Glazed Apple Sponge Cake
Every time I make a sponge cake I think of grandma, my mom's mom. She used to make it often when I was a child: the sweet smell of baking apples would fill the whole house, and I would sit on the kitchen floor in front of the oven, with a cat by my side, both waiting impatiently (all grandma's cats seemed to develop an affection for things that cats are not supposed to like: apple cakes, cucumbers and raw sunflower seeds).
This cake and thick, dense pancakes with cherry jam and sour cream always remind me of grandma... As soon as I'm finished with posting the recipe I'm going to call her!
Ingredients: 5 eggs 1 large apple 1 cup sugar 2 Tbs powdered sugar 1 tsp lemon juice 1tsp vanilla extract | 1tsp vanilla extract a pinch of salt 1 cup all-purpose flour 1 Tbs cinnamon sugar 1 Tbs butter 3 Tbs light-colored marmalade (I used peach & pomegranate) |
Preheat oven to 350 F. Make sure that eggs come directly from the fridge, they should be cold. Separate yolks, set aside. Beat egg whites on hight speed, with salt and lemon juice, adding a cup of sugar by a tablespoon until stiff peeks form. Start adding yolks, one at a time. Continue beating till yolks are mixed in. Add vanilla. Add flour and mix on low until well incorporated. Peel, core and slice apple thinly, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Spread butter on the bottom and all the way up the sides of a spring-form, pour batter into the form, arrange apple slices on the top. Cover with foil and bake for 35 minutes (do not open the oven), then remove the foil and bake for another 30-40 minutes. Check with a toothpick.
Note:
While covering the form with foil doubles the baking time, it
helps the batter rise very high (without baking powder) by not allowing the edges to brown too
fast, and makes sponge cake very leveled.
Let
the cake cool in the form for about 20 minutes, then take it out and
arrange on a plate. Heat marmalade in microwave and brush it over the
top of the cake. Wait until the cake cools completely and sprinkle
powdered sugar through a sieve on top of it.
Serve with tea or coffee. |  |
Monastery Hut
This is a very famous Russian cake, which is a bit time consuming but it’s totally worth it! Both its look and taste are superb. This cake has different names in different regions of
Ingredients:
7 oz margarine or butter
7 oz sour cream
2 eggs
3 ½ -4 cups flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 Tbs sugar
Filling: 3-4 jars (15 oz each) pitted cherries in its own juice / in light syrup / in Rum or Maraschino cherries
Icing: 1 ½ pound sour cream, 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
 | Heat the oven to 350 F. Cut margarine into small pieces (don’t melt it). In a bowl combine margarine, salt, sugar, flour and baking powder, mix until margarine is covered with flour. Add eggs and sour cream and mix until thoroughly combined. The dough should be soft. Form a cylinder and divide it into 15 pieces. Refrigerate for 40 minutes. Roll out each piece into a rectangle 8-9 inches long and about 1.5 inch wide. Put cherries in the middle of the rectangles long-wise and pinch to seal the dough. Now you have 15 dough sticks filled with cherries. Make sure that they are all of the same length. Dust cookie sheets with flour and carefully transport dough sticks onto them. Bake until light golden-brown, about 15 minutes. Cool. |
Beat sour cream and powdered sugar with a mixer until fluffy and sugar is dissolved. On a big rectangle-shaped flat dish lay out 5 bread sticks next to each other. Generously cover with sour cream icing so that it gets into spaces between the bread sticks. Lay out another 4 bread sticks on the top of the iced ones, cover with icing. Continue layers as follows: 3 bread sticks, icing, 2 bread sticks, icing, 1 breadstick on the top. Pour the rest of the icing onto the cake and spread evenly. Let the cake cool in the fridge for at least 12 hours. |  |
 |
Decorate with chocolate, chopped almonds or walnuts and coconut flake. Serve with hot black or green tea.  |
**************************************************************************************************************************************
