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5 from 3 votes

HONEY CAKE

Honey cake or Medovnik (in Czech) is a popular cake made on special occasions (especially during Christmastime) and served in every restaurant or coffee shop in the Czech Republic. Most of the time it runs also under the name Marlenka cake. And today I am going to show you how to make this famous Slavic cake at home.
Prep Time55 minutes
Cook Time2 hours
Baking time35 minutes
Total Time2 hours 50 minutes
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: European
Keyword: dulce de leche cake with walnuts, honey cake, marlenka cake, medovik, medovnik
Servings: 10 servings
Author: Julia

Ingredients

Honey cake disks

  • 450 grams ( 3 cups) all-purpose flour
  • 180 grams (1 cup) sugar
  • 180 grams ( 3/4 cup) unsalted butter room temperature
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 6 tablespoon honey
  • 4 tablespoon heavy cream
  • 1 tablespoon cocoa powder

Dulce de Leche buttercream:

  • 70 g ground walnuts
  • 450 g (2 ⅓ cup) unsalted butter
  • 2 cans sweet condensed milk

Sweet Syrup

  • 2 ½ tablespoon white sugar
  • 50 milliliters hot water
  • 150 milliliters dark rum

Decorating cover for cake

  • 50 grams rest of the baked dough
  • 30 grams ground walnuts

Instructions

Honey cake disks

  • Prepare bain-marie (medium sauce pan filled with water) and bring the water to boil. Reduce the heat to simmer and add in a large bowl butter, sugar, eggs, honey and cream. Place the large bowl with all the ingredients over the simmering water. Whisk the mixture until creamy and white, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.
  • In another large bowl of the stand mixer, sift in the flour, baking soda and cocoa powder. Add the warm cream into the dry ingredients and gently mix to combine with spatula.
  • Divide the dough into 7 equal pieces (approx. 130 g/each). Cover the dough with food foil and let the dough rest for 5 minutes. (The dough needs to be always covered with foil not to dry out).
  • Preheat the oven to 180 C/ 356 F, rack in the middle position. Place a parchment paper on a working surface and place the first piece of honey dough on it. Roll out the dough flat, approximately  2-3 mm thin and little larger than 6" pan. Place the 6" pan on the dough and push it in the dough.
  • With a knife or pizza cutter, cut out the circle shape. Place the parchment paper with the dough on a baking sheet and bake for 4-5 minutes or until golden brown. Don't over bake it! It should be soft to touch.
  • Repeat the baking process with the remaining 6 disks. Keep the leftover dough, and at the end roll it as well to 2-3 millimeters thin dough and bake the same way. Cool the cakes on a wired rack.

Dulce de leche buttercream

  • Place two cans of sweet condensed milk (paper removed) into the deep sauce pan with a lid, filled with cold water. Make sure the cans are covered with water. Heat the water to boiling point, then reduce to simmer heat and cook for 2 hours with the lid on. After two hours of cooking, remove the lid and let the water to cool down.
  • Remove the cans from the sauce pan with a help of tongs and let the cans cool down for a minimum of 4 hours, best overnight on the kitchen counter. NEVER OPEN HOT CANS OF SWEET CONDENSED MILK! YOU CAN GET BADLY INJURED! Once the cans are cooled, take a can opener and open the cans. Set aside.
  • In a large bowl of the stand mixer, cream the room temperature butter for 10 minutes, on medium speed. The butter needs to be creamy and white.
  • Next, add the content of caramelized sweet condensed milk and ground walnuts. Mix until well combined. Divide the cream with an icing spatula into 7 equal parts. Let the cream aside and prepare the sweet syrup.

Sweet Syrup

  • Place white sugar and rum in a small cup and add boiling water. Stir with a spoon, so the sugar gets well dissolved.

Decorative cover

  • For the decorative crumbs, take the walnuts and the leftover last honey cake baked disk and run them in the food processor until finely ground.

Assemble the cake

  • Place cut out round parchment paper on a plat and place the first honey cake disk on it. Use a syringe to measure exactly 30 ml of sweet rum syrup on each disk. With a round motion, distribute the syrup all over the first disk.
  • Once the disk is well moisture with the syrup, take one part of the Dulce de leche buttercream and spread it with a long icing spatula all over the disk. Repeat all this with the remaining 6 honey cake disks, while layering on each other.
  • Cover the cake with the last layer of the buttercream and take the decorative cover made from ground walnuts and baked disk. With a help of a longer knife or icing spatula, cover the sides and the top of the cake with the decorative cover.
  • Place the cake in the cake container and let it refrigerate for 24 hours. Cut the beautifully layered cake with dessert knife, about 2 inches large.

Notes

Preparation time doesn't count the waiting time to cool down the sweet condensed milk which is 4 hours and chilling time cake, which is 24 hours.
If you end up with leftover buttercream, simple place it in an airtight container or Ziploc and freeze it for up to 3 months.