Madarica Cake

Hungarian Layer Cake (Mađarica) Veganized

Veganized Hungarian Layer Cake. Every Balkan Vegan’s dream come true. Six layers of thin, subtle and elastic shortcrust. Six layers of rich chocolate. Seventh heaven as its baked best.

Ingredients

Layers:

350 g flour120 g vegan butter or margarine cold, cubed2 tbsp sugar2 tbsp ground flax seedpinch of saltca. 10 tbps cold plant milk I used soy

Cream:

750 ml plant milk I used soy4 tbsp sugar100 g flour200 g dark chocolatepinch of salt

Top chocolate layer:

200 g dark chocolate3 tbsp oil

Instructions

Layer dough: put all dry ingredients in the bowl, stir well. Add cold, cubed butter and crumble it with your fingers along with the flour. It will resemble coarse meal. Start adding soymilk, tbsp by tbsp and knead. The dough should be soft but not sticky. Cover it with plastic foil and put in the fridge until you heat up the oven or when you are ready to work.

Heat the oven up to 180°C. Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces. It would help you if you would even weigh the dough so all the pieces are the same. Also, it really helps to outline the bottom of preferred crust size on a piece of baking paper so you roll it out easier. Take a medium-sized baking sheet you'll assemble the cake in, for comparison. Mine was about 15cm x 33cm (6 x 13 inches). This way, all the layers will be the same and when the time comes to cut the cake, you'll have minimum waste.

Take one piece of baking paper, flour it slightly and roll the dough into a rectangle following the outline. You can cut the dough and patch where it's needed but be sure to roll the crust evenly because you don't want those „patches“ to be thick and corners thinner, or something, because the thinner part will burn and you don't want that.

By holding the paper from the sides, put the crust, along with that paper, on the big baking sheet and then into the oven. Bake the crust for ca. 7 minutes, depending on your oven. The crust should get a bit golden on the edges but not be brown! Ovens without the fan might take up to 10 minutes. Just watch it. And even if you do burn it a bit, you'll know better with the next and it'll all end up covered in chocolate anyway. So don't get overdramatic. Everything is OK.

Take the baked crust out and put it aside to cool. If you have enough baking paper, you can prepare papers for each layer, it'll make it easier and faster. So while one crust is baking, prepare the next. Or, if you are timid with it, you can roll out all the crusts ahead (but keep them cool, not by the stove) and then bake in peace.

Stack baked crust on top of each other but watch not to break them. And if you do, again, it'll all be smudged and covered with chocolate so… don't panic.

When you're done with the crusts, make the filling. Put the dry ingredients in the heavy-bottomed pot and gradually add milk and stir, so there are no lumps. Put the pot on the low heat and stir all the time. Add pieces of chocolate and stir till it's all dissolved in milk. So stir and stir until it's all creamy and pudding-like thick and it becomes hard to stir. It should take good 15 mins on low heat or a bit more.

Start filling the layers immediately. Chose one, the most beautiful and even layer to be on top and save it for last. Any broken or uneven layers will be hidden in between. If it'll make you easier, you can divide the filling into 5 equal parts. Or just eyeball it for reduced fuss and fiddle. So put the filling on, then put the next layer and press it gently. Then repeat, till you're out of layers. Then cover the cake with plastic foil, put some weigh on top (another baking sheet, but not too heavy to squidge all the filling out) and off to the fridge with it.

Wait for few hours or for best results, until tomorrow.

Melt the chocolate, add oil, stir well and spread evenly over the cake. Then wait some more until it's set nicely so you can cut it nicely. Or just dig in, because it's VEGAN HUNGARIAN CAKE, THE BEST CAKE IN THE WORLD! 

If any, keep the leftovers covered in foil for a few days.