Husband’s birthday. Cake required. But what to make? Something new. He’s had all our recipes of course. Birthday getting closer.
Chatting with a friend just back from Europe who, on a train to Brussels, consumed several pieces of what she described as the most delicious cake she’d ever had - a Medovik, a Czechosolvakian Honey Cake.
Bingo! I’ll give it a try. A gluten-free version. Much researching. A couple of attempts at perfecting the cake layers. A few goes at the filling and we have lift off.
Here’s our version of this delicious multi layered cake with a rich honey, caramel filling.
The ‘cake’ layers are rolled out like a dough and baked into large biscuity rounds which are then layered and ‘iced’ with the gorgeous filling. After a night resting in the fridge, the biscuit rounds will have absorbed moisture from the filling turning it into a perfectly formed eight layered cake.
The off cuts from the biscuit rounds are also baked, ground with walnuts and a bit of sugar and used as the garnish for the cake.
I made a batch of honeycomb to break up and use to add a bit of birthday pizzaz to the cake but it is perfectly lovely without.
It is a bit of an effort, I’ll admit, but it can be made days ahead of time which is always a cook's dream.
MEDOVICK – CZECHOSLOVAKIAN HONEY CAKE
Serves 12-14
Start this recipe the day before
Filling
1 tin condensed milk
110 gm unsalted butter at room temperature
125 gm cream cheese at room temperature
120 gm honey
200 gm crème fraiche
300 ml thickened cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Place condensed milk in its tin in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 3 hours, replenishing the water as necessary. Remove from the saucepan. DO NOT OPEN THE TIN UNLESS YOU LIKE EXPLOSIONS. Allow to come to room temperature.
Once the condensed milk has reached room temperature, remove from the tin and combine with the butter. Mix until smooth. Chill.
Combine the cream cheese and honey, whisk until smooth.
Whisk the crème fraiche, cream and vanilla extract until firm. Fold the cream cheese mix and creme fraiche mix together until well combined. Chill. When ready to use, fold in the condensed milk mix. The mixture will be fairly runny.
Cake Layers
170 gm honey
100 gm caster sugar
115 gm unsalted butter
1 heaped teaspoon bi-carb soda
3 large eggs, whisked
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
650 gm Revenge Gluten-Free Almond Plain Flour Mix (see below)
Extra flour for dusting
Preheat oven to 180°C. Have at the ready a couple of baking trays large enough to accommodate a 23cm dough round.
In a medium saucepan over a low heat, combine the honey, caster sugar and butter. Once combined, turn heat up to medium and simmer for 4 minutes. Add the bi-carb soda and whisk to combine. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 10 minutes.
Add the eggs in a thin stream, mixing constantly until combined. Add the salt and vanilla extract. Transfer to the bowl of a stand mixer and add the flour in batches, mixing well in between each addition. You can mix by hand if you’re in need of a work out.
Turn the dough onto a piece of baking paper, lightly dusted with flour. Form into a log and divide into eight equal pieces.
Working with one piece of dough at a time, in between two pieces of baking paper dusted with flour, roll out dough to a little larger than 23cm circles then using a 23cm template cut dough into 23cm rounds. You may need to remove the baking paper sheets and re-flour before continuing to roll.
Leave the dough circle on the baking paper and place onto a baking tray. Gather up the dough off cuts and roll together to roughly the same thickness as the 23cm round. Transfer to the baking tray with 23cm round and bake together for 7-8 minutes until golden brown. Cool on a rack. Repeat with the other 7 dough pieces.
This can be done several days ahead and stored, wrapped securely in plastic wrap or in an airtight container.
To Assemble
50 gm walnuts
1/2 the extra cake pieces
2 teaspoons caster sugar
Place the walnuts, half the extra cake pieces made from the off cuts of the dough and caster sugar into a food processor and process until very fine. Set aside. Use the extra half of the cake pieces for another purpose or eat them up yourself.
Spread a tablespoon of the filling on to a serving plate and place the first cake round on top. Cover liberally with filling, right to the edges. Top with another cake round and repeat until you have used up the 8 cake layers. ‘Ice’ the top of the cake very liberally with the filling allowing it to flow down the sides. The layers will be a little mobile at this stage so make sure you keep them lined up. It will look messy but don’t worry. Place the cake in the fridge overnight.
In the morning the cake will have absorbed a lot of the filling and the cake layers will be soft and stable.
Spread any puddled filling back up the sides of the cake. Discard any that is not absorbed after a couple of goes.
Sprinkle the ground walnut/cake/sugar mixture up the sides and the top of the cake using a spoon.
We decorated our cake with home made honey comb but you can let your imagination go wild.
The cake will keep well in the fridge for at least 5 days so you can make it well ahead of time. Just bring it back to room temperature before serving.
REVENGE GLUTEN-FREE ALMOND PLAIN FLOUR MIX
280 gm almond meal
210 gm besan flour
280 gm fine white rice flour
175 gm corn flour
Whip up a batch and store in the fridge.