Medovnik

It was my turn to bake a birthday cake for the lab: Adrian's belated birthday celebration; so I google-imaged "cake recipe" and found this Czech honey cake that looked extremely intriguing. Everybody on the web praised the cake as if it's something completely surreal and unimaginably delicious. Then I saw a blog post titled "yucky honey cake" describing the baking of the same cake following the exact same recipe. ** Sigh ** After considerable debate I decided I had to try it. "Worst case", I though, "I'd get a store-cake". I didn't have to! I couldn't tell exactly what it would taste like based on the crumbs-dipped-in-cream I tasted, but I could definitely tell that it's not going to be completely yucky.



Making it involved a bit of muscle work: a lot of stirring of dough that got progressively tougher as more flour was added. And then the eggy cream had to be constantly stirred so it won't get all chunky.

The cake had to sit for at least 8 hours, and I didn't know how that sitting would affect it exactly, so I was a bit anxious to see and hear people's reactions to it. Turns out sitting made the cake layers soft and smooth and the flavors all merged. It sliced beautifully, exhibiting nice layers (which are not easily seen in this fuzzy picture).
People liked it! I thought it was pretty good, though a bit too sweet for my taste (and I do have a sweet tooth!).
I wouldn't call it the best cake ever, but it was an interesting thing to try. Now I have to go to Prague and taste the real thing!