Julia Cake
6 servings
90 minutes
The 'Julia' cake is a refined combination of airy meringue, crispy shortcrust pastry, and delicate custard flavored with a hint of currant tartness. This dessert recalls the classic Russian tradition of using multilayered textures to create a harmony of flavors. The lightness of the meringue meets the density of the cake layer, creating a unique blend of airiness and fragility. The custard adds softness and silkiness, while the currant provides a refreshing fruity note. This cake is perfect for festive tea gatherings, filling the atmosphere with coziness and elegance. It is both simple and sophisticated, attracting with its aesthetics and depth of flavor sensations.
1
Prepare the shortcrust pastry: cut soft margarine into the flour, crumble it with your hands. Add baking soda and extinguish with vinegar, mix. Separate the yolks from the whites, add the yolks and 1-2 tablespoons of sugar to the dough, set the whites aside for now. Continue kneading the dough until it forms a ball.
- Wheat flour: 2.5 glasss
- Margarine: 250 g
- Soda: 0.5 teaspoon
- Vinegar: 0.5 tablespoon
- Sugar: 1.5 glass
- Chicken egg: 2 pieces
2
Spread the dough with your fingers on a floured baking sheet to form a cake about 0.5 cm thick, maybe a little thinner. Bake the cake at 180°C for about 15-20 minutes until it slightly hardens and turns golden but is not fully cooked yet.
- Wheat flour: 2.5 glasss
3
Closer to the end of 20 minutes, beat the egg whites with 1 cup of sugar with a mixer until a thick white mass forms.
- Sugar: 1.5 glass
4
Take the baking tray with the cake out of the oven and spread meringue evenly over it.
5
Return the tray to the oven and bake for another 10-15 minutes, increasing the heat. The meringue will rise in beautiful waves and slightly brown, becoming crispy and brittle on top – this is the signal to turn it off and take out our cake!
6
We will wait for the meringue cake to cool on the tray – the shortcrust pastry and meringue crumble and break when cut while hot. When warm, the cake can be cut into three parts.
7
While the cake cools down, we make custard. Briefly: dissolve half a cup of sugar and ¼ cup of water over low heat while stirring until the grains disappear. Add the remaining ¼ cup of water after dissolving 1 tablespoon of flour in it. Stir and cook until boiling and thickening. Remove from heat and cool down. Add softened butter to the cooled cream and beat with a mixer until a uniform fluffy mass is achieved. You can use another custard recipe; I took my favorite and simplest one.
- Sugar: 1.5 glass
- Milk: 0.5 glass
- Wheat flour: 2.5 glasss
- Milk: 0.5 glass
- Butter: 100 g
8
Assembling the cake: 1st layer – meringue sponge; 2nd layer – custard; 3rd layer – meringue sponge; 4th layer – custard; 5th layer – pureed currants; 6th layer – meringue sponge.
- Currant jam: 100 g