Russian & Ukrainian · Dessert
Medovik
- Advanced
- 3 h
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with a sweet edge rounding the corners, richness that coats and comforts.
Ingredients
- Layers: 100g honey, 100g butter, 150g sugar, 2 eggs, 1 tsp soda; cooked warm, then 450g flour
- The soda goes into the warm honey and FOAMS: that caramel foam is the flavor
- Cream: 500g smetana + 200g condensed milk, or smetana whipped with sugar
- 8–10 paper-thin baked layers + one sacrificed for crumbs
- 24 hours of patience, mandatory
The skills inside
The words inside
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Warm honey, butter, sugar; whisk in soda and watch it foam pale and triple; eggs; flour to a soft warm dough.
- Divide in 9; roll each paper-thin; bake 180°C, 4–5 min per layer to gold biscuit. 5 min
- Trim hot against a plate; save every scrap and grind to crumbs.
- Stack with generous smetana cream; coat; press crumbs over everything. Refrigerate 24 h: the layers drink the cream and turn to velvet. 600 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Sugar stages & caramel 53 recipes
- Nothing is stirred once it is boiling, and any crystals clinging to the side of the pan are brushed down rather than left to fall in.
- Judged by temperature or by a tested stage rather than by time: consecutive stages are a few degrees apart and look identical in the pan.
- Colour is read off the heat and in good light, remembering that sugar keeps darkening after the flame is out.
- Stopped decisively at the point wanted: off the heat and into the next liquid or onto a cold surface, rather than left to coast in a hot pan.
- The result is clear and smooth rather than grainy, cloudy, or seized into a solid mass.
Where it goes wrong It was stirred after coming to the boil, or a stray crystal from the side of the pan fell back in. One crystal seeds the whole pan and the syrup turns grainy within seconds, and once sugar has crystallised the only cure is more water and starting the whole thing again.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Tawny Port
- Also Right
- PX Sherry or bourbon
- From the Taps
- Barleywine
- Zero-Proof
- Cold-brew coffee
Caramel echoing caramel: oxidative aging built the same flavors into the glass that the pan built into the plate.
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