The technology of making an Egyptian cake is not easy. Production is time consuming, but the result is worth it. If someone asks you why such a dessert is remarkable, you can safely say that there are few others that are just as sweet. Caramel or nut crumbs in a cream resemble the grains of sand of the Egyptian deserts, for which the cake got such an exotic name.
Egyptian Cake - General Cooking Principles
• The dough for nut cakes is prepared only on the basis of lavishly whipped with sugar proteins, in which nut crumbs interfere. Flour is added only in small quantities or not used at all.
• A thick protein dough is placed in a thin layer on parchment, on which the contours of the future cake are drawn in advance with a simple pencil. It is not recommended to grease the paper with oil or sprinkle with flour, otherwise it will be difficult to separate it from the baked workpiece. To get even edges of the dessert, you can use the form, the bottom of which must be lined with parchment paper.
• Before placing the test in the oven, it must be warmed up, setting the temperature strictly at 180 degrees. It takes about 20 minutes to bake one cake. The degree of readiness is checked by light pressure on the surface - it should spring and not stick.
• Cakes are coated with two types of cream: custard and cream. Custard cream mass is prepared from the remaining, after making the dough, yolks, in milk with the addition of butter. For a creamy cream, well-chilled cream is whipped with sugar until a dense, non-flowing mass is obtained.
• The most noticeable component of the Egyptian cake is a crispy layer of caramel and nuts. It is prepared from separately boiled sugar caramel, which is crushed and mixed with finely chopped nuts and cream. Often pralines are made from sugar and nuts. After solidification, it is crushed, interrupted by a blender.
• When forming a dessert, cakes are coated in a special way. First, custard is applied to the nut billet, then greased with cream, which is pre-mixed with caramel crumbs or pralines. The surface of the dessert is leveled with custard. Decorate the Egyptian cake with caramel slices or pralines.
• After making the dessert, they must be allowed to stand in the refrigerator for at least four hours, so that the cakes are saturated and the creamy layer is frozen.
• The dough and cream are never tinted or supplemented with fillers. For a change, you can experiment with the taste of caramel or praline. The caramel mass for the Egyptian cake can be cooked not only from sugar, honey or juice give it a special taste, color and aroma. You can add cocoa in the praline; it will ennoble the dessert with a delicate chocolate flavor.
Classic Egyptian Caramel Cake Recipe
Ingredients:
• nine proteins;
• one and a half tablespoons of flour;
• 150 gr. peeled nuts;
• granulated sugar - 230 grams.
For cream:
• nine yolks;
• 2/3 packs of oil;
• 250 gr. granulated sugar;
• five large spoons of first-class flour
• a bag of vanilla powder;
• 350 ml of milk.
For a nut layer:
• chopped nuts - 120 gr.;
• an incomplete glass of sugar;
• 350 ml of high-fat liquid cream.
Cooking method:
1. With a blender or coffee grinder, chop the nuts into small crumbs, divide it in three equal parts.
2. Beat three proteins, gradually adding a third of sugar to them. The protein mass whipped in accordance with all the rules has a dense structure and a characteristic glossy shine.
3. Add a third of the chopped nuts, add 0.5 tablespoons of flour and mix, carefully, the newly added components in the proteins. This should be done without allowing the protein mass to settle.
4. Cover a small thick-walled pan or a detachable form with parchment and lay out the protein dough, flatten. Be sure to moisten the paper with lean oil, otherwise it will be difficult to separate it from the cake.
5. After placing the dough in a hot oven, and maintaining the temperature of 170 degrees, bake the cake. Baking will take from 15 to 20 minutes, the finished workpiece should be well browned.
6. Remove the hot cake. Do not try to immediately remove the parchment, first moisten the paper slightly with a tissue, then immediately remove it. Do not wait for the workpiece to cool.
7. In the same way, bake two more cakes.
8. For the cream, beat the yolks and sugar, add milk, add flour with vanilla, stir and put on very little heat. Stirring vigorously, bring the mixture to a boil. Set aside and do not stop stirring for another two minutes. Tighten the container with thickened cream with a film and leave to cool.
9. Into the cooled cream, whipping with a mixer, gradually introduce the softened oil.
10. Make the caramel. Pour sugar into a thick-walled pan or stewpan and put on medium-low heat. Stirring, warm the granulated sugar until completely melted. Then reduce the heat and, without ceasing to stir, boil until a light cream color is formed. Closely monitor the color, the burnt sugar will be bitter.
11. Pour the finished caramel onto a greased parchment sheet and leave to harden. Then cover it with another sheet of parchment and push it with a rolling pin. Do not overdo it, you do not need to turn caramel into crumbs, just crush it into small pieces.
12. Whip cream until noticeably tightened, mix with finely chopped nuts and caramel. Do not add all the sweet crumbs, leave a little to decorate the cake.
13. Collect the cake. Place one preparation on the dish and cover with custard. Cover it with a little creamy mass with caramel and nuts. Lay another cake on top, smear it in the same way. Apply a thinner layer to the last cake.
14. Above the sides and sides of the cake, generously coat with a creamy mass and sprinkle with deferred caramel.
15. To improve the taste and impregnation, place dessert for three hours in the cold.
Egyptian Praline Cake Recipe
Ingredients:
• ten proteins;
• 60 gr. high-grade wheat flour;
• granulated sugar - a glass with a slide;
• 0.25 tablespoons of salt;
• 200 gr. peeled nuts.
For custard:
• white flour - 100 gr.;
• a teaspoon of vanilla extract;
• a glass of sugar;
• ten yolks;
• 2/3 packs of high-fat oil;
• milk - 300 ml.
For a layer with pralines:
• 400 ml of cream with maximum fat content;
• three spoons of sugar, homemade powder;
• hazelnuts (hazelnuts) - 150 gr.;
• 150 gr. sugar.
Cooking method:
1. Arrange the walnut kernels in an even layer in a thick-walled pan and place on a very low heat. Warming up for a minute, turn over to the other side and fry too. Then remove from the stove, spread out on parchment and leave. Grind the cooled nuts with a knife. For a finer crumb, use a blender. Divide the nut crumbs in two.
2. Take five eggs and carefully break the shell. Collect the squirrels in a clean, dry bowl, and transfer the yolks to another container equipped with a lid, they will be needed for the cream.
3. Add salt to the proteins and, at the lowest speed, start whipping with a mixer. When a lush mass is formed, incrementally increasing speed and adding no more than a spoon, enter half the norm for sugar.
4. Mix one part of the nut crumbs with 30 grams of the sifted flour, transfer to the protein mass and stir in with gentle “folding” movements.
5. Transfer the dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment. Using a spatula, distribute it with a uniform rectangular layer, half a centimeter thick, or slightly larger.
6. At 180 degrees in a preheated cupboard, bake the cake. Baking time will take no more than 20 minutes, or maybe less. With light pressure, a well-baked cake should spring.
7. Drag the parchment with the workpiece onto the wire rack and leave it to cool. Remove the paper from the cooled cake.
8. From the remaining products, bake another workpiece, of the same size and shape.
9. Brew the cream. Transfer the yolks to a bowl. Pierce the shell with a fork, add a third of a glass of cold milk and mix.
10. Mix flour with three tablespoons of granulated sugar in the yolks. Mix well, you should get a homogeneous rare mass. Add milk if necessary.
11. Pour the remaining milk into a saucepan, add 75 grams of sugar and, stirring, bring to a boil.
12. Intensively whisk the egg mixture, add hot, almost boiling milk into it in a thin stream.
13. Pour the cream base into the saucepan and, without stopping stirring, warm until it thickens.
14. Pour the cream into a clean bowl, add the vanilla and mix well. Cover its surface with a film, cool.
15. Beating the cooled base with a mixer, add softened oil into the portions in it. Cover the resulting smooth cream with a lid and place in the refrigerator for half an hour.
16. Make pralines. Pour sugar into a thick-walled pan and spread evenly over its bottom. At a minimum heat, bring granulated sugar to dissolve, then continue to warm constantly mixing. When the caramel becomes amber, add hazelnuts, mix well and remove from the stove.
17. On a parchment, lay a thin layer of caramelized nuts, cool. Then break the frozen layer into pieces and break into a crumb blender.
18. To dense peaks, whip the cream, adding to them freshly prepared icing sugar. Pour two thirds of the praline into the creamy mass and mix well.
19. Cut the cooled nut cakes in half. The result is four identical blanks.
20. Transfer one of them to a wide dish and coat with custard. On top, apply a creamy creamy mass with pralines and cover with another blank.
21. So put the whole cake together. Level the surface of the cake and its sidewalls with the brewed cream and sprinkle with the previously set pralines.
Egyptian Cake Recipe Without Flour
Ingredients
For one cake:
• three proteins;
• 60 gr. almonds;
• three tablespoons of beet sugar.
For custard:
• 3/4 packs of oil;
• six yolks;
• 300 ml of milk;
• two tablespoons of starch;
• vanilla powder - 1 gr. (optional component).
In the creamy mass:
• 150 gr. finely chopped almonds;
• a glass of high fat cream;
• sugar refined, small - 150 gr.
Cooking method:
1. Grind the almonds with a blender.
2. Beat whites and sugar into a dense mass with a characteristic glossy sheen and gently mix almond crumbs into it. For this stage, it is better to choose small sugar and add it gradually, then it will dissolve well and will not spoil the cake.
3. Put the nut-protein mass on a baking sheet covered with parchment, smooth. The dough layer should not be more than 0.7 cm, choose the form yourself. You can draw a circle on paper in advance and distribute the dough on it. Take a suitable shape or plate as a template.
4. Drag the baked cake with the parchment onto the table and let it cool completely, and put a new portion of the dough on the baking sheet and bake another piece. Remove parchment only after the cake has completely cooled.
5. An Egyptian cake will require three such pieces.
6. Beat the yolks with sugar into a froth. In cold milk, dilute corn starch. Combine both mixtures, mix thoroughly and place on moderate heat. As soon as the mass begins to boil, lower the flame to a minimum and continue to boil until thickened. To prevent the cream base from burning, continuously stir it with a spoon with a long handle, trying to separate it from the bottom.
7. Cover the brewed mass with a film and bring, leaving it on the table, to room temperature. Then whisk with a soft butter.
8. On a low heat in a pan, dissolve the sugar and bring it to amber. Then pour on parchment moistened with vegetable oil and lightly smear. Break the caramel into pieces. Leave a little for sprinkling, and roll the rest with a rolling pin through a sheet of parchment to form small crumbs.
9. Stir finely chopped almonds mixed with caramel crumbs into whipped cream.
10. Form a cake, spreading cakes with custard, a layer of which must be lubricated with a caramel-cream mixture. Level the surface and sides of the dessert with custard and sprinkle a layer of it with the delayed pieces of caramel.
Recipe for a low-calorie Egyptian cake with a delicate chocolate flavor
Ingredients:
• Three walnuts based on the first recipe.
For custard:
• one egg;
• 30 gr. baking flour;
• granulated sugar - a little more than half a glass;
• 300 gr. oily 30% sour cream;
• sweet cream butter - 200 gr.;
• a bag of crystalline vanillin.
In chocolate pralines:
• half a glass of refined sugar;
• a teaspoon of cocoa powder;
• peeled almonds - 100 gr.
For caramel:
• half a glass of sugar.
Cooking method:
1. Pound the egg with sugar in a small metal bowl or saucepan and place on light heat. As soon as the mixture begins to boil, add flour, rub and continue to simmer.
2. After about a minute, add sour cream to the mixture, add vanilla, mix well and wait until the boil begins. In no case do not boil! Strain the cream base with minimal heat and, as soon as it thickens, remove from heat and cool.
3. In a separate bowl with a mixer, combine the pieces of softened butter into a homogeneous mass. Then, whisking all the same and adding on a spoon, enter the whole brewed base.
4. Make chocolate pralines. Pre-roasted, well-cooled almonds, transfer to a thick-walled saucepan, pour sugar and place on low heat.
5. Constantly stirring, wait until the crystals are completely dissolved and the syrup becomes sticky. Check availability by dripping viscous sugar syrup into water.
6. Put a hot, slightly viscous mixture on a parchment with a thin layer. When hardens, break into pieces and beat with a blender, adding cocoa.
7. From sugar, over low heat, cook a viscous, amber syrup. Like walnut pralines, pour it on parchment and cool, then finely break it.
8. Put one of the nut cakes on the dish. Spread it with sour cream. Sprinkle a half of praline on top and lay another cake, cover with cream and sprinkle with chocolate praline. Coat the last, third cake with a thin layer of cream, and even the sides of the dessert with it.
9. Decorate the cake, sprinkling its entire surface with pieces of caramel.
Egyptian Honey Caramel Recipe
Ingredients:
• any liquid honey - 50 gr.;
• 80 gr. fine sugar refined.
Cooking method:
1. Transfer honey to a small saucepan with a thick or multi-layered bottom. Pour in all the sugar, set to medium-low heat and cook until the sugar has completely melted and combined with honey.
2. After that, slightly reduce the heat and boil the honey syrup. To check the readiness of the caramel mass, drop a little syrup into the water. If it does not blur, and slowly sinks to the bottom - done.
3. Spread a thin layer of hot honey caramel on a silicone mat or greased parchment and let it harden.
How to make fruit or berry caramel for an Egyptian cake
Ingredients:
• eight tablespoons of fine sugar;
• three spoons of any juice, without pulp;
• juice 1/4 of an average lemon.
Cooking method:
1. Combine all the components in a small thick-walled bowl and set to warm over medium heat, achieving complete dissolution of sugar.
2. Reduce heat and continue cooking until the caramel has a golden hue.
3. Next, spread the hot caramel mass with an even thin layer on the silicone mat, and let it solidify well. In the future, use according to the recipe for the cake.
4. If dark juice was used in the preparation, it will be difficult to determine the readiness by color. Put a little boiled syrup on the surface of the water, if the drop does not spread, the caramel is ready.
Egyptian Cake - Cooking Tips and Useful Tips
• Protein mass will beat better if you use fine sugar.
• Be sure to wipe the bowl well before preparing the dough. Squirrels will not break in contaminated or wet dishes.
• Mix flour and nut crumbs in the protein mass with extreme care, being careful not to disturb its airiness. Otherwise, the cakes will not rise and will be stiff.
• Never grease parchment; this will make it difficult to remove it. Only remove paper after the nut cake has completely cooled.
