Nowadays, when most ladies are concerned about their figure and maintaining a thin waist, eating honey cake according to the classic recipe means adding a couple of centimeters on the waist and hips. As they say, a couple of minutes on the tongue and a lifetime on the hips. Of course, a delicious honey cake with good soaking is so tempting for a second and third slice that it’s impossible to refuse. But how to maintain your figure and at the same time eat your favorite honey cake, saffron milk? Everything turned out to be quite simple.
How not to gain kilograms
What is basically the most high-calorie component in most cakes is, of course, the cream.
If you constantly eat “Napoleon” with condensed milk, then in a month there will be no trace of such a sweet life. It's the same with honey cakes. Even the most harmless sour cream contains a large number of calories due to the huge consumption of sugar for its preparation, and sour cream in such quantities is not so harmless.
Look at what they now offer in modern confectionery stores - all light creams. At the same time, there is twice as much cream as the dough itself. Maybe this is the reason why they are so expensive? Of course, even if you take low-fat cottage cheese, it is much more expensive than flour, sugar and butter combined.
How to make a honey cake at home, which is slightly different from the classic version in taste, but is prepared on the basis of old, time-tested recipes.
In addition, a modern honey cake is a baked product that has lost its original appearance.
That is, people do not want to see a cake sprinkled with crumbs, but with icing or mastic used. So the appearance of the cake is much better compared to its ancestor.
No matter how much I looked for differences in the recipe for making classic and modern cake recipes, I never found it. I even used textbooks on modern cooking, which I took from a friend, a culinary arts teacher at a technical school. But even there, the technological map for preparing honey cake, and in fact a step-by-step recipe, is not too different from what I have known for a long time.
But when I read the textbook, this technological map rather confused me than helped. There is so much unnecessary stuff that, of course, is necessary in culinary production, but we definitely won’t do it at home. For example, some eggs need to be washed so much that it seems that after that you no longer want to cook.
Recipe from the textbook
It cannot be said that this is an original honey cake recipe, since it can only claim originality in its creams and design. But since we are talking about the cooking process according to books for professional confectioners, I will give this recipe in full, excluding only the process of washing the eggs. It is so complicated and not suitable for home cooking.
To tell the truth, I myself only rinse the eggs in hot water before breaking them.
What ingredients will you need to bake a honey cake according to the tutorial:
Eggs – 80 gr. (slightly less than 2 chicken eggs of the second category);
Honey – 80 gr. (one and a half tablespoons);
Sugar – 470 gr.;
Butter – 300 gr.;
Milk – 260 ml;
Flour – 800 gr.;
Semolina – 80 gr.;
Lemon – 75 gr.;
Powdered sugar – 100 gr.;
Cocoa – 10 gr.;
Almonds – 50 gr.;
Yellow raspberries – 150 gr.;
Cloves – 30 gr.;
Rum – 100 gr.
If you use all the ingredients correctly, you get a cake of about 2.5 kg. Insanely beautiful and delicate, but when I tried to make all this at home, believe me, I was very worried about measuring and arranging the cups and ingredients in my own small kitchen.
Let's start, as always, by preparing the cake layers.
To do this, mix the eggs with 0.5 cups of sugar and beat until foamy, add honey and place in a water bath. When all these ingredients are in the bathhouse, whisk just like that in a saucepan. To do this, I unfasten the mixer from the stationary stand, and, holding the saucepan by the handle, whisk. Next you need to add softened butter 50 g. and continue working with the mixer.
Next add 50 ml. milk and all the soda. The mass begins to grow and should increase 4 times. When you notice that the increase process is no longer happening, remove from the water bath and add flour. But don’t add all the flour at once, as I noticed that the recipe calls for too much flour. I used all of it, but some of it went into rolling out the cakes. Add in small portions and knead. It should be soft and very easy to roll out on parchment.
When you achieve the required consistency, divide the entire dough into parts and cut the baking parchment. The parchment pieces should be a little larger, about 5 centimeters, than the cake template. Since it’s easier to roll out warm dough, I put it in the same saucepan in the bathhouse, but the stove under the bathhouse is turned off. The heat comes from freshly boiled water.
There is one more small nuance: I don’t immediately divide the dough into pieces, but each time I pinch off a large piece for a new crust. This way the dough cools down more slowly.
Roll out immediately on parchment dusted with flour and place in an oven preheated to 180 degrees. Cook each layer until golden brown - this takes about 5-6 minutes.
Honestly, I have a large mold and it turned out to be about 12 pieces of thin cakes. When you remove each layer from the oven, immediately remove the parchment from it, since the cakes cool quite quickly and the parchment cannot be peeled off after that. It is also necessary to cut according to the template in the first minute after removal.
The most interesting thing is that the recipe contains the entire description, but does not show what to do with the leftover cakes.
The fact that I cut out the cake after baking is, excuse me, my modification, since the original recipe contains the phrase: cut the rolled out layer according to the template and put the cake in the oven. And at the end it says that one of the cakes must be crumbled for sprinkling. Where to put the dough that was cut off from the layer is not clear. Either they rolled it out again or threw it away.
Now let's make the cream, which can be prepared in a water bath if you are afraid that it might burn.
But it is not difficult to cook it on a burner without the use of additional add-ons. To do this, boil 210 ml. milk and add 150 gr. butter. Mix well and add a glass of sugar and semolina. Stirring continuously, wait for the cream to thicken. When the consistency of this mass becomes denser, remove from heat and cool. You can put it in a saucepan or bowl with ice water. The main cream has cooled, prepare additional cream for the top of the cake. This is a regular butter cream, for which we beat 100 g. softened butter with 100 gr. powdered sugar.
At this moment, the butter custard has cooled down; by the way, it is quite tasty and tender. Add lemon zest and juice squeezed from the same lemon.
Mix well and begin to assemble the cake.
To coat the cake, first use rum, which should be used to slightly moisten parts of the cake, and then apply cream. After placing the last layer, press it a little and then apply buttercream on it.
In order to make honeycombs, you can use a film with pimples, which children love so much. Place the film on the cream layer and press down. Place directly into the refrigerator with the film for 15 minutes.
While the cake is cooling, grind the cake crumbs and prepare the glaze.
Well, at least the glaze recipe turned out to be previously known to me, so at least I didn’t suffer with it. Mix two teaspoons of sugar with two teaspoons of sifted cocoa and add 2 tablespoons of milk, place in a water bath and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved.
Now take the cake out of the refrigerator and remove the film. Pour some honey into a saucer and coat our honeycombs with a brush. It turns out very beautiful. Then coat the sides of the cake with glaze and sprinkle with crumbs, just not too much so that the glaze shows through.
Let's make a decoration for our cake.
We plant yellow raspberries on all the honeycombs, draw stripes and eyes with icing. We make antennae from cloves - this is the only thing that cannot be eaten from this cake. We make wings from almonds, or rather their shavings.
The recipe according to the technological map shows how to do it correctly, only I preferred to buy almond flakes, since making it yourself is very difficult and time-consuming.
What I didn’t really like about making this cake is that the ingredients are listed in total volume, and even the cooking technology doesn’t show what ingredients are included in the recipe for the cake components. I had to use my own experience and knowledge, since honey cake is one of my favorite cakes.
After reading this textbook, which was published for a culinary college in 2014, and has several options for honey cakes, I realized that even students of modern culinary institutions cannot bake a honey cake without honey, no matter how hard they try.
A very tasty and colorful cake with popular honey cakes, sour cream, cranberry jam, yogurt mousse with honey and two-color mirror glaze.
The talented Natalya shared the recipe with us @natalioss
Honey sponge cake
Heat sugar, honey, oil in a water bath. Add egg, heat, add soda. Wait for the reaction (the mass will turn white and increase in volume), remove from the bath, add flour. Okay, wrap the dough in film and put it in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes (or overnight if you bake in the morning). Take out the dough, knead with a minimum amount of flour.
Divide the dough into four parts. each cake about 2-3 mm high on baking paper in a circle with a diameter of about 15 cm. Prick the dough with a vetch. Bake each cake at 180-190C until golden brown. Cool the cakes. The cakes can be cut out into the desired shape before baking, but this will turn out more evenly. Align the finished cakes to the diameter of the 14 cm ring in which the cake filling will be collected.
Sour cream
Soak the gelatin for sour cream in cold water for 20 minutes. Mix sour cream with sugar and carefully pour in pre-soaked and already melted gelatin. Sour cream should not be cold! Otherwise, gelatin will not be able to combine with the mass. Therefore, it is better to put a spoonful of sour cream in the gelatin and melt it together in the microwave, then combine with all the sour cream. Assemble the cake filling by laying out alternately cake layer, cream cake, etc. A total of 4 cake layers should be used. Place the cake ring in the freezer for at least 2 hours.
Cranberry confit
Soak gelatin in cold water. Prepare a ring mold equal in diameter to the one in which the honey cakes were collected - this is 14 cm,
Wrap the bottom with cling film. Place on a hard, flat surface () that fits in your freezer. In a saucepan, combine cranberries and cranberry puree with sugar, bring to a boil, remove from heat, add gelatin, stir, cool slightly and pour into a frozen ring lined inside with a special border film. Freeze completely (about 2 hours).
Yogurt mousse
Start beating the yolks at low speed, and at the same time start cooking the syrup from water and sugar. When the syrup heats up to 105C, turn it on at maximum speed. Boil the syrup to 118C and pour in a thin stream onto the yolks. until cool.
The mass should become light and fluffy. Whip the cream to stiff peaks. To do this, the cream must be cold. Combine yogurt, sour cream, cream and honey. Dissolve gelatin in cold milk until completely swollen. Place on low heat and completely dissolve the mixture. Pour in a thin stream into the yogurt mixture.
Combine all mixtures, stirring gently.
Assembly
Prepare a ring with a diameter of 18 cm.
We tighten the bottom of the ring tightly with film. We lay acetate tape inside.
The diameter of the cake is 18 cm. We assemble it upside down. Pour the first layer of mousse approximately equal to the thickness of the cranberry confit. Place in the freezer for 15 minutes until the mousse hardens slightly. Next we add the cranberry confit. There is another layer of mousse on top and we screw our frozen honey cake upside down, exactly in the center, if necessary, add mousse to the sides of the mold to completely fill the mold. For more even layers, you can freeze each layer.
Place the cake in the freezer overnight.
Glaze
Soak gelatin in 20g of cold water. Combine water, sugar, glucose and condensed milk in a saucepan and heat to a boil. Add gelatin to the boiling mass, pour it over the chocolate, add dye, puree it with a blender and put it under film in the refrigerator overnight.
In the morning, take it out and carefully heat it in the microwave to 30 degrees, punch it again, trying not to introduce air. Cover the table surface, or use a deep dish. Remove the cake from the mold, place it on a glass/ring/stand, pour icing over it, starting from the center to the edges. For a two-color finish, make some of the icing a different color and pour it over the base color. Brush off excess glaze. Pour in excess glaze after it stops dripping. Transfer the cake to a tray/plate using a knife.
If desired, you can make leopard print stains on the glaze. Method for preparing the mixture to obtain a leopard print: 70 grams of neutral glaze, 30 grams of water and dye, combine with the help of, heat in the microwave until boiling. After covering the cake with glaze, immediately run a spatula dipped in a hot (at least 70 degrees) mixture over the surface of the cake. Then collect all the excess and move the cake onto a baking tray.
Decorate the cake with pieces of white chocolate. For the marmalade leaves, pour a small portion of the confit into a flat pan and let it set. After hardening, you can cut out the leaves into special shapes and decorate them.
The cake was prepared as part of the “Modern Classics” marathon, organized on Instagram by @zhabcka and @confiteria_khv. Organizers recipe. I didn’t think that I would ever bake a “Honey Cake” in my life, since I don’t like cloyingly sweet cakes, but after seeing several recipes that were successful, in my opinion, I decided that I had to cook it. It turned out to be a kind of modern version of honey cake, which I was very pleased with (except that more mousse should have been made so that the layer on the sides and top of the cake was thicker). The cake is moderately sweet, and the mousse with a hint of lemon fits perfectly here.
And finally, a few notes on the products used and the technique for baking the cakes. So, cooking the dough for the cakes did not turn out to be such a difficult task, but it does take a fair amount of time. Many people wrote that the cakes according to this recipe rise very well, it seemed to me that I distributed the dough in a thin layer, but in the end the finished cakes seemed a little thick (just a little). Conclusion, distribute the dough so that it shows through the parchment a little, I think then it will be as I want.
And lastly, instead of sour cream I used Turkish yogurt - it is very similar to sour cream, but its fat content is only 10%. My cream was a little runny after cooking and wasn’t going to thicken, I can imagine that you need to use good 30% sour cream, then the cream will turn out thicker. These are the quibbles I had with my execution; I need to try again to make the honey cake perfect.
I used Nina's recipes niksya
and Ekaterina Abrosimova here is the recipe
Ingredients:
- Dough for 6 cakes, length 13 cm:
- 2 eggs
- 35 grams of honey
- 200 g sugar
- 265 g flour
- 1 1/3 tsp. soda
- 3 1/2 tsp. vinegar (lemon juice)
- 35 g melted butter
- 1000 g sour cream (I used Turkish yogurt)
- 100 g sugar
- 60 g honey
- leftover cream after layering the cake layers (it’s good if there is 150 grams or more left)
- 30 g lemon juice
- 250 ml cream (35%)
- 2-3 tbsp powdered sugar
- 2-3 sheets of gelatin
- 100 g glucose
- 100 g sugar
- 50 g water
- 65 g condensed milk
- 100 g white chocolate
- yellow dye
- 7 g gelatin
Cream for cakes:
Mousse
Mirror glaze:
- Pour gelatin with cold water.
- Bring sugar, glucose and water to a boil.
- Pour this mixture over condensed milk, chocolate and gelatin.
- Add coloring immediately.
- Beat the mixture with a mixer.
- Leave the glaze in the refrigerator overnight. Be sure to cover the bowl with the icing so that it touches the icing.
- Place the sour cream on cheesecloth, which you either hang over the sink (bowl) overnight, or place in a colander in the gauze, and place a press on top (for 2-3 hours).
I hung it on a hook in the refrigerator. Periodically, you need to squeeze the sour cream a little through cheesecloth so that as much liquid as possible comes out. After that I had about 550-600 grams left. sour cream. - Then transfer the strained sour cream and sugar into a saucepan and place everything in a water bath. Stirring occasionally, cook your cream with water at low boil for about 60-90 minutes. The cream should be soft, homogeneous, slightly change color towards a light caramel shade. Add honey at the end.
- Lightly beat the eggs with sugar until they lose their texture. Place in a deep saucepan, add honey, slaked soda, melted butter and all the flour at once. Stir with a wooden spatula.
- Place the pan in a water bath and, stirring occasionally, cook for about 40-60 minutes. Be careful and do not leave the dough for a long time, because... it begins to “brew” and lumps will form at the bottom.
- Preheat the oven to 220C.
- After the time has passed, reduce the heat under your water bath to minimum and start working with the dough. It is most convenient to do this with gloves, because. the dough is very hot.
- Take a small amount of your honey choux pastry and, wetting your hands very often, spread it as thinly as possible onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. The layer should be as thin as possible and practically translucent. It will rise 3-4 times in the oven! It’s difficult to do, I’ll tell you right away. First, use your hands as much as possible, then use a tablespoon or a small spatula soaked in water.
- Bake each cake individually in a preheated oven for 4-5 minutes. My cakes are small, so I baked two at a time. Then, immediately, while still hot, we trim it to the size you need. I have d-13 cm.
- The cream and cakes have cooled down a little, now you can coat the cakes with cream. I did this on a detachable round stand, because... Then I will fill the cake with more mousse. At the moment, the walls of the mold are not needed, the main thing now is to assemble the cake exactly in the center of the bottom of the mold, leaving the same distance to the edges. I assembled it in a 16 cm tin. We sandwich each cake with sour cream, and coat the last one (on top) too. You can put the cake in the refrigerator and make the mousse.
- Soak gelatin in cold water.
- Beat the cream with powdered sugar until stiff.
- Squeeze the gelatin and melt in lemon juice.
- Mix the remaining cream with lemon juice. If suddenly there is very little cream left, you can use cottage cheese.
- Mix cream into sour cream.
- Now we take the honey cake out of the refrigerator, install the sides of the mold, line them with baking paper / border tape.
- Fill the cake with mousse, lightly tap the pan on the table so that the mousse is well distributed. Place the cake in the refrigerator until completely frozen.
- Cover the cake with glaze. Heat the glaze to 35 C and beat well with a hand mixer, but so that it does not create bubbles. Use the glaze on a frozen product (to do this, the cake must be placed in the freezer for a while).
Mirror glaze:
Cream:
Cakes:
Interlayer:
Mousse:
