Mikado Torte

Mikado tort is an Armenian cake made by stacking many thinly baked layers of pastry with chocolate or cooked condensed milk cream in between. When it is cut, lines of thin pastry and cream appear in alternation, and the top is decorated with shaved chocolate.

Stacking thin layers and letting them rest

Sour cream is mixed into the dough, which is divided into many portions, rolled out thin and baked one sheet at a time. Cream is spread between the cooled layers as they are stacked, and when the cake is left to stand, the freshly baked thin layers absorb moisture from the cream and become easier to slice. Rather than baking a thick sponge all at once to gain height, preparing many thin layers creates fine strata in the cross-section.

One Armenian-language home recipe (ingredient proportions and method) uses butter and cooked condensed milk for the cream and adds melted chocolate. It says to bake the layers thin and, after stacking them, to leave the cake for at least a day. In an example presented by the Armenian Museum of Moscow, thin layers containing sour cream are combined with chocolate custard cream and cooked condensed milk. There is more than one way to make the cream.

The New Year table and the name

Mikado is also presented as a sweet that graces the New Year table. An Armenian-language article for home cooks notes that it appears on the table alongside gata, baklava, Napoleon and other sweets, and that its flavor and appearance differ from household to household. If many thin layers are baked and stacked in advance, the cake can be sliced, with the cream settled into the layers, by the time guests arrive.

In the Ksani Valley of neighboring Georgia, a home recipe for a layered sweet also called Mikado has been presented. In an example shown by the cook Giorgi Churkhadze, based on a sweet long enjoyed in the home of Tea Pavliashvili, the layers are baked thin and filled with a cream made by boiling down milk and sugar. A shared name, or a resemblance to the sound of a Japanese word, is not enough to establish the sweet’s history or any connection with Japan.

Glossary