Your cake
"They say that Vasa's cake is an authentic Serbian cake whose recipe dates back to 1908. According to the story, it was created as a sign of gratitude of the mother-in-law to her son-in-law, Vaso Čokrljan from Paraćin, who took his wife to Viennese doctors because it was said that childbirth could endanger the lives of children and women.Wife Jelena gave birth to a healthy and large child, and we were left with a recipe for this classic of Serbian cuisine.Whether the story is true or not, it does not matter, but it is important that this cake belongs to culinary legends and that every woman needs to make it at least once in her life. "This is how the story of the legendary Jelena cake begins on her blog http://foodforthought-jelena.blogspot.com/2011/10/vasina-torta-klasik-srpske -kuhinje.html Vasa's cake is also the cake of my childhood, except that then, like most children, I didn't like shaum, and now, of course, I don't have that problem. Thank you Jelena for remembering the smells
Preparation steps
- Bark: Whisk the egg whites, then add one tablespoon of sugar at a time, until a firm shaum is formed. Add the egg yolks one by one and mix them lightly, just turning the sham, with a food processor, from the bottom up. Also add flour, ground walnuts and chocolate, making sure that the sham is as low as possible. Line a 24 cm round cake tin with baking paper. Bake the crust, at 180 C for about 25 minutes (depending on your oven). Remove the crust from the mold and allow to cool completely. I baked in a 26 cm mold, so my crust is a little thinner.
- Filling: mix the egg yolks with the sugar with a mixer and cook them on steam for about 5 minutes (the egg yolks are cooked here briefly only for heat treatment). Cool them completely. When cool, combine them with previously whipped butter. Steam 200 g of ground walnuts with hot milk in which 125 g of sugar is dissolved. Add melted chocolate, grated orange peel and exactly 10 tablespoons of orange juice to the lukewarm mixture. When the egg and butter cream has cooled, as well as the cream with the walnuts, combine them, stirring with a mixer for about a minute.
- After the crust has cooled, we put it on a serving tray, now we put the hoop back around it, and we apply the filling over the crust. Cool well.
- Shaum. This is the only difference between Jelena's recipe for Vasa's cake and my mom's recipe. Mom didn't steam it while adding powdered sugar to the tightly beaten egg whites. As I told you already, I did it in Jelena's way, although I don't think there are any big differences. Therefore. Sprinkle the sugar with water, you already know that for sure until those white bubbles are formed, more precisely until the mixture reaches the density of thicker honey. During this time, when you see that the spinning is coming to an end, at the same time you finish whipping the egg whites (it is very important that they are firmly whipped), put them to steam in a pot in which water is already boiling and gradually stirring in a very thin stream. pinched sugar. The only thing that matters here is synchronization and real timing. Everything else is a piece of cake. : D Whisk everything well for 5 minutes from the moment when the powdered sugar is added. Well, that's the difference ... mom stirred the egg whites with the powdered sugar (without steaming) until the mixture cooled completely!
- Take the cake out of the fridge and carefully out of the hoop, align everything in a circle with a knife, then return the hoop, without squeezing the hoop and carefully apply the sham, but do not press it, so firmly that no air (holes) remain inside the sham. Remove the hoop and fix it again with a hot knife (steamed with hot water) if necessary. Leave best overnight to cool well.
- Chocolate icing: melt the chocolate, a spoonful of milk, oil and a little butter (if you don't want to have a very crispy crust, which is a little harder to cut without cracking) and pour the icing over the cold cake, stir the cake a little to let the chocolate run over down. Do not put the glaze over the thick pattern.
- Unique taste, memory and smells of childhood. : D
