For my husband’s recent birthday, I made the cake he had requested the day before – Esterhazy. As always, popular recipes like Esterhazy cake don’t have any classic recipe, there may be variations. But usually it is a nut meringue base of baked cakes, and the cream is buttery with custard and boiled condensed milk. Nuts can be used according to your taste and availability, originally cooked with almonds, I have a positive attitude towards almonds, but I wanted something more expressive, so I chose the more expressive hazelnut)) You can also cook with walnuts, would be great too, and pretty budget friendly. Whatever nuts you choose, they must be fresh, quality nuts. The cream is not difficult to make, everything else too, I’ll describe in detail in the recipe. And now of course about the result, the cake is very tasty, the structure is soft, soaked, slightly sticky, the taste is vanilla-caramel-creamy with a delightful touch of roasted hazelnuts! This cake is not the delicate mousse biscuit cake that melts in your mouth, no, this cake is quite different, more substantial, hearty, with buttercream, but it’s just delightful. Very tasty, I’m very pleased, all the guests appreciated it too! P .S. By the way, although the cake is similar to the Kiev cake in ingredients, it tastes completely different))
Ingredients:
200 g of whites (~ 6 pieces)
200 g walnuts (hazelnut in my case)
130 g sugar
15 g flour
pinch of salt
Cream:
200g butter
120 g of boiled condensed milk
200 ml of milk
2 yolks
40g sugar
20 grams of flour
10 g vanilla sugar
Also:
100g white chocolate
4-6 tbsp. cream
0.3 tsp. gelatin (2g)
30 g dark chocolate
almond flakes
How to make Esterhazy cake
Prepare the nuts. I prefer to buy hazelnuts not roasted, and roast them myself in the oven. The fact is that roasted nuts are much worse stored, so there is a greater chance of getting a rancid and low-quality product in the store. I advise you to take a reserve of 250 grams of hazelnuts (or other nuts of your choice). Spread the hazelnuts on a baking tray, put them in an oven heated to 200 degrees. Cook for 5-8 minutes (I cooked for 8 minutes). Be very careful, the nuts can burn quickly. When the skins are well cracked and darkened, it means they are ready.
Prepare the nuts.
Cool the nuts and peel the husks. Check for low-quality dark specimens.
Cool and peel the nuts.
Finely chop the nuts, add flour and a pinch of salt.
Whisk the whites thoroughly until peaks, gradually adding the sugar. Sufficiently whipped, this is when the whites do not fall out when you turn the bowl.
Whisk the whites thoroughly until
Add the chopped nuts, mixing gently with a spatula from bottom to top, being careful not to settle the mixture.
It is necessary to bake 8 cakes, for this purpose circle a plate with a diameter of 20 cm on baking paper, then turn the sheet to the other side. There should be four sheets, each with two circles. I advise you to do this beforehand. Spread the dough, and flatten into thin circles.
It is necessary to bake 8 crusts, for
Bake in a preheated oven to 160 degrees for about 15-25 minutes. I baked everything in two batches, four cakes at a time, swapping the top and bottom in the middle of baking.
Bake in the pre-bake.
Leave the finished cakes for at least a couple of hours to firm up the structure, then flip them over and gently remove the paper.
Leave the ready cakes to rise for at least 2 hours.
Making the cream. Put yolks, sugar, vanilla sugar, flour into a bowl, add some milk, mix well.
Make cream. Yolks, sugar,
Heat the rest of the milk in a saucepan with a thick bottom until hot. Pour it into the egg yolk mixture, stirring at the same time, then pour it back into the pan. Cook until slightly thickened, stirring all the time with a spatula or whisk. Leave to cool completely.
Combine the rest of the milk in a saucepan with the
Beat butter until visibly lightened. The butter should be room temperature and soft (take it out of the refrigerator ahead of time).
Then gradually add the custard, beating it a little at a time until homogeneous.
Then gradually add the condensed milk and whisk to combine. I used a can of condensed milk, you can also use boiled condensed milk if you are sure about its quality.
Add the condensed milk,
This is the cream you get. You can taste it and add more condensed milk or powdered sugar.
This is how you get the cream.
To assemble the cake dabbing cream on the layers.
This is how it works. Put the cake in the refrigerator to soak overnight.
To cover, melt white chocolate in a water bath or in the microwave. When I melted the white chocolate turned yellow)), which is definitely not suitable for a white top, so I gradually added 6 tbsp of 20% cream, then the mass was white again. Add the swollen gelatin, so that it dissolves. Leave to cool.
For the coating, melt the white.
Pour over the cake.
Top with melted dark chocolate from a cornet and draw a spiral. Then make 8 strokes with a toothpick from the center to the edge, and then between them in the middle in the opposite direction also 8 times. It turns out something like a spider’s web. At me, unfortunately, white mass quickly froze, while I melted dark chocolate, and as a result the drawing has turned out not so similar to a spider web as I would like( therefore I emphasize that it is necessary to do it at once, without lingering, that is to pour white filling, immediately spiral from chocolate, and at once to draw lines, that is you should have everything necessary at hand.
Top with melted black
The sides are decorated with almond petals.
This is the cut of the cake.
I additionally decorated the top with sugar beads. Before serving from the fridge be sure to let the cake warm up at room temperature for about 20-30 minutes, so the taste unfolds more fully and the structure is more tender. Cake Esterhazy has not only an original appearance, but also excellent taste. Very tasty!