Cake "Pautinka" (meringue cake "The Spider Web")
Crispy tender meringue and fruity creamy strawberry butter filling – this is what the Soviet cake "Pautinka", which translates as "Spider Web", is made of. You can make it yourself at home with this recipe with ordinary ingredients. The sweet cake will be loved by those who like meringue desserts.
Servings 10
Equipment
- kitchen thermometer
Ingredients
for the meringue
- 6 egg whites (210 g for me)
- approx. 420 g sugar fine (twice as much as egg whites)
- 1/4 tsp citric acid food grade
for the cream
- 130 g strawberries
- 120 g butter room-warm
- 75 g sugar
- 30 g sweetened condensed milk room-warm
- 25 ml water
- 3 g apple pectin
- 1 tbsp rum room-warm
- vanilla
for the edge
- meringue crumbs
- 30 g walnut kernels roasted and chopped
for the decorating
- 30 g dark chocolate
- strawberries
- walnut kernels
Instructions
Preparation of the meringue
- Beat egg whites with citric acid until foamy.
- Add sugar in portions and continue beating until a white, glossy stiff mass is formed.
- Line two baking sheets with baking paper and spread the meringue mixture on them in the form of three circles, each about 18 cm in diameter (two circles on one baking sheet and one circle on the second baking sheet).
- Dry the three meringue cake layers in the oven at 80 °C convection oven for about 3 hours and let them cool thoroughly.
Preparation of the cream
- Puree strawberries and stir in apple pectin.
- Put the strawberry mixture into a small saucepan, bring to a boil while stirring and simmer for 2 - 3 minutes. Let it cool down afterwards.
- Add sugar and water to a small saucepan, bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly so that the sugar dissolves completely before boiling, and continue to boil the sugar syrup over medium heat until it reaches 108 °C. Then take it off the heat, immediately transfer it to a clean container and let it cool to room temperature.
- Add sweetened condensed milk to the sugar syrup and mix until homogeneous.
- Beat softened butter for about 5 minutes until fluffy and creamy.
- Add the condensed milk-sugar syrup to the butter in batches and beat each time until homogeneous.
- Add vanilla and then rum to the butter cream and beat briefly until homogeneous.
- Pour two tablespoons of butter cream into a small bowl and set aside for the time being. Add the strawberry mixture to the rest of the cream in batches and whip each time to a homogeneous strawberry cream.
Preparation of the cake
- Carefully cut off any bumps in the meringue cake layers, crumble them and mix them with toasted and chopped walnuts.
- Leave a small amount of strawberry cream for the edge of the cake. Spread the remaining strawberry cream on two meringue cake layers and stack them on top of each other. Place the third meringue cake layer on top and spread with the white butter cream set aside without strawberries.
- Spread the edge of the cake with the leftover strawberry cream and sprinkle it with the mixture of walnuts and meringue crumbs.
- Refrigerate the cake while you prepare the decoration.
Decorate the cake
- Melt dark chocolate and let it cool so it doesn't become too runny.
- Pour the chocolate into a piping bag with a very small hole and draw a spiral on the cake. Now use a toothpick to draw lines from the center to the edge of the cake, as if you were cutting it into cake pieces.
- Decorate the cake as you like with strawberries and walnut kernels and chill it for a few hours.
Notes
- The meringue is finished drying when it is also dry from the bottom and no longer moist. To check it, carefully turn one of the meringue cake layers together with the baking paper and tap the bottom side.
- You can make the meringue cake layers the day before and store them in a dry place.
- Instead of making strawberry puree, you can use ready-made strawberry jam for the cream.
- Vanilla for the cream can be vanilla sugar, vanilla powder, vanilla extract or vanilla bean scraped out.
- Rum in the cream can be omitted.
- Note the detailed tips and tricks for making the cake "Pautinka" above in the post.