Hi everyone!
It's been a bit since I last posted, but I haven't forgotten about any of you. This time I have some cake to share with you! I haven't baked much in the last little while and I wasn't really sure as to what I wanted to bake. So as always, I took to Pinterest to see what I might want to make. I have a decent list on my baking board so I looked through there and saw that I had this recipe to make a Chocolate Kiev Cake. I’ve made zucchini cake and a vanilla chai cake, but I haven't made this particular cake before.
I’ll show you my process and what I changed in the recipe.
But first here is a sneak peek at the cake!
To make this cake you’ll need the following
Meringue
2 egg whites
½ cup sugar
Pinch of salt
4 tsp sifted cocoa powder
½ cup chopped walnuts (I used sliced almonds)
Chocolate Sponge Cake
4 Large eggs at room temperature
Pinch of salt
¾ cup of sugar
¾ cup all purpose flour sifted (I used whole wheat flour. Also if you want to make a white sponge cake then you’ll want to leave out the cocoa powder)
¼ cup of sifted cocoa powder
1 ½ tsp of baking soda
2 Tbsp melted unsalted butter
I used two 8 inch pans this way I won’t have to cut the cake in half.
Soaking Syrup
⅓ cup warm water
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp liquor (I used Grand Marnier)
½ tbsp Vanilla extract
Frosting
2 sticks of unsalted butter at room temperature
1 can of Dulce de Leche ( I used a can of condensed milk)
8oz whipped topping or 8 oz whipped heavy cream (I made my own since I don’t like the store bought stuff lol)
Let’s get started! :)
Like in the recipe I started with making the meringue. Before you start, measure out all the ingredients you will need.
1. In a mixer with the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites with ½ a cup of sugar as well as a pinch of salt, until it gets nice and foamy. Roughly 2 minutes.
2. While the mixer is still running, add the remaining sugar. Continue with whipping for about 10 minutes or until the mixture has a peak that stands when flipped upside down.
3. Add the sifted cocoa powder by folding it into your meringue mixture. You want to make sure you don't over fold so it doesn't deflate it.
4. On a parchment paper lined baking sheet, using two separate teaspoons, scoop out and place on the sheet. Take a pinch of sliced almonds and place on top of the mounds of meringue.
5. Next you’ll want to pop it in the oven that preheated to 225F. The recipe said to leave it in there for about an hour and half, but I think because of our oven it didn’t take that amount of time. But I liked how it was still soft on the inside. So I didn’t bake it past the hour and half.
6. Set aside and let cool
Next we’ll work on the chocolate sponge cake. Again you’ll want to gather all your measured ingredients.
1. In a medium sized bowl add your sifted cocoa powder, flour, and baking powder. In a small dish melt the butter.
2. In your mixer with the whisk attachment add your eggs and a pinch of salt. Start whipping!
3. You’ll want to whip them till it starts to get a tad bit foamy. Once you reach that time slowly add the sugar without stopping the mixer.
4. After the sugar has been added, continue to whip for roughly 10 minutes. It should have a pale yellow color to it as well as an increase in volume.
5. When that is done you should be able to have ribbons in your mixture. (I won't lie, but for whatever reason I couldn't get mine to do that. Not sure what I did wrong. :( lol) The ribbons shouldn’t disappear right away. Once you have your mixture at the right consistency you will want to add half of the dry ingredients that were sifted earlier and fold it together. Add the other half of the dry ingredients also carefully folding into the mixture. Make sure to not overmix.
6. Once it is all incorporated add the melted butter and carefully fold in.
7. A cool tip that was given was to line the cake pans with aluminium foil and spray with baking spray. This way pans are most likely still clean! Like I mentioned before I used two 8 inch cake pans. I did a rough measure for each pan.
8. Once the oven is preheated to 350F you can place your pans in on the middle rack. The recipe says I bake for roughly 25 mins then to check to see if it's done. Poked the cake with a toothpick to see if it was ready and for me it was ready at 25 minutes.
9. When the cake is done, remove from the oven and place it aside to cool for 5 mins in the pans. When it has cooled down you can take the cake out by pulling it out by the foil what was lined inside and place on a cooling rack.
Voila the cake portion is done!
On to the next item on the list, the buttercream.
1. With your room temperature butter, whip it for 5 minutes. It will be a white color, a bit fluffy and slightly increased in size.
2.You’ll then want to add half the condensed milk (or dulce de leche). Whip for approx 30 seconds then you can add the remaining into the mix.
3. When it is all whipped together you can add your whipped cream (or whipped topping) by folding it all together. I had added some cocoa powder when I made my whipped cream.
Now we’ll make the syrup for the cake. (This part is super easy! lol)
All you need to do is combine all the ingredients from the list and mix till the sugar dissolved.
So now you’ll have the Meringue, chocolate sponge cake, buttercream, and the syrup. It’s time to put it all together!
1. Place one part of the cake on a liner or serving plate. Add half of the syrup on top.
2.Add a small layer of the buttercream. Sprinkle with a couple tablespoons of the walnuts (I used almonds).
3.Next you’ll want to take the meringue that you made and dip it into the buttercream and place them on top of the bottom layer of the cake. Do this till the bottom layer is covered with the meringue. If you have any of the meringue left over you can break them down a bit and place them in between the others.
4.With the remaining nuts sprinkle on top of the meringue and even it all out with some frosting.
5.With the top layer add the remaining syrup and spoon some frosting on top. Then go ahead and place that layer frosting side down on top of the rest. I used a cake ring before adding that top part of the cake so it's all nice and even and not pouring out all over the place.
6.I placed the cake in the fridge overnight since it was too late to finish putting it together. But once you’ve had it in the fridge for a couple hours you can remove the ring (if you used one) and start adding more frosting to the top and sides.
Time to decorate!
1. Cover the sides with almonds (It says to use walnuts but I don't care for walnuts all too much, plus I thought it would look nicer.)
2.In the recipe it mentions to make the ganache but I didn’t do that part. Instead I sprinkled the few walnuts that I had left on top.
3.Added a some cherries on top for color.
All done! :D
Enjoy some of the other pictures!
This cake took me forever to make lol but I still had fun making it. Even though there is sugar and condensed milk it didn't seem all that sweet. It tasted pretty good! :)
I'd also like to share the recipe that I had followed to make this, they're Here and Here
I hope you all enjoyed! If you do end up making this let me know, I’d like to know how yours came out!
❤️