Ukrainian Caramel Honey Cake

This Caramel Honey Cake is loaded with chopped pecans and frosted with an amazing Dulce de Leche Buttercream.

This Caramel Honey Cake is six layers of honey sponge cake loaded with chopped pecans and almond flour that are brushed with a sweetened condensed milk and cream mixture and then frosted with the amazing buttercream.

One of my taste testers referred to this cake as "sex on a plate."

It's also referred to as Golden Key Cake (probably because of the color from the caramel) as well as Russian Caramel Cake.

All I can say is, this is about as ambitious as I've ever been in making a cake for this blog.

Making this Caramel Honey Cake involved:

• Making a sponge cake in ungreased cake pans. While I'm not sure if greasing the pans would have been a problem, I have been a "victim" of collapsing sponge cakes, so I decided to go without spraying or buttering the pans to make sure the cake layers could climb up the sides of the pans. 
• Pressing pecans into the sides of the cake. This was hard!! I resorted to spreading nuts over my hand and slamming them into the side of the cake. Lots of pecans ended up on the floor during this process. 
• Brushing the layers with a mixture of sweetened condensed milk and cream. This actually reminded my taste testers of a tres leches cake. 
• Slicing three layers of delicate sponge cake in half to make six layers. Here's the deal. Just make sure if you do it unevenly, place the halves back into the same position so that you don't end up with a lopsided cake. On the flip side, the pecans hide a lot of frosting faux pas. After all, my frosting skills need some refining. 

This cake comes from the book The European Cake Cookbook. The Cake Slice Bakers are baking from this book this year.

While the origins of this cake are Ukrainian, it could easily be a Cuban, Mexican, or southern United States cake.

The final cake, with all of the layers, is pretty stunning. The only thing I did not do was decorate the top. First, I was out of frosting, and second, I was tired. Slamming the sides of a six layer cake with pecans got the best of me.

Thank goodness I had cake to make me happy!

cake, caramel

Dessert, cake

Russian

Yield: 15 servingsAuthor: Karen Kerr

Ukrainian Caramel Honey Cake

ingredients

For the Cake

• 9 large eggs
• 150 grams (3/4 cups) sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup honey
• 250 grams (2 cups) all purpose flour
• 96 grams (1 cup) almond flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 125 grams (1 cup) chopped pecans

For the Syrup

• 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

For the Frosting

• 454 grams (2 cups/4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 can (14 ounces) Dulce de Leche
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 250 grams (2 cups) powdered sugar
• 2 cups chopped pecans

instructions

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line three 8 inch round cake pans with parchment paper. 
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the eggs, sugar, and vanilla and whisk on high speed for about 7 minutes, until the mixture is pale and voluminous. Add the honey and mix on high for one minute. 
3. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, almond flour, and baking powder. Sift them through a sieve into the batter in small portions and gently fold them in. Add the chopped pecans and fold them in. 
4. Divide the cake batter evenly among the cake pans and smooth the tops. 
5. Bake the cakes for 25 to 28 minutes. Cool the cakes in the pans for about 5 minutes. 
6. Run a knife along the sides of the pans to release the cakes and turn them out onto wire racks. Cool completely. 
7. Split each layer in half with a large serrated knife, creating 6 layers
8. Mix the syrup ingredients in a bowl. 
9. To prepare the frosting, in the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk the butter on high speed until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add the dulce de leche, vanilla, and salt. Mix on high for about 3 to 5 minutes. Add the powdered sugar and mix for about 5 minutes, until fluffy. 
10. Using a pastry brush, brush the top of each layer with the syrup. 
11. Spread the first layer with some of the frosting and top with the next layer. Repeat until you have all layers stacked. 
12. Frost the top and the sides of the cake with the rest of the frosting and press the sides with the two cups of pecans. 
13. If you are not serving this cake immediately, refrigerate. Bring to room temperature to serve. 

https://www.karenskitchenstories.com/2019/02/ukrainian-caramel-honey-cake.html

Karen's Kitchen Stories

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Each month The Cake Slice Bakers are offered a selection of cakes from the current book we are baking through. This year it is The European Cake Cookbook by Tatyana Nesteruk. We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th - never before - we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes! Follow our Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the thumbnail pictures below to take you to each of our cakes. If you have a blog and are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details. The Cake Slice Bakers also have a new Facebook group called The Cake Slice Bakers and Friends. This group is perfect for those who do not have a blog but want to join in the fun and bake through this book.

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