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The cake has emerged as a symbol of Kyiv, largely due to its distinctive brand name and packaging featuring the depiction of a horse chestnut leaf, which was present on the Coat of Arms of Kyiv during the Soviet era.
The cake consists of two light layers of meringue with hazelnuts covered in a chocolate glaze, and filled with a buttercream-like filling.[1]
History
Opened cake, close-up.
Once confectioners forgot to put some amount of egg-white for the biscuit in a cooler. The next morning the chef Kostiantyn Petrenko, with the help of 17-year-old assistant Nadiya Chernogor, in order to hide the mistake of his colleagues, spread the frozen cakes with buttercream, strewed with powder, decorated with floral ornaments.[3][citation needed]
The recipe of the Kyiv cake has changed with time: in the 1970s, bakers perfected the process of making the egg-white and nut mixture. They then started to add hazelnuts, and began experimenting with adding peanuts and cashews; however, these nuts were expensive and increased the cake's cost, so the factory returned to using hazelnuts.
The Soviet Union in those years actively supported India, which paid with goods. Thus, in 1956, the USSR received a huge batch of cashew nuts. The party instructed the country's confectioners to create a dessert using these nuts, and the Kyiv factory named after Karl Marx was most capable of doing so. At the factory, they say: "The author of the recipe and production technology of the Kyiv cake is Kostiantyn Petrenko. We had such a head of the biscuit shop, he once worked as a master. The recipe and technology were developed in 1956. The creation of the cake was preceded by experiments for several years with ancient, exquisite recipes, because nothing appears out of nowhere."[3]
Preparation
Nuts are fried, finely chopped and mixed with flour. The egg whites are whipped, with the gradual addition of sugar and vanilla powder. Both mixtures are combined into a dough, which is spread on paper in an even layer 0.6–0.7 cm thick and baked at 150–160 °C. The baked cakes are dried for 12 hours at 25–30 °C, then the baking paper is separated from them by moistening the cakes with water.
The cakes are spread with chocolate buttercream and stacked. The sides are then also coated with cream and dusted with crumbs from the cake trimmings. The top is decorated with colored buttercream (in the image of a blooming chestnut) or with fresh and candied fruits.[4]
