Medovik

Many thin layers of honey-enriched dough are baked, stacked alternately with cream and left to rest. Medovik is a many-layered cake whose layers soften as they absorb moisture from the cream. It is popular across the former Soviet sphere, including Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic states, and similar cakes are also found in neighboring areas. Besides the aroma of honey, the way the layers are baked and the length of time they are left to absorb moisture from the cream determine the texture of the layers.

Dough rolled out with a rolling pin and batter spread onto paper

Rather than slicing a thick sponge horizontally, thin layers are baked one at a time. In one method, honey, sugar and butter are warmed, baking soda is added, and then flour and eggs are mixed in; in another, baking soda, eggs and flour are combined with warmed honey, and the batter is spread thinly onto paper with a spoon. Some recipes (the ingredient proportions and method) for the latter add neither butter nor sugar to the batter, so even within medovik the firmness of the dough and the way it is handled differ.

Honey provides sweetness and aroma, and it also creates the acidic environment that baking soda needs to work. The reaction with the baking soda introduces bubbles into the dough, so the layers bake up light even though they are thin. The warmed, mixed dough is baked thin so that it rises, and it is stacked with cream afterward.

In a recipe presented by a Ukrainian chef, the dough is chilled to reduce its stickiness, rolled out to 26 centimeters in diameter and about 1 millimeter thick, pricked with a fork and baked at 200°C for about 5 minutes. After baking, the layers are trimmed to 24 centimeters, and 7 to 9 of them, sometimes 12, are stacked. In the Latvian method of spreading the batter, about 10 layers are baked, cooled and trimmed into squares. The trimmings are crumbled and scattered over the top and sides, so the aroma of the honey cake can be enjoyed from the outside as well.

Layers that soften with moisture from the cream

With smetana or sour cream, the tang of the fermented dairy overlaps with the sweetness of the honey. There are simple methods that mix in only sugar, methods that add whipped cream for a lighter texture, and methods that add condensed milk. Even if the cake is firm right after stacking, moisture from the cream migrates while it rests, and it becomes soft enough to cut with a fork.

The resting time also varies by method. The Ukrainian recipe refrigerates the cake for 24 hours, and a London maker’s recipe for 12 to 24 hours. The Latvian version, in which a soft batter is spread and baked, is left for a few hours. The time needed for the moisture to settle in is adjusted according to the firmness of the baked layers and the differences in the cream.

The single-layer bake of 1960 and the layered cake made in Soviet homes

Page 323 of the 3rd edition of “Українські страви” (“Ukrainian Dishes”), published in Kyiv in 1960, also includes a “МЕДОВИК.” However, it is made by boiling honey, sugar and butter, combining them with flour, adding eggs, baking soda, cinnamon and cloves, chilling the dough for 2 days, and then rolling it out into a single sheet about half a finger thick and baking it. It was a honey confection baked as a single layer, with no cream in between. Despite the same name, its method differs from the version widely known today, in which many layers of cake and cream are stacked.

Food historians Pavel and Olga Syutkin state that medovik with many layers of cake and cream was commonly made in Soviet homes in the 20th century. In the method handed down in the couple’s family, the honey dough is divided into 8 or 9 portions and left overnight, each layer is baked quickly one at a time, and the layers are spread with a cream of boiled condensed milk and butter and left to absorb more moisture. The cream differs from versions filled with smetana, but softening the baked layers by letting them absorb moisture is common to both. Both the cake baked as a single layer and the cake stacked in many layers have come down under the same name, medovik. When and how the method changed is not clear.

The story of an empress who disliked honey yet was delighted

There is a legend, set in the court of Alexander I in the 19th century, that a new cook, unaware that Empress Elizabeth Alexeievna disliked honey, made a honey cake. Despite the cook’s worries, the empress is said to have loved it from the first bite.

This court story is popular as a legend about the birth of medovik. The Syutkins are cautious about the claim that the cake as it is today, with many layers of cake and cream, was created for the empress.

Regional differences in honey and cream

In Ukraine, the aroma and color are chosen through the type of honey, such as nearly colorless, transparent acacia, golden sunflower or dark buckwheat. Even with the same quantities of ingredients, the intensity of the layers’ aroma changes.

Some versions of Czech medovník are filled with caramel-colored sweetened condensed milk and butter, and their tops are covered with crumbled cake mixed with walnuts. In Bulgaria it is also called “French country cake,” and there are examples that pair sour cream with blueberry jam. Marlenka is a brand that began production in the Czech Republic in 2003 based on an Armenian family recipe. Layered honey cakes have also spread through migration and commercial production.

Medivnyk, baked in one go with fruit and nuts

In Ukraine, medivnyk does not refer only to layered cakes. A version handed down in families in Lviv adds generous amounts of spices, nuts, raisins and candied fruit and is baked in one go in a long, narrow pan. It shares a name derived from honey, but its cut surface reveals fruit and nuts rather than layers of cream.

Lithuanian medutis, with layers left to absorb moisture before stacking

A home recipe for medutis warms honey, butter, sugar and eggs in a bain-marie, cools the mixture, mixes in flour and baking powder, and bakes it divided into 5 or 6 layers. The filling is sour cream with 30% fat, combined with powdered sugar and lemon juice. Nuts and raisins or cranberries rehydrated in water are scattered over it.

Its distinctive feature is the order: each layer is spread with cream and left to absorb it for about 1 hour before being stacked. Rather than resting only after assembly, the layers also absorb moisture from the cream before they are stacked.

Polish miodownik made with 3 layers

In one method for miodownik, 3 layers of honey dough made with butter and egg yolks are baked separately. They are filled with a cream made by cooking milk with vanilla- or cream-flavored pudding powder until set, cooling it and combining it with whipped butter, and with a cream combining kajmak with mascarpone and heavy cream.

After assembly, the cake goes into the refrigerator until the cream layers are chilled and set. Whereas medovik uses many thin layers, this miodownik combines 3 thicker layers with 2 kinds of cream. What they share is letting the honey dough and the dairy meld together.

Glossary