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Cottage Cheese and Honey Cake

I want to share a recipe for a cake that I made for my daughter's birthday. We had many guests - the cake was big and beautiful (about 3 kg), and most importantly, very delicious. The combination of soft honey cakes and cottage cheese-butter cream, topped with a delicate protein-butter cream, is very tasty! You can also enhance the flavor of the cake with pieces of prunes or dried apricots.

For the 1st honey sponge cake:

Eggs

4 large

Sugar

1 cup

Honey

3 tbsp

Flour

1.5 cups

Baking Soda

1 tsp (activated with 1 tbsp lemon juice or vinegar)

Cottage Cheese-Butter Cream:

Cottage Cheese

7 oz (soft 9%)

Heavy Cream

3/4 cup (33% fat)

Powdered Sugar

1/2 - 3/4 cup

Vanilla Sugar

1 tsp

Protein-Butter Cream:

Eggs

8 (whites only, 1 cup)

Sugar

2 cups

Unsalted Butter

3 cups (room temperature)

Lemon Juice

pinch

Vanilla Extract

Syrup for soaking the cake layers:

Sugar

6 tbsp

Water

9 tbsp

Brandy

3 tbsp

To prepare the cottage cheese and honey cake, first make the honey sponge cake. I made 2 sponge cakes with a diameter of 10 inches. If you need a smaller cake, one sponge cake will be enough, and you can use a 9-10 inch pan for a taller cake. Prepare the cake batter just before baking. I only had one suitable pan, so I baked the sponge cakes one at a time. If you have two pans, you can bake two cake layers simultaneously. Let the baked sponge cakes cool completely on a rack. I sliced each sponge cake into 3 layers.

If you cut a freshly baked sponge cake, its tender structure may crumble with the knife.

Prepare the cottage cheese-butter cream. Use a mixer to whip the heavy cream with powdered sugar, gradually increasing the speed until stiff peaks form (about 3-5 minutes). Both the cream and the utensils should be cold.

Mix the whipped cream with strained cottage cheese, gently fold together.

The cottage cheese should have a smooth texture, you can also use a blender instead of straining.

For the brandy syrup, combine sugar and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil while stirring and remove any foam. Then cool the syrup to about 38 - 40 degrees Fahrenheit and add brandy.

Do not flavor the syrup while hot, as it will cause the aromatic compounds to evaporate.

Soak the cake layers with the syrup. Make sure to do this evenly, do not use too much syrup. The cake layers should be slightly moist.

Assemble the cake, spreading the cottage cheese-butter cream on each layer of cake.

Now prepare the protein-butter cream. I tinted the cream slightly pink with beet juice. Spread the cream on top and around the cake, smoothing it out evenly.

Now, decorate the cake! I tinted the cream from pale pink to lilac using beet juice (the more juice, the richer the color). I found a special green food coloring for the leaves. I used special pastry tips. I don't have much experience, some flowers took some effort. But overall, it all turned out well. 1 hour before serving, take the cottage cheese and honey cake out of the refrigerator to allow the cream's consistency to become soft and delicate.

(5/5)