Cake; Leningradsky

Cake “Leningradsky”

The Leningradsky cake is a masterpiece of Russian confectionery cuisine. The recipe according to GOST includes making 4 thin shortbread cakes, which are coated with butter cream and covered with chocolate fondant. The cake is decorated with roasted peanuts on top and sprinkled with toasted biscuit crumbs around the edges. Any piece practically melts in your mouth, the shortcakes are crumbly, and the cream, although oily, is very tender and velvety.

Now I will tell you how to prepare a traditional Leningradsky cake at home - a recipe with a photo will help you understand all the intricacies of the process.

Before all this, you need to bake the shortbread. If you knead the dough correctly and do not overdry them in the oven, then they will turn out dense and immediately tender, and when infused, they will be saturated with cream and become softer, fluffy and very pleasant to the taste.
The shortcakes are coated with Charlotte cream with cocoa, which is prepared on the basis of milk-yolk syrup with whipped butter. He is quite dense, but affectionate. Don’t worry, because a moderate amount of cream is used, the finished cake will not turn out to be too greasy.
Perhaps the most difficult step is the chocolate glaze. For the Leningradsky cake, you need to prepare the sweet fondant 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 create a watery glaze to cover the cake. Making fudge will be especially difficult for beginners, so I have included the recipe separately (find it on the website). If you don't want to bother with fondant, you can try making icing from milk, sugar, butter and cocoa. Or, as an option, you can cover the cake with chocolate ganache. Naturally, this will no longer be a Gost recipe, but the “Leningrad” cake will still turn out delicious!

Ingredients

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 sweet fudge – 200 g
black cocoa powder – 1 tbsp. l.
cool boiled water – 1-2 tsp.
roasted peanuts – 30 g
biscuit crumbs - 3 tbsp. l.

Manufacturing

Knead the shortbread dough.

Combine in a bowl: 1 whole egg, 125 g of small sugar and 185 g of butter - it must be of the highest fat content and certainly softened to room temperature (melting in a water bath is not allowed!). 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 previously 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 again to the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes.

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

Melt approximately 200 g of sweet 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, cover one of the cake layers. It hardens instantly, in almost 7-10 seconds (!), so it needs to be leveled very quickly until it sets. Leave the cake covered with chocolate fudge on the desktop until it hardens completely.

Prepare Charlotte cream.

Place 1 egg yolk in a saucepan, pour in 75 ml of cool 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, evenly 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.

When 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 mixture should turn out like watery condensed milk, very tender and smooth, without a single lump, completely homogeneous. It is very important that the syrup cools down completely; introducing it warm into the oil is strictly prohibited, otherwise the cream will separate.

Next, take 125 g of soft butter, melted at room temperature, and beat with a mixer for a couple of 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.

Coat 3 shortcakes with cream, placing them on top of each other. There won’t be a lot of cream, so carefully spread it in an even layer - use 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).

At the final step, we use chocolate cream, which we put in 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 on top with bouche cakes, frosted with chocolate; if you wish, you can also prepare them. Cut into portions and enjoy. Enjoy your tea party everyone!

Leningradsky cake

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Now I am again sharing with you the recipe for a homemade cake - we prepare Leningradsky according to GOST. Delicate shortbread that melts in your mouth, layered and decorated with velvety Charlotte chocolate cream, chocolate sweet fudge, crumbly biscuit crumbs and crunchy roasted peanuts. Remember that one? This is a classic of Russian confectionery, which adults and children enjoyed with no little pleasure during the times of the former Soviet Union.

To be honest, my attitude towards shortcrust pastry and desserts based on it is more than neutral. I love sponge cakes (just remember Skazka, Sacher or Prague) - their cakes are tender, soft, juicy and airy. And here, it would seem, there are huge shortbread cookies coated with rich butter cream... Why should there be delight? But what came out in the end didn’t just please me, but really delighted me!

The traditional Leningrad cake is a truly worthy dessert, which (in my moderate opinion) should be prepared at least once by any amateur pastry chef. Not to prove to myself that I can, but to be impressed by the work done and enjoy the result. It’s not for nothing that in the former USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also the Soviet Union - a state that existed from 1922 to 1991 in Europe and Asia) there were hardly any tasteless cakes or pastries (they spent years poring over GOSTs).

Little about the cake itself and possible options for replacing its components. First of all, the basis of this delicious dessert is shortbread. But they are not at all dry and dense, but soft, tender and crumbly. Chocolate cream Charlotte is also a classic (listed in almost all recipes for Russian cakes), which is prepared without any problems. Next is a little more difficult: chocolate fudge! I deliberately did not write a step-by-step summary here, because I already have a more detailed recipe for making it on my website - you can find it here.

Now let's talk about substitutions. Personally, I wouldn’t change anything, but I’m often asked what could be used to change one or another ingredient in a recipe. If making Charlotte cream seems very long and difficult for you, you can try replacing it with regular butter cream with condensed milk, adding cocoa powder. There is little cognac in the cream and it is used for flavoring, so whether to add it or not is up to you (I add it all the time).

Instead of sweet fondant, which for the Leningradsky cake must be prepared at least a day in advance (to ripen), you can try creating the same chocolate ganache (from chocolate and cream/butter/milk). As an option, chocolate glaze made from cocoa and milk - recipe here. But you realize that when substituting the components, the result will not be the real Leningrad cake according to GOST, but, as it is now stylishly said, a la, in other words, close to the original.

In any case, I really hope that you will definitely need this detailed recipe for home baking and that you will use it in the near future. New Year is coming soon, so why not create a Leningrad cake as a festive dessert? The guests will be impressed, I promise!

Cake “Leningradsky”

Lasky I love this Russian cake - it’s in second place for me after “Fairy Tales” among the baked goods of that period. True, unlike the GOST recipe, I cook it with thick chocolate ganache instead of chocolate fondant - it tastes even better to me and, frankly, is the least troublesome. It is this particular version of the recipe that I would like to offer you now.

All other ingredients - Charlotte cream and shortcrust pastry for the cakes - are standard here.

And yes - do not skimp on good fatty oil - both the sand and the cream will only benefit from it.

Ingredients for a cake 18*18 cm:

Dough

Ganache

Finishing

Making recipe:

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 mass, pull it out and run your finger along the convex side of the spoon, the path from your finger should remain accurate for some time. At the same time, make sure that the cream does not overheat, otherwise the yolk will curl and go into flakes.

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. Evenly, without stopping whisking, add the cooled milk mass one spoon at a time, beating well after each addition. In the process, add brandy.

Set aside 3 tbsp. cream for finishing, add cocoa to the rest and beat until smooth.

Beat butter with regular and vanilla sugar until creamy mixture.

Add the egg and beat again.

Then evenly add the flour sifted with baking powder and knead the plastic dough. Try not to knead for a very long time so that the butter in the dough does not melt and the baked goods do not turn out woody.

Divide the dough into 4 parts.

Cake “Leningradsky”

All other ingredients - Charlotte cream and shortcrust pastry for the cakes - are standard here.

And yes - do not skimp on good fatty oil - both the sand and the cream will only benefit from it.

Ingredients for a cake 18*18 cm:

Dough

Ganache

Finishing

Making recipe:

Combine the egg with sugar and stir.

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. Evenly, without stopping whisking, add the cooled milk mass one spoon at a time, beating well after each addition. In the process, add brandy.

Set aside 3 tbsp. cream for finishing, add cocoa to the rest and beat until smooth.

Beat butter with regular and vanilla sugar until creamy mixture.

Add the egg and beat again.

Divide the dough into 4 parts.

Place the rolled out dough and parchment in the refrigerator for 15-20 minutes. Then bake on a baking sheet in an oven previously preheated to 180 degrees for 12-14 minutes. Let it cool completely.

Layer the shortbread with cream. Use the remaining cream to line the sides of the cake.

Cover the top of the cake with ganache.

Sprinkle the sides with crushed crumbs from the remaining dough. Decorate the top with the left cream without adding cocoa and fried crushed peanuts.

Let the cakes sit in the refrigerator overnight (that is, in the dark) . Then we serve it to the table.