Californian Kazakh

Passport & Plate - "Royal" cake

Ingredients
For layers:
-flour 1 cup
-sugar 1 cup
- sour cream 1/2 cup
-baking powder 1 small spoon
-1 egg
- walnuts, poppy seeds (or sunflower seeds), raisins (or coconut/cacao)
For cream:
-2 cans of condensed milk
-3 packages of butter

 

How to prepare this recipe
1. the first step is to do the three layers. In order to make a layer you should mix egg and sugar, then add there flour, baking powder and sour cream. It is really important to mix everything properly. The first layer can be made of walnuts. After mixing everything thoroughly, cut the piece of paper in the form of your baking dish, put your mix on paper within the dish and bake it in oven for 20-25 minutes under 170-180 degrees celsius.
Do the same procedure, but adding poppy seeds (or sunflower seeds) for the second layer, and adding coconut/cacao (raisins for sour taste) in the third layer.
2. for the cream boil two cans of condensed milk in water for 2 hours. Let it cool down and mix it with butter that was softened beforehand.
3. the last step is to assemble the cake. Apply cream, put the three layers on each other. Let the cake to stay in room temperature for about an hour, and then let it stay in the fridge all day so it can become moist. Decorate the cake with anything you want.

 

The story behind this recipe
New Year celebration is a big deal in my post-Soviet country called Kazakhstan. It is basically just like Christmas celebration just 6 days later. All the family members come home, prepare their favorite dishes and just enjoy quality time together. One of my mother's signature dishes for NY is her cake called "Royal". Even being Kazakh, she still loves to cook a lot of dishes from so called Soviet kitchen - a unique blend of all former Soviet Republics. My mother's "Royal" cake was such a Soviet masterpiece which took her about three hours to bake and decorate. It was baked for each NY, and it was essential part of my childhood. I still associate this cake with everything perfect. There is also another reason that makes this cake so special to me. About 15 years ago, when I was 6 years old my mother as usually baked the cake. I love the all process of its preparation, and was equally fascinated with it each year. I liked to smell its divine creamy scent and look at at from different angles. So when everybody went to bed, I came to kitchen and tried to get the cake from the upper shelf. I was too short, the chair was too unstable. Several seconds later I lost my balance and found myself lying on the floor all covered with what was my mother's cake. I spent about an hour crying, because I truly believed that I ruined the most important holiday. My father who came to the kitchen to drink water found me still crying an hour later. I thought he would be really angry, but instead he did one of the most awesome things that helped to understand how blessed I am. We spent the rest of the night cleaning the kitchen, and baking. It was quite an accomplishment for two people who never cooked before. At the morning the cake was ready, It was ugly, missed several ingredients, but still was the best cake in the whole world.
From then on this cake was not only the symbol of holidays, homeland, miracles and joy, it was the symbol of my father's love and true family bonds.