“This cake is one of the most popular cakes in Russia,” Daria Nechiporenko tells Broadsheet. “It has been the centrepiece of every home celebration. It’s like pavlova here in Australia.” Nechiporenko is the pastry chef at 20 Chapel – where ex-Rockpool chef Corey Costelloe is cooking steaks (and wedges) in a Marrickville warehouse – and she’s talking about her golden honey cake.
“It’s delicious and beautiful in its simplicity and complexity at the same time. Being a bit of a perfectionist, I love the strict order of the cake’s cross-section that comes from precise layering.”
The 20 Chapel recipe is an evolution of the chef’s first version of the cake – she’s been cooking it since she was a teen – with a perfected ratio of honey to cream to biscuit. She’s using a buckwheat honey – popular in Russia, hard to find Down Under – with a deep earthy, caramelly flavour. Here are the deets.
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SIGN UPWhat: Russian honey cake at 20 Chapel.
How: “It all starts with caramelising honey, sugar and butter into shiny, fragrant caramel. The addition of a mixture of baking soda and acid turns it into a honeycomb-looking dough, which is warm and soft when finished. The dough is rolled out and baked into individual very thin crispy biscuits.” The bickies are layered with a silky, smooth cream of sour cream and dulce de leche. It’s left to rest for eight hours, with the layers soaking up the moisture for a cakey softness.
Cost: $20 per slice
Where: 20 Chapel in Marrickville.
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