I want to share with you a cake recipe that was a traditional New Year's cake in my family for many years, until I started my pastry experiments. The recipe for this cake was once shared by my mother's employee, who left for Israel 20 years ago, and communication with her, alas, was cut short. She called this cake "Royal". We in the family nicknamed him "Snow Hill" for his resemblance. I don’t know where this recipe came into the hands of that talented woman, but the cake captivated us from the first bite. This cake is similar to ice cream sundae or sherbet. Such a winter! The photo does not convey how fantastic the snow-white hill of meringue snowballs, sprinkled with nut crumbs, looks fantastic. It is made on the basis of French meringue and butter cream with prunes. We had guests who said they didn't like prunes. But only after tasting a piece of this cake, they fell in love with it. Try and make this cake! #winter cake #winter cake #tortizbeze #meringue cake #prune cakes #new year cake #royal cake #snowhill #meringue #prunes
Ingredients: French meringue, egg whites, fine sugar, powdered sugar, lemon juice, salt, cream, butter 82%, can of condensed milk, prunes, walnuts, yolks remaining from proteins (usually them 3)
Cooking method:
First, take the eggs out of the refrigerator, wash them with baking soda and then wipe with vinegar. This is then necessary to degrease them and disinfect them, since we need raw yolks. Wipe with vinegar or alcohol (vodka) also dishes for proteins and whisks. Next - carefully separate the proteins from the yolks, weighing exactly 100 g of protein.
Add a pinch of salt to the proteins and beat at low speed of the mixer until fluffy foam.
When a lush protein foam is formed, we begin to beat with a mixer at medium speed, adding one tablespoon to the mass. sugar every 20-30 seconds.
When you add all the sugar, start adding powdered sugar in the same way.
After the sugar and powder are mixed in, continue to beat the meringue, increasing the speed. The bottom line is to beat the mass very well so that all the sugar dissolves. You can check this by rubbing the protein mass between your fingers. There should be no grains of sugar. I have a small mixer. And it takes me 20 minutes to beat the mass well. But if you have a powerful planetary mixer, then it will be faster.
You will immediately understand that the meringue is ready when the mass begins to lag behind the walls of the bowl, forming caves, and the sugar stops creaking, having dissolved in the mass. At the end, pour in lemon juice to fix.
We cover the baking sheet with parchment, brush a little with vegetable oil. We deposit from a bag or st.l. snowballs. From this amount of meringue they should get 18-20 pieces.
We put it in a cold oven! Those who have electric ovens win here. Meringue dries better at a temperature of 80-100 ° C for 1-1.5 hours. Then it remains white, does not rise much and does not crack. But in my case, with a gas oven, everything is more complicated. You can try to play with minimum temperatures, open the door, turn it on / off. gas, keeping warm but not hot... Still, meringue is difficult to make perfect. Therefore, I set the min. temperature to 150 C ° and dry for 30-35 minutes on the highest level of the oven.
While the meringue is baking, remove the condensed milk and butter from the refrigerator so that they warm up to room temperature.
Soak prunes in boiling water for 15 minutes, rinse, dry and cut into small slices.
Peel walnuts (can be replaced with any other), fry them in a dry frying pan for 5-7 minutes, stirring occasionally. Let the nuts cool and crush them, but not too finely.
Beat soft butter with a mixer until whitening for 2-3 minutes and start adding 1 tbsp. condensed milk, continuously beating the mass. At the end, add the yolks left over from the proteins (if someone is afraid to add yolks, you can not add them). Prunes are sent to the cream last, mix the mass with a spatula. Cream is ready!
Arrange the cooled meringue on a dish in a slide, having previously calculated how many meringue snowballs are needed for each "floor". You need to go out on 3 pieces of the penultimate layer and 1 piece of the top. Each "floor" is smeared with cream. The rest of the cream should cover the sides of the cake.
Sprinkle the cake with chopped nuts and refrigerate for 5-8 hours to infuse the cake.
Also, from this amount of meringue, you can make portioned baskets, like on Pavlova, and then fill them with cream.
And last year I decorated the cake like a real snow slide, adding meringue trees and a chocolate house.
I hope you enjoy the cake and continue its story in other families!🥰