Cake “Gift. Culinary recipes and photo recipes Soviet cake recipes

Panel houses 14.01.2024

Panel houses

We are preparing a biscuit.

Beat the whites with half the sugar until soft peaks form.

Beat the yolks with vanilla essence and the remaining sugar until white.

We combine the whites with the yolks. Gradually sift the flour and knead a light dough. Mix as carefully as possible to squeeze out as little air as possible from the dough.

Place the dough in a pan lined with parchment.

Place in an oven preheated to 180 degrees and bake until done, about 35 minutes. Remove the finished cake from the oven and let it sit in the pan for 15 minutes. Then remove from the mold and cool completely. Cut into 2 layers.

According to GOST standards, it is recommended for the biscuit to stand for a day to stabilize. But from time to time I neglect this and make cakes from fresh ones.

Preparing the impregnation. Combine sugar with hot water and stir until dissolved.

Preparing the cream.

Combine the egg with sugar and stir.

Add milk. Mix with a whisk and place on low heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until thickened - if you lower a wooden spoon into the mixture, remove it and run your finger along the convex side of the spoon, the path from your finger should remain clear for some time. At the same time, make sure that the cream does not overheat, otherwise the yolk will curl and flake.

Cool completely, covering the surface of the mass with film so that a crust does not form on it.

Beat the butter with a mixer until creamy. Gradually, without stopping whisking, add the cooled milk mass one spoon at a time, beating well after each addition.

Fry the peanuts - in a frying pan or in the oven (5-7 minutes at 200 degrees). We chop not very finely with a knife.

Assembling the cake.

Soak the cakes with sugar syrup.

Place 3/4 of the cream on the bottom cake layer and smooth it out.

Cover with the second cake layer. Coat the top and sides with the remaining cream.

Sprinkle with chopped peanuts on all sides. Place in the refrigerator for 4-5 hours, or preferably overnight.

Enjoy your tea!

Another holiday cake with a simple and affordable recipe - Gift. I have loved it since childhood: juicy sponge cake, delicate butter cream and lots of crispy peanuts - this is an extraordinary delicacy. Previously, it could be bought in any confectionery shop of the former Soviet Union, but today the quality of modern desserts does not inspire confidence, so we’ll make it at home. We will prepare the Gift Cake according to GOST, although with a slight change: I suggest using more nuts - it will be even tastier!

This wonderful cake is based on a classic white sponge cake soaked in sugar syrup and cognac. The filling will be Charlotte buttercream, which we will also use to cover the top and sides of the cake. The decoration of this dessert is more than simple: roasted peanuts and just a little powdered sugar. Everything is simple, easy and amazingly tasty. By the way, this dessert is very similar to the legendary Fairy Tale cake, so lovers of such baked goods will definitely appreciate it.

Ingredients:

Biscuit:

Impregnation:

Cream Charlotte:

Sprinkles:

Cooking the dish step by step with photos:

Since we will be preparing the homemade Gift cake over 2 days, I deliberately divided all the photos of the necessary ingredients into several stages. First, we will prepare the products for the classic sponge cake: wheat flour (highest grade), granulated sugar (if desired, you can use powdered sugar) and medium-sized chicken eggs (45-50 grams each).

Wash the chicken eggs, dry them thoroughly and separate them into whites and yolks. Personally, I always do it this way: I carefully break each egg on the table (this way the likelihood of damage to the yolk is minimized), and then I pour everything into a cup. I carefully take out the yolk directly with my hand, passing the white through (or through - which is correct?) my fingers, and transfer it to another dish. This is the method that allows you to get a pure yolk and the maximum amount of protein. Place all 4 yolks in a bowl in which we will prepare the biscuit dough. Add 80 grams of sugar (the remaining 40 grams will be needed when beating the whites).

Beat everything with a whisk or mixer at high speed for about 4-5 minutes until the mass becomes homogeneous, smooth and light. During this time, the sugar crystals should completely dissolve.

Then, in a clean, dry and grease-free (you can wipe with a slice of lemon, then wipe the bowl dry) bowl, beat 4 egg whites. First, at low speed, and when the whites turn into a light foam, gradually increase the speed to above medium and continue beating. At this time, add 40 grams of sugar in parts and beat the whites into a stable and tight snow-white foam. The result is French meringue - a stable protein cream that holds its shape perfectly and doesn’t even think about moving. If you don't beat the whites enough, the sponge cake may not rise properly or may sag a lot after baking.

In 3-4 steps, add the whipped whites to the yolk-sugar mixture. No more mixers, blenders or food processors!

When all the whites are in the bowl, sift 120 grams of premium wheat flour into it. Just not all at once, but in 2-3 passes, each time mixing it into the air mass with folding movements (scraping from bottom to top).

Traditionally, the Gift cake is made square, but at home you can easily make it round. I have a square silicone baking dish (20x20 centimeters), the bottom of which I covered with a piece of parchment paper. We do not lubricate the walls with anything so that the biscuit dough can climb along them when baking, thereby rising well. Using a spoon or spatula, place the dough into the pan and smooth it out.

We bake the biscuit in a preheated (this is important!) oven (I only use bottom heating) at medium level for 15 minutes at 200 degrees, then lower the temperature to 180 degrees and bake for another 15-20 minutes. During baking, do not open the oven door so that the biscuit does not fall off. We check the readiness using a wooden splinter (toothpick or skewer), which should come out of the sponge cake completely dry. Let the baked goods cool in the slightly open oven for about 15 minutes. My biscuit sank slightly (the mound sank and the surface became flat) - this is normal.

We remove the baking paper - thanks to it the biscuit does not stick to the bottom. For today, the preparation of the Gift cake is complete: the sponge cake must be kept at room temperature for at least 8 hours, and even better - 10-12. This is necessary so that when cutting it does not crumble, and when soaked it does not turn into porridge.

The next day (or in the evening of the same day, if you baked the sponge cake in the morning), you can continue preparing the homemade Gift cake. Here are the products for impregnation: water, granulated sugar and a little cognac for flavor.

Impregnation is as easy as shelling pears: in a small bowl, combine granulated sugar and hot boiled water. Mix everything thoroughly until the sweet crystals dissolve, add cognac and let the impregnation cool to room temperature.

Next we move on to preparing the Charlotte cream. We will need butter (at least 72% fat, or 82% is even better), granulated sugar, milk (any fat content), one medium-sized chicken egg, vanilla sugar and cognac.

Let's prepare a syrup, which we then add to the butter. Place a raw chicken egg in a small thick-bottomed saucepan or saucepan, add 125 grams of granulated sugar and 80 milliliters of milk.

Place the dishes on low heat and, with constant (!) stirring, cook the syrup for about 2-3 minutes after boiling. Do not leave the stove for a minute, as the eggs may curdle and the syrup will burn to the bottom of the pan. The result is a completely homogeneous, smooth, delicate custard, which in consistency resembles liquid condensed milk.

Place a piece of cling film on top (end-to-end to prevent a crust from forming) and cool to room temperature. It’s cold now, so it’s advisable to take the cream out to the balcony, where it will cool down in literally 5-7 minutes.

The final stage of preparation is preparing Charlotte buttercream for the Gift cake. Place soft butter (150 grams) in a suitable bowl. It must be taken out of the refrigerator in advance and left on the table for 3-4 hours. Add a tablespoon of vanilla sugar.

Beat everything with a mixer at high speed for at least 5 minutes, until the butter becomes fluffy and turns white. You will have to beat the cold butter for about 20 minutes, so be sure to let it warm up.

It's time to collect your homemade cake as a gift. Cut the biscuit lengthwise into 2 equal layers. This can be done using a bread knife (with serrations), a simple thread or a special fishing line.

Choose a flat dish on which to serve the cake. Place the bottom soaked cake layer.

There are times when you want to bake a cake from ingredients on the refrigerator shelf, without an additional trip to the store and purchasing expensive ingredients. It is for such situations that the “Gift” cake was created! Delicate biscuits, Charlotte cream melting on the tongue and delicious roasted peanuts. If you calculate the cost of the cake, it will be no more than 150 rubles, which means that this cake is also very profitable from an economic point of view!

Biscuit ingredients:

Eggs - 4 pcs.
Sugar - 120 g
Flour - 120 g

For this cake, you can use any light sponge cake that you have that you like. The site has step-by-step instructions, etc. All recipes are available via links.

Ingredients for syrup (for soaking the biscuit):

Water (hot) - 100 ml
Sugar -100 g

Ingredients for Charlotte cream:

Egg - 1 piece
Sugar - 125 g
Milk - 80 g
Butter - 125 g
Vanilla extract - 1 tsp. (can be replaced with a 10 g bag of vanilla sugar)

If desired, add 1 tbsp to Charlotte cream. l. cognac (I didn’t add this time).

To sprinkle the cake you will need 120 g of peanuts (if you want to get a classic taste, do not replace the nuts).

How to prepare a Gift cake according to GOST: (step-by-step recipe with photos)

Let's start by turning on the oven to preheat. The biscuit is baked at 180 C; by the time the biscuit enters the oven, it should be well heated (heating time 15-20 minutes).

Now we will bake a classic one, it does not contain baking powder, only three ingredients: eggs, sugar, flour. To ensure that such a sponge cake rises well in the oven and turns out fluffy and airy, we will beat the whites and yolks of the eggs separately. The bowl in which we will beat the whites needs to be well degreased; to do this, drop a few drops of lemon juice onto the surface of the bowl.

We take a paper napkin in our hands and begin to rub the juice over the bottom and walls: even if there were traces of fat on the surface of the bowl, now they will split and be destroyed. Nothing will stop us from whipping egg whites perfectly!

Very carefully separate the whites from the yolks so that not a drop of yolk gets into the protein mass. The yolk is fat, and if we accidentally drop the yolk into a bowl of whites, they will not beat. Nowadays they sell a variety of devices for separating whites and yolks, but I do it the old fashioned way, by hand, pouring from shell to shell.

So, the whites and yolks are separated, let's move on to whipping. Be sure to remove the eggs from the refrigerator in advance to make this process easier. Sugar dissolves much faster in warm eggs than in cold eggs.

To avoid having to wash the whisk attachments, I recommend starting with the whites and then moving on to the yolks. So, with perfectly clean, grease-free attachments (you can also wipe them with a paper towel dipped in lemon juice or vinegar), we begin to beat the whites into a foam. First at low speed, gradually increasing it.

When the whites become foamy, similar to soap (usually after 1-2 minutes from the start of whipping), we begin to add granulated sugar in a thin stream (1/3 of the total volume of sugar).

Sugar should be added in a thin stream, without stopping whisking, so that it immediately interferes with the protein mass and dissolves in it. If you suddenly add the entire volume, the sugar will fall to the bottom and it will be very difficult to lift it from there.

When the sugar is added, continue beating for another 8-10 minutes until the sugar is completely dissolved and the proteins increase in volume by 2-3 times. You will see how much the protein mass will change in appearance: from transparent it will turn into snow-white, it will become noticeably thicker and more fluffy (marks from the mixer will remain on the surface).

The entire process of whipping the whites takes 10-12 minutes; they are considered ready if they hold their shape well; when turning the bowl upside down, the protein mass holds firmly and does not fall out anywhere. If you build peaks or “drifts” on the surface, the squirrels will stand rooted to the spot.

So, the whites are whipped, now let's move on to the yolks. You don’t have to remove the whisk attachment or wash it (but if you started beating with yolks, then be sure to wash thoroughly and wipe with lemon juice), immediately turn on low speed and beat. The first 1-2 minutes are spent stirring the yolk mass, and then we begin to add the remaining granulated sugar according to the recipe (1/3 was spent on the whites, which means we add 2/3 here).

Sugar is added in a thin stream or a tablespoon, whichever is more convenient for you. Do not turn off the mixer while adding sugar; mix thoroughly until the sugar dissolves.

After 5-6 minutes after intensive beating, you will see how the yolk mass has become lighter, slightly increased in volume and acquired airiness.

Now that both the whites and yolks are beaten, combine the two mixtures together. Pour the yolks into the whites and stir gently using a spatula (not a mixer).

If we continue to beat with a mixer, the airy structure of the dough will be disrupted, and all our efforts to create an airy dough will be in vain.

This is the kind of airy dough base we get.

Now sift 120 g of flour into the dough in three approaches. The flour should be added gradually and very carefully, using lifting movements from the edge to the center so that no air escapes from the dough.

Flour is mixed in with a spoon or spatula, without a mixer.

Don't rush anywhere, tune in to a positive wave and meditate) Too fast and fussy movements, intensive beating instead of stirring will ruin the whole thing.

In the photo you can see the final structure of the biscuit dough.

The biscuit dough is light, airy, and moderately thick. When you lift the dough on a spatula, it flows out in a thick ribbon (the consistency can be seen in the photo).

According to GOST, the classic “Gift” cake has a square shape, but at your discretion you can use any other shape. I will bake the sponge cake in a silicone mold with sides of 18 cm.

To make the sponge cake easy to remove, we make a “French shirt”: grease the bottom and sides of the mold with a piece of butter (you can grease it with vegetable oil using a brush), then sprinkle with flour and shake off the excess flour.

The result is a thin flour layer, which will prevent the dough from sticking to the walls during baking, but at the same time the form will not be slippery and the dough, clinging to the walls, will rise evenly.

Pour the dough into the mold and bake for 30-40 minutes until the toothpick is dry. To check the readiness of the sponge cake, pierce the sponge cake in the very center with a long wooden stick or toothpick; if it comes out dry, it means the sponge cake is ready.

Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then remove and turn it upside down onto a wire rack.

While cooling on the wire rack, the biscuit will evaporate the moisture evenly and will not be wet inside.

After cooling completely, the biscuit needs to be cut into two layers (I use a bread knife-saw for this). First, we make cuts along the entire perimeter of the biscuit with a depth of 2-3 cm, and then immerse the knife completely and, positioning it strictly vertically, cut the biscuit into two parts. It turns out two cakes 1.5 cm thick. Never cut the sponge cake while it’s hot! In this case, it may break, be cut unevenly, etc. On the contrary, if you do not need the cake urgently, it is better to let it rest for 8-10 hours in the refrigerator (pre-wrap it in cling film).

If you love cakes according to GOST, take note, a Soviet classic for all times (recipe in a separate article, follow the link).

Preparing Charlotte cream for the cake

Place 1 egg and granulated sugar (125 g) in a deep and comfortable saucepan.

Stir with a spoon or spatula.

Pour hot milk (80 ml) in a thin stream with constant stirring. Don’t worry that the cream will curdle immediately: this amount of sugar will not allow it to do so.

Place the resulting mixture on the fire and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil for 5 minutes over low heat while stirring and turn off. During cooking, the contents of the saucepan will rise very high several times, so immediately keep this in mind and choose the right container for preparing the cream to avoid “accidents” on the stove. Pour the prepared cream base into another bowl and cool to room temperature.

125 g of butter (it should be softened, so remove it from the refrigerator in advance) beat until white. It takes 6-8 minutes to beat, and at first it seems that it is impossible to beat the butter until it is almost white, but in fact it is possible, don’t be lazy =)

Add the cooled cream base to the well-whipped butter in a thin stream, stirring constantly.

Add 1 tsp. vanilla extract and 1 tbsp. cognac (optional), stir again.

The Charlotte cream should be homogeneous in structure, very airy and delicate.

Preparing the impregnation for the biscuit

Dissolve 100 g of sugar in 100 ml of hot water and mix well.

Place the syrup on the fire and bring to a boil, then remove from the heat and cool.

Soak the biscuit in the cooled syrup using a brush or spoon.

Place the sponge cake on a dessert plate or in a cake pan, then add a small amount of cream and grease the cake.

You can use a special pastry spatula to level the layer, or do it with a regular silicone spatula.

Cover the bottom cake with the next sponge cake and grease it with cream again. Use the cream to completely coat the cake on all sides.

Charlotte cream is thick, flexible, very easy to work with and, if desired, you can level the cake to perfection. Since I will have a cake for a home tea party, I didn’t set such a goal, I only leveled it slightly.

This is how the cake turns out. Now our task is to sprinkle it with nuts. The classic taste of the “Gift” cake involves the use of roasted peanuts. If you don't like peanuts, use hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts or any other nuts you like. Be sure to share in the comments what nuts you used and whether you liked the taste of the cake with other nuts.

To top the cake, fry 120 g of peanuts until golden brown. You can do this in a frying pan (that's what I do) or fry it in the oven.

Place the cooled peanuts in a blender bowl and grind into medium-sized crumbs. Instead of a blender, you can use a knife or place the nuts in a bag, then beat them with a rolling pin.

Generously sprinkle the entire top and sides of the cake with nuts.

The “Gift” cake according to GOST is ready! Let the cake sit in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours and serve with tea.

Enjoy your tea! Enjoy!

I'm really looking forward to your feedback, comments, and photos of cakes for this recipe. I am very interested in your impressions and results. Do not hesitate to provide feedback, this is very important and valuable for me.

When adding photos to Instagram, please indicate the tag #pirogeevo or #pirogeevo so that I can find your photos on the Internet. Thank you!

Today I will tell you how to prepare the classic Leningradsky cake at home - a recipe with photos will help you understand all the intricacies of the process.

Cooking steps

First of all, you need to bake shortbread cakes. If you knead the dough correctly and do not overdry them in the oven, they will turn out dense and at the same time tender, and when infused, they will be saturated with cream and become softer, fluffy and very pleasant to the taste.
The cakes are coated with Charlotte cream with cocoa, which is prepared on the basis of milk-yolk syrup with whipped butter. It is quite dense, but tender. Don't worry, since a moderate amount of cream is used, the finished cake will not be too greasy.
Perhaps the most difficult stage is the chocolate glaze. For the Leningradsky cake, you need to prepare the sugar fudge in advance, at least a day in advance, so that it has time to ripen. The finished fondant must be diluted with water and combined with cocoa to form a liquid glaze to cover the cake. Making fudge will be especially difficult for beginners, so I have included the recipe separately (look for it on the website). If you don't want to bother with fondant, you can try making frosting from milk, sugar, butter and cocoa. Or alternatively, you can cover the cake with chocolate ganache. Of course, this will no longer be a Gost recipe, but the “Leningrad” cake will still turn out delicious!

Total cooking time: 2 hours + 6 hours soaking time
Cooking time: 2 hours
Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients

for test

wheat flour – 330 g
butter – 185 g
sugar – 125 g
small chicken egg – 1 pc.
baking powder for dough – 1 tsp. no slide

for Charlotte cream

egg yolk – 1 pc.
milk – 75 ml
sugar – 115 g
vanilla sugar – 1 tbsp. l.
butter – 125 g
cognac – 1 tbsp. l.
cocoa powder – 1 tbsp. l.

for glaze and decoration

ready-made sugar fudge – 200 g
dark cocoa powder – 1 tbsp. l.
cold boiled water – 1-2 tsp.
roasted peanuts – 30 g
biscuit crumbs - 3 tbsp. l.

Preparation

Knead the shortbread dough.

Combine in a bowl: 1 whole egg, 125 g of fine sugar and 185 g of butter - it must be of the highest fat content and must be softened to room temperature (you cannot melt it in a water bath!). Beat everything together at medium speed with a mixer until a homogeneous and smooth mass is obtained.

Add 1 tsp. baking powder and 330 g of pre-sifted flour (all at once). Quickly knead the dough - collect the crumbs with your hands and form a bun.

We divide it into 4 equal parts, roll each into a ball, wrap it in cling film and put it on the refrigerator shelf - let it rest and cool for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, we make templates from baking paper, draw 4 squares measuring 18x18 cm - draw a bold outline with a pencil, so that it can be clearly seen.

When the dough has rested, roll out each part on parchment (to prevent the dough from coming into contact with the pencil lead, place the paper with the pattern down). We send the preparations back to the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes.

Bake the cakes for 10-12 minutes - the oven should be preheated to 180 degrees. Let cool without removing from the parchment. The cakes should only brown a little, but do not overdry them, otherwise they will break!

Cook the glaze.

Melt approximately 200 g of sugar fudge in a water bath, add a little water to make the glaze runny, mix in 1 tbsp. l. cocoa. Do not overheat above 55 degrees! Quickly, while the glaze is warm, coat one of the cake layers. It hardens instantly, literally in 7-10 seconds (!), so you need to level it very quickly before it sets. Leave the cake covered with chocolate fudge on the work table until it hardens completely.

Prepare Charlotte cream.

Place 1 egg yolk in a saucepan, pour in 75 ml of cold milk, add 115 g of sugar and 1 tbsp. l. vanilla sugar, stir vigorously with a whisk until a light foam appears, so that the yolk is completely dispersed. Over low heat, gradually bring the mixture to a boil and simmer until thickened - approximately 2-3 minutes from the moment of boiling. Stir constantly and cook over low heat so that the syrup does not burn and the yolks do not curdle.

As soon as the syrup is ready, remove it from the heat, pour it into a bowl, cover it with cling film “in contact” so that a crust does not form on the surface, and leave it like that until it cools completely. The consistency should be like liquid condensed milk, very tender and smooth, without a single lump, absolutely homogeneous. It is very important that the syrup cools down completely; it is strictly forbidden to add it warm to the butter, otherwise the cream will separate.

Next, take 125 g of soft butter, melted at room temperature, and beat with a mixer for several minutes until white and fluffy. Then add the cooled syrup in portions, 1-2 spoons at a time, without stopping working with the mixer. At the end, add 1 tbsp. l. cocoa powder, beat again. Set aside approximately 3-4 tbsp. l. chocolate cream into a sleeve with a nozzle - it will be used for decoration. Pour a spoonful of cognac into the remaining cream and beat a little more until smooth.

We collect the cakes.

We coat 3 cake layers with cream, placing them on top of each other. There will be little cream, so carefully spread it in an even layer - the consumption is approximately 2 tbsp. l.

Coat the sides of the cake with cream, sprinkle with biscuit crumbs (to do this, grind the sponge cake scraps that you have left over from any cake on a grater or in a blender, pour onto a baking sheet and brown in the oven).

Decorating the cake.

At the final stage, we use chocolate cream, which was put into a sleeve with a nozzle - we make a border along the contour, decorate with fried peanut crumbs.

Place the cake in the refrigerator for 6-8 hours to soak. According to GOST, the Leningradsky cake was also decorated with glazed chocolate on top; if you wish, you can also prepare them. Cut into portions and enjoy. Enjoy your tea party everyone!

Why do I like the “Podarochny” cake?... Firstly, it is simple in design, even the GOST for the “Podarochny” cake says that it is enough to simply sprinkle the entire surface with chopped roasted peanuts. Secondly: its soaked sponge cake is very tasty, and thirdly: butter cream is practically a classic of Soviet cooking. In general, this is a taste of childhood for me. Although, when talking about the taste of childhood, I mean store-bought cake...

Nowadays, in public catering, in order to reduce the cost of the confectionery, various substitutions of ingredients are made and it loses its taste, so I suggest, with or without reason, to bake the “Gift” cake yourself according to an adapted GOST recipe, i.e. with slightly rounded amounts of ingredients.

Prepare the ingredients:

Take the required amount of sugar by measuring it in a glass or on a scale.

Beat the eggs with sugar until they increase in volume. It is more often recommended to beat the yolks with sugar separately, and then with flour and separately the whites into a foam, so I am very much for it!

Prepare the required amount of flour and starch, mix them together. If you have doubts about beating the eggs together or for some other reason you are unsure about the future sponginess of the sponge cake, then add a little baking powder...

Beat the egg mixture with flour, adding it in three additions.

Pour the dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment (here it is 20x30) or into two suitable forms. Bake at 180 degrees for about 12-15 minutes. As a result, you should get two biscuit pieces and they need to rest for several hours, for example, overnight.

My biscuit will then be cut into 2 halves and I will let it sit for only 3 hours...

Dry the peanuts on a baking sheet or in a frying pan and then chop them into crumbs.

For impregnation, measure the required amount of water and sugar. Make syrup from them, i.e. Bring to a boil while stirring, the sugar will dissolve and remove from heat. Then add alcohol and leave to cool at room temperature.

For buttercream, mix half an egg or just the yolk with milk.

Add sugar and vanilla sugar and cook the mixture until thickened for about five minutes while stirring. Then strain and cool.

Beat the butter, softened at room temperature, into a fluffy mass.

As a result, the mass will increase and you will get a delicious buttercream, which you store in the refrigerator until use.

Remove the baking paper from the matured sponge cake and soak it in the sweet mixture.

Here, a rectangular sponge cake is cut into two, and then each piece is dipped into a dish with half of the soaking mixture, absorbed completely, and turned over to assemble the cake, wet side up.