Russian · Desserts

Medovik

Eight or nine paper-thin honey layers stacked with soured cream, left overnight until the whole thing softens into cake.

1 hr 25 min prep and cooking plus 8 hr 40 min chilling the dough and soaking overnight 10 hr 5 min start to finish Serves 12 servings Hard
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Medovik

Photograph credit: Medovik honey torte at Russian Passion, Edinburgh by www.theedinburghblog.co.uk · CC BY 2.0 · Flickr

Medovik: Step by Step

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  1. Melt the honey, caster sugar and butter in a heatproof bowl over simmering water.

  2. Whisk in the bicarbonate of soda; the mixture will foam up dramatically. Keep whisking 2 minutes.

  3. Take off the heat, cool 5 minutes, then whisk in the beaten eggs.

  4. Fold in the flour and salt to make a soft, sticky dough. Chill 40 minutes.

  5. Divide into 9 pieces and roll each between baking paper into a 22 cm round.

  6. Bake each at 180°C / 355°F for 4 minutes, until golden. Trim to a neat circle while hot and keep the trimmings.

  7. Whisk the cold soured cream with the condensed milk, vanilla and lemon juice to a thick spreadable frosting.

  8. Stack the layers with frosting between each, using about 4 tbsp per layer.

  9. Cover the top and sides with the remaining frosting.

  10. Crush the trimmings with the walnuts and press them over the whole cake, then refrigerate overnight before slicing.

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Keep an Eye on These

  1. The layers are meant to be hard. They soften overnight.
  2. Trim while hot; cold layers shatter.
  3. Keep the trimmings — they are the coating.

The Short Version

The layers come out of the oven as hard biscuits and that is correct — they are supposed to. The overnight rest is not for flavour but for structure: the moisture in the soured cream frosting migrates into the biscuit and turns the whole stack into something you can cut with a fork. Served the same day it is a stack of biscuits with cream between them.

To Go With It

Black tea · A long afternoon · More soured cream

Keeping Medovik

Keeps 4 days refrigerated and is best on days two and three.

Questions People Ask

How long does Medovik take to make?

45 minutes of preparation and 40 minutes of cooking, plus 8 hours 40 minutes of chilling the dough and soaking overnight, so allow 10 hours 5 minutes from start to finish. The recipe serves 12.

Nutrition per Serving

Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.

567Calories
10gProtein
71gCarbs
27gFat
1gFibre
39gSugar
330mgSodium

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Compiled by Turab

Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.

First published ; last changed .