Russian honey cake

1 HOUR 15 MINUTES + CHILLING OVERNIGHT | SERVES 20

A LITTLE EFFORT

I first had a version of this cake at the 20th Century Café in San Francisco and this Russian-inspired creation owes a lot to that recipe – especially the icing, where the surprise ingredient is a glorious amount of dulce de leche, which adds a wonderful caramel note.

BURNT-HONEY ICING

runny honey 95g

double cream 750ml

sea salt a large pinch

dulce de leche 250g

soured cream 65ml

CAKE LAYERS

unsalted butter 125g

runny honey 150g

soft light brown sugar 125g

plain flour 500g, plus extra for dusting

bicarbonate of soda 1 tsp

salt 1/4 tsp

ground ginger 1 tsp

ground cinnamon 2 tsp

mixed spice 1 tsp

eggs 3 large

vanilla extract 2 tsp

• To make the icing, put the honey into a small pan and cook over a medium heat for 5-10 minutes or until it turns a couple of shades darker, and stop just before it starts to smoke. Remove the pan from the heat and pour in 150ml of the double cream and the sea salt. Pour this mixture into a small bowl, cover and chill until fully cooled.

• Heat the oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6 and line with baking paper as many baking trays as you can fit into the oven at one time. Draw a 23cm-diameter circle on the back of each piece of paper – this will act as a template for the cake layers.

• To make the cake layers, put the butter, honey and sugar into a large pan, and cook for 5 minutes over a medium heat or until everything is melted and the mixture is bubbling and smelling toasty. Remove the pan from the heat and put aside to cool slightly, then pour into a bowl.

• Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Put the eggs and vanilla extract into a jug and whisk briefly. Begin whisking the butter mixture, slowly pouring the eggs into the bowl (make sure you do whisk as otherwise the eggs could cook). Add the dry ingredients and mix in with a wooden spoon until fully combined. The finished result will resemble a slightly softer and more pliable gingerbread dough.

• Working while the dough is still a little warm, divide into 8 equal portions, putting aside and covering with a kitchen towel to prevent them from drying out. Working with one piece at a time, put a ball of dough onto one of the prepared pieces of baking paper, lightly flour and roll until they are very thin and just a little bigger than the template. Trim back to the 23cm circle and put the trimmings aside. Once you have rolled out as many as you can fit in the oven at once, bake for 8-9 minutes or until slightly firm to the touch and browning slightly around the edges. The finished cakes will be like gingerbread biscuits but with a little more flexibility. Slide the discs onto wire racks to cool and continue until all the discs are baked. To finish, bake all the scraps on a baking-paper-lined tray for 10-12 minutes or until fully dried out and a little crisp, plus a shade darker than the discs.

• To finish the icing, remove the honey mixture from the fridge and mix in the dulce de leche and the soured cream. In a large bowl, whisk the remaining double cream until it just holds soft peaks, then fold in the honey mixture. The final texture should not quite be soft peaks, it should still be a little fluid.

• To assemble, sandwich the honey cake layers with a little of the icing and then spread the remainder over the top and sides of the cake. Chill the cake in the fridge overnight so that the moisture in the filling can soak into the layers – this is essential to give the finished dish a more cake-like texture.

• When ready to serve, put the scraps of cake into a food processor and pulse until crumbs. Use them to cover the top and sides of the cake.

PER SERVING 446 KCALS | FAT 28.1G SATURATES 17.1G | CARBS 42G | SUGARS 22.2G FIBRE 1.2G | PROTEIN 5.4G | SALT 0.3G