This delicious cake has five thin cake layers with an almost whip-creamy, slightly tangy filling and coating. We give compliments to the chef from over at smittenkitchen.com who reverse-engineered this AMAZING creation! Virginia made some speed modifications, as she was limited on time. So, instead of 8 perfectly thin layers – she went for 5 perfectly flavored layers. The cake tastes like a dreamy frosted honey gram, and is hard to beat with a cup of tea! It does take a good 6-8 hours in the fridge for the whippy frosting to settle into the cake layers, but the results are so worth it. YUM!
This recipe has two distinct parts – the cookie-cake layers and the frosting and filling. We break it down below.
Ingredients
Cookie-cake layers
- 1/2 cup raw honey
- 1/2 cup cane sugar
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 3 large eggs
- 1/4 tsp fine sea or table salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, divided
Frosting and filling
- 32 ounces (about 4 cups) sour cream
- 1, 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
-Prep/Cook Time-
Day 1 1 hour | Day 2 30 minutes
-Cook Type-
Bake and Refrigerate
-Featured Product-
-Contributor-
Instructions
The day before, get ready: Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Get 2 baking sheets (or even better, 9 inch round cake pans), more if you have them. Line your pans with parchment paper if you have it, if not oil and flour dusting will do.
Make cookie/cake dough: In a medium-sized saucepan, combine the sugar, honey and butter over medium heat. Once simmering, cook for 3 to 4 minutes (no specific temperature needed), it should get a faint shade darker and smell wonderful. Whisk in baking soda.
Remove from heat and set aside for 2 to 3 minutes – the color of mixture will transform into an amazing orange! It’s not going to significantly cool off, just settle a little.
Meanwhile, lightly beat your eggs in mixing bowl. As you whisk the honey mixture vigorously in the pot the whole time, drizzle the thinnest stream (think: 1/2 teaspoon at a time, that slowly) of the eggs into the honey mixture. Do not stop mixing. Continue until all of the eggs are thoroughly whisked in.
Stir in the salt and vanilla and 3 cups of the flour with a spoon. The dough is going to be thick like a bread but you’ve got this. Stir in the last 1/2 cup of flour 1/4 cup at a time; you’ll get a bonus arm workout.
Shape and bake the cookies/cakes: Lightly flour your counter and divide the still-warm dough into 5 even pieces. Roll the first one between two sheets of parchment paper (no flouring needed) to a slightly-bigger-than-9-inch round. Remove top sheet of parchment paper. Very lightly dust the top with flour if you’re going to put something on it (such as the bottom of a 9-inch cake pan or the rim of a 9-inch bowl) to trim the shape to an even 9-inch circle. Save the trimmings — put them aside on one of the sheets of parchment paper, it’s fine if they overlap a little. Dock the circle all over with a fork. Slide your 9-inch round onto a baking sheet and bake for 6 to 7 minutes; it should feel firmish and get slightly darker at the edges. Slide the cookie onto a cooling rack. Go ahead and reuse the parchment for another layer.
Meanwhile, while the first layer is baking, roll out your second piece so it’s ready to go into the oven as soon as the first comes out. If you’re making good time, get the third ready too and continue to bake them two at a time. Keep adding the unbaked cookie trimmings onto one piece of parchment paper. Repeat this process as you bake each round and you’ll have all 5 baked before you know it – if you have the time, go for all 8 layers!!
Finally, take that last sheet of parchment with all of the cookie scraps on it (or roll out and shape into your favorite patterns!) and slide it onto a baking sheet and bake it, checking in at 4 minutes, because the thinnest scraps will want to burn quickly. By 5 minutes, all should be baked until pale golden. Let cool completely and save until you’re ready to decorate the cake tomorrow.
Fill and frost the cake: Whisk sour cream and sweetened condensed milk together in a large bowl. Once cookies are cool, place a dab of the sour cream mixture on your cake plate and place the first cookie on top of it to help adhere it.
Cut or tear one of your used pieces of parchment paper into strips and tuck them all around the underside of the cake to protect your cake plate. Trust me, if you do not do this, you will regret it.
Scoop 3/4 cup sour cream mixture onto the center of your first cookie layer. Spread it only a little from the center, leaving a good 1- to 2-inch margin of unfrosted cookie. Stack the second cookie on top and repeat until you have 5 layers.
This will quickly become a huge mess. The sour cream is going to spill out and down the sides anyway (hear hear for those paper strips) and you’re going to start yelling at me/drafting an angry comment in your head. It’s also going to want to slide around and not stay neatly stacked. It’s totally okay because the filling will thicken as it absorbs into the cookies. Put the cake in the fridge for a couple hours (1 to 3) and when you come back to it, nudge the stack gently back into place and use a spoon and icing spatula to scoop the spilled-out filling back up the sides and onto the top of the cake. Don’t worry about it looking neat. Let it chill overnight.
The next day, finish the cake:
Take your cake out and do one final frosting clean-up. Spread any newly puddled sour cream back up the sides and across the top. If you’d like to make a decoration on top of your cake, take one of those used pieces of parchment paper ) and cut a stencil with it. Place it gently on top of the cake, and then choose the ‘Grind-topping Finish Option’ below – super cool! Or if you want to do a very basic finish, cut shapes, bake, and place on the cake as I have in the pictures! It works! 🙂
Grind-topping Finish OPTION: Grind your baked, reserved cookie scraps in a blender or food processor, or bash them into crumbs in a bag with a rolling pin.
Use a small spoon to sprinkle the top and sides of the cake with the crumbs. In the coolest trick I saw on a cooking video, use a pastry brush (or extremely clean paintbrush, I won’t tell) to gently brush the crumbs off the stencil and across the cake in a thin layer. It sounds crazy but it works — on the sides too. Remove the stencil and parchment paper strips and look at that clean serving plate! (Bravo, you.)
You can serve the cake right away, or keep it in the fridge for up to 5 days. When slicing, I have been told that a knife dipped in hot water make picture-perfect cuts – NEXT TIME!
BOTTOMLINE – DELISH!!
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen’s Russian Honey Cake Recipe
Check-out our Firefly Fields RAW HONEY, and bake your own!
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