrigerator to cool.
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  Make sour cream: stir sugar and sour cream with a whisk until smooth.
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  Fold the cake: put the first cake with the baked side up, coat with cream, and the next with the baked side down. Smear the top with cream too. Grind the excess cake in a blender until fine crumbs. Sprinkle it on the cake on all sides.
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  The finished cake can be decorated with powder and honey, then put in the refrigerator overnight, or better for a day: during this time it will go down about one and a half times and soaked in cream.

The finished cake should be allowed to stand at least overnight: during this time the layers will be saturated with cream, and the taste will become more intense.