Cake "Damskie palchiki" (Russian choux cake)
Loose choux pastry and delicate sour cream create a heavenly delicious combination of flavors that make up the Russian cake "Damskie palchiki". It tastes airy, fresh and not too sweet. Consisting of many small "fingers" and decorated with chocolate glaze, the choux cake is also a sweet eye-catcher on the dining table. To make it yourself according to this recipe, you only need a few common ingredients, which you may even already have at home and do not have to buy extra for it.
Servings 14
Equipment
- piping bag with star nozzle
- Ø 24 cm large cake ring
Ingredients
for the dough
- 150 g butter
- approx. 7 eggs
- 375 ml water
- 225 g flour
- 1 pinch of salt
for the cream
- 1 kg sour cream
- 280 g powdered sugar
- vanilla
for the chocolate glaze
- 30 g dark chocolate
- 15 g butter
Instructions
Preparation of the dough
- Put softened butter, water and salt in a saucepan and boil briefly, stirring constantly. (The butter must be melted before boiling).
- Take the saucepan off the heat, immediately add flour and mix briskly with a wooden wooden spoon until a large dough ball has formed.
- Put the saucepan back on the stove and heat the dough, stirring and turning it with a wooden spoon, for about 1 - 2 minutes, until the dough comes off the bottom of the saucepan as a dumpling, leaving a white layer of starch.
- Take the saucepan off the heat, transfer the dough to a clean mixing bowl and let it cool to lukewarm.
- Using a wooden wooden spoon or a hand mixer, gradually stir in as many eggs to the batter one at a time until it is shiny and clings to a wooden spoon in peaks. It is best to whisk the last egg in a small bowl and add just enough of it to the dough until it has the right consistency. The batter should be creamy, definitely not runny or firm. (I used 6.5 L size eggs).
- Fill the batter into a piping bag with a star-shaped nozzle and pipe small strips ("fingers") about 5 cm long onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper, leaving enough space between them.
- Bake the choux pastry fingers in a preheated oven at 190 °C top and bottom heat for about 30 minutes until golden brown and let them cool.
Preparation of the cream
- Whip sour cream, powdered sugar and vanilla until creamy.
Shape the choux cake
- Place the cake ring on a flat plate. Dip the choux pastry fingers one by one into the sour cream and spread them side by side, pressed against each other, in layers on the plate inside the ring, so that a cake is formed. Then chill the cake for a few hours.
Preparation of the chocolate glaze
- Melt the dark chocolate and butter together.
- Remove the cake ring from the cake and decorate it as desired with the chocolate glaze.
Notes
- Bring water with butter to the boil only briefly. The butter must be melted before boiling.
- Add flour in one go immediately to the hot water-butter mixture as soon as it is removed from the heat.
- Make sure to burn off the dough dumpling.
- Add eggs only to the choux mixture when it has cooled to lukewarm.
- The right consistency is very important for choux pastry. The amount of eggs is given in the recipe only approximately. Add only enough eggs to the choux mixture until the choux dough is shiny and clings in peaks to a wooden wooden spoon.
- Do not take the choux fingers out of the oven too soon, or they may collapse.
- You can also form the cake without a cake ring. To do this, stack the choux pastry fingers dipped in the cream on top of each other in layers in the shape of a circle.
- Note the detailed tips and tricks for DIY Russian cake "Damskie palchiki" above in the post.