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Cake "Abrikotin" – forgotten Soviet shortbread cake
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Cake "Abrikotin"

Heavenly crumbly bases and incredibly soft cream make the cake "Abrikotin" a special taste experience. Not without reason it was so popular in the Soviet Union. In the meantime, the delicious shortbread cake has fallen into oblivion. According to this recipe you can make it yourself at home.
Course Dessert
Cuisine Russian, Soviet
Prep Time 1 hour 25 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Cooling time 3 hours 30 minutes
Servings 8

Ingredients

for the dough

  • 180 g butter (room-warm)
  • 100 g powdered sugar
  • 1 egg
  • approx. 340 g flour
  • 6 g baking powder
  • vanilla
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • flour for the work surface

for the cream

  • 220 g butter (room-warm)
  • 120 ml milk
  • 130 g sugar
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 2 tbsp apricot liqueur (room-warm)

for the sugar icing

  • 100 g powdered sugar
  • approx. 15 ml raspberry juice
  • 1 tbsp apricot liqueur

for the chocolate icing

  • 1 tbsp cocoa powder
  • 1 tbsp powdered sugar
  • approx. 2 tbsp apricot liqueur

for the decorating

  • whole almonds

Instructions

Preparation of the dough

  • Beat soft butter, powdered sugar, vanilla and salt for about 5 minutes until fluffy light mass.
  • Add egg and beat until homogeneous.
  • Mix flour with baking powder, add it in batches to the butter mixture and knead just briefly to form a soft dough.
  • Divide the dough quickly into 5 pieces and chill them, covered, for 30 minutes.
  • First take a piece of dough from the refrigerator, roll it lightly in flour, roll it out into a rectangle on a sheet of baking paper and pierce it in several places with a fork. Pull the baking paper with the cake base onto a baking sheet and bake it in a preheated oven at 200 °C top and bottom heat for about 7 minutes. Repeat the same with the remaining four pieces of dough and let the five cake layers cool down.
  • If you have leftover dough when rolling out the cake layers, roll them out thinly, bake them in the same way as the cake layers and crumble them finely.

Preparation of the cream

  • Mix milk, egg yolks and sugar to a homogeneous mass in a thick-bottomed saucepan. Bring the mixture to the boil, stirring constantly, and then simmer for about 5 minutes until it thickens slightly (about the consistency of sweetened condensed milk). Take the milk syrup off the heat and let it cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally.
  • Beat softened butter for about 4 - 5 minutes until it becomes a fluffy light mass.
  • Add the milk syrup in batches, beating each time until a homogeneous creamy mass.
  • Add apricot liqueur and whip briefly to a homogeneous cream.

Preparation of the sugar icing

  • Put powdered sugar in a bowl, add apricot liqueur first and then raspberry juice in batches, stirring until you have a viscous pink icing.
  • Pour the icing over one of the five cake layers and let it dry briefly.

Preparation of the chocolate icing

  • Place powdered sugar and cocoa powder in a bowl and mix.
  • Add apricot liqueur in batches, stirring until you have a viscous chocolate icing.

Preparation of the cake

  • Spread the remaining four cake layers generously with the cream (leave some for the sides of the cake) and stack them on top of each other. Place the cake layer with the icing on top last.
  • Spread the sides of the cake with the remaining cream and sprinkle the sides with the crumbs (or alternatively with ground nuts).
  • Draw thin lines on the surface of the cake with the chocolate icing and decorate with almonds. Refrigerate the cake "Abrikotin" for at least 3 hours or preferably overnight.

Notes

  • The amount of flour indicated may vary. Add the flour mixed with baking powder to the butter mixture in batches until the dough has the right consistency. It should be very soft, not sticky and in any case not too firm.
  • When adding flour to the butter mixture, first use a dough scraper for mixing and only at the end knead the dough with your hands. In no case knead the dough too long, but only briefly until a homogeneous consistency. Otherwise, the butter would melt from the heat of your hands, so you would need more and more flour while kneading. As a result, the cake layers would not taste crumbly after baking, but dry.
  • It is important that butter, the milk syrup and apricot liqueur are all room-warm and all three are about the same temperature before whipping into the cream so that they can combine well.
  • Instead of using an apricot liqueur, you can make the cream and icing with amaretto or any other fruit liqueur you like. You can also simply omit alcohol in the cream and replace it with water or lemon juice in the icing.
  • Note the detailed tips and tricks for making the cake "Abrikotin" above in the post.