Spartacus Сake

The recipe for a chocolate honey cake “Spartaсus” with semolina custard.

Ingredients

• For cakes:
  Flour – 350 g
  Sugar – 150 g
  Butter – 100 g
  Honey – 100 g
  Chicken eggs – 2 pcs.
  Salt – 1/3 teaspoon
  Soda – 1 teaspoon
  Baking powder – 1 teaspoon
  Cocoa – 40 g
  *
• For impregnation:
  Milk or cream – 250 ml
  Sugar – 2-3 tbsp
  Vanilla sugar – 1 sachet
  *
• For the cream:
  Milk – 1 l
  Butter – 400 g
  Sugar – 200 g
  Semolina – 120 g
  Vanilla sugar – 1 sachet
  Lemon (juice) – 1 pc.
  *
• For fondant:
  Milk – 75-100 ml
  Sugar – 3 tbsp
  Cocoa – 3 tbsp
  Butter – 40 g
  *
• For decoration:
  Marshmallow – 4 pcs.

Instructions

1. Sift the dry mixture, namely flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Mix everything well and set it aside for now. In a saucepan, combine sugar, honey, and butter, put on a small fire. While stirring, let the mixture warm up and melt (it is not necessary to bring to a boil). Add eggs and soda. We put on a small fire and, stirring continuously, wait for the soda to react with honey – a thick foam should appear. We remove from the fire. Combine both mixtures (liquid and dry), mix with a spoon.
2. You should make a soft, warm dough. Put it on a table sprinkled with flour.
3. Form a sausage and divide it into 8 approximately equal parts, roll buns out of them. It is advisable not to mix the flour anymore so that the cakes are not too dense.
4. Press the balls a little, put them on a flat dish, cover with foil. Leave it for 30 minutes at room temperature, and then put it in the refrigerator for about an hour. (This dough can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.)

   

5. Roll each bun into a layer 2 mm thick (it is convenient for me to roll it between two packages).
   Transfer it to parchment paper, cut out a circle with a diameter of 20-22 cm, and collect the remains in a separate bun, prick the circle with a fork.
6. Transfer the paper with the cutout cake to a hot (not cold) baking sheet and bake at 180-190 degrees for about 6-7 minutes. As a result, you should get 9-10 cakes. Grind one of the cakes into crumbs, which we will sprinkle on the sides of the cake.
7. Preparing the impregnation for the cakes. Put sugar, vanilla sugar in milk or cream, bring to a boil and simmer for 2 minutes. Let cool completely.
8. Cooking custard with semolina. Pour milk into a saucepan, add sugar and semolina. We put on fire and, stirring continuously, cook semolina porridge. Add a bag of vanilla sugar and juice of one lemon to the finished hot semolina porridge. Mix well with a hand blender. (If you don’t have a submersible blender – that’s okay. You still won’t feel the semolina in the cream.) Let the porridge cool completely.
9. Beat soft butter with a mixer. The oil should turn slightly white and expand. In small portions 3-4 tablespoon. add the semolina cooled to room temperature, mix quickly with a mixer after each added portion. It is not necessary to beat for a long time so that the cream does not exfoliate.
   The cream turns out to be soft and airy, but it does not spread out under the cakes, like sour cream, and the sourness from the lemon makes it not at all cloying. Anyone who does not know what this cream is made of when they try it, they say that it is curd cream, and this cream smells like ice cream.
10. Putting together the chocolate honey cake with semolina custard. Soak the cakes and generously sandwich them with cream.
11. Coat the sides of the cake and smooth it with cream, then sprinkle with prepared crumbs.

    

12. Cooking chocolate fondant. In a saucepan, combine 40 g of butter, 75 ml of milk, three tablespoons of sugar, and cocoa. Put on a small fire and stir continuously until the mass boils and becomes homogeneous and glossy. (Foods and spoons are different for everyone, so adjust the thickness of the fondant with milk. The consistency of the mass should be like condensed milk.)
13. Let the chocolate fondant cool slightly.

    

14. Pour chocolate fondant on the chilled Spartak cake. Decorate to your liking. Decorated the cake with ready-made marshmallows. Spartak honey chocolate cake must soak well, at least 3-4 hours.

Bon appetit!