Medovik
Eight or nine paper-thin honey layers stacked with soured cream, left overnight until the whole thing softens into cake.
Photograph credit: Medovik honey torte at Russian Passion, Edinburgh by www.theedinburghblog.co.uk · CC BY 2.0 · Flickr
Medovik: Step by Step
Tap a step to highlight it, or turn on Cook Mode for large type and step-by-step focus.
-
Melt the honey, caster sugar and butter in a heatproof bowl over simmering water.
-
Whisk in the bicarbonate of soda; the mixture will foam up dramatically. Keep whisking 2 minutes.
-
Take off the heat, cool 5 minutes, then whisk in the beaten eggs.
-
Fold in the flour and salt to make a soft, sticky dough. Chill 40 minutes.
-
Divide into 9 pieces and roll each between baking paper into a 22 cm round.
-
Bake each at 180°C / 355°F for 4 minutes, until golden. Trim to a neat circle while hot and keep the trimmings.
-
Whisk the cold soured cream with the condensed milk, vanilla and lemon juice to a thick spreadable frosting.
-
Stack the layers with frosting between each, using about 4 tbsp per layer.
-
Cover the top and sides with the remaining frosting.
-
Crush the trimmings with the walnuts and press them over the whole cake, then refrigerate overnight before slicing.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
Something wrong or unclear in this recipe? Report a problem with this recipe.
Keep an Eye on These
- The layers are meant to be hard. They soften overnight.
- Trim while hot; cold layers shatter.
- 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.
Your notes on this recipe
Cooked this? Keep a note for next time
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 .