Prague cake is a chocolate and biscuit mood, moist and juicy, with cream on the inside and dark chocolate on the outside. To make a prague cake at home you will need to make four pieces: 1) the chocolate and butter sponge, 2) the sponge custard, 3) the chocolate cream, and 4) the chocolate filling.
Ingredients
Chocolate and butter biscuit:
- sugar 150;
- vanilla sugar (pinch for flavor);
- flour 150g;
- baking powder 6g (half a packet);
- 6 eggs (C0);
- cocoa 2 tablespoons;
- butter 40 g;
- pinch of salt.
Syrup to soak the biscuit:
- water 100 g;
- sugar 100 g;
- Brandy or rum 2 tablespoons;
Prague Cake Cream:
- condensed milk 200 g;
- hot water 70 ml;
- egg yolk 3 pcs;
- butter 350 g;
- Cocoa 1 tablespoon with a spoonful.
Filling the cake (icing):
- 200 g dark chocolate;
- 100-200 g butter (or 120 ml cream for a softer pour);
- syrup / honey 1 tablespoon;
- apricot jam (for coating)
We start making the Prague cake with the sponge cake. Prepare the baking dish in advance, since biscuit dough cannot wait.
The treatment of the biscuit mold is called a “French shirt”: a siliconized baking paper is placed on the bottom, and the sides of the mold are greased with butter and dusted with flour. Excess flour is poured out of the form.
All ingredients should be at room temperature. Melt the butter in the microwave and keep it at room temperature while mixing the ingredients.
Separate the whites and yolks over a separate bowl so that no part of the yolk leaks into the whites. Add a pinch of salt to the whites and start beating with a mixer a little at a time. As soon as the white foam appears, add the three tablespoons of sugar per the recipe in small batches, continuing to beat the whites until they are stiff peaks, about 5 minutes.
Do not wash the whisk after the whites. Beat the yolks together with the rest of the sugar at maximum speed for 4-5 minutes. Now you can wash the mixer whiskers, they are no longer useful for the cakes.
In a separate bowl, mix together the sifted flour and sifted cocoa. Sift the mixture again. Add the baking powder. Pour small portions of this flour and cocoa mixture to the yolks and mix with a spatula. Then add the whipped whites.
Separate a few spoonfuls of the resulting dough into a bowl and mix with the melted butter. Now return the dough and butter to the overall mass of the dough and gently mix from bottom to top with smooth movements. It is not necessary to stir the dough for a long time, so that it does not settle. Biscuit dough should be baked immediately, as it should not stand.
Pour into the baking dish.
Cover the top with foil. Bake the biscuit for 30-40 minutes in the oven on medium level at 160-180 C. You can bake the biscuit in two forms, then the baking time will be about 20 minutes. Once you put the biscuit in the oven, do not open the door for 15-20 minutes to allow the biscuit to rise.
Do not take out the finished biscuit immediately, but leave it in the oven with the door ajar. In about 15 minutes, take out the biscuit, turn the mold and let it rest. Once the mold has cooled, put the biscuit on a rack so that it becomes room temperature – this will take about 2 hours. Wrap the cooled biscuit in clingfilm and leave in the fridge for 3-12 hours to rest.
Making syrup for cake impregnation. Bring equal amounts of sugar (+ a little vanilla sugar) and water to a boil. Remove and leave to cool to room temperature. Add a spoonful of brandy to the cooled syrup. If you don’t want alcohol in the cake, add the cognac to the boiling syrup and simmer for 1 minute.
Preparing the cream for the Prague cake. The cream consists of a custard part and a whipped butter part.
Prepare the custard base. Mix condensed milk with hot water, mix thoroughly. Pour the diluted condensed milk into the yolks in a saucepan. We mix and put on the stove with the minimum temperature. As soon as the mass begins to boil (the first bubbles appear), remove from the heat and cool. The consistency of the finished custard base is checked with a spatula: if you run your finger over the surface of the spatula soaked in our mixture, and there remains a distinct band, then the consistency is optimal. Cover with food film “in contact” and leave to cool to room temperature.
Whip the butter part of the cream. Put all the butter in a bowl, add a tablespoon of sifted cocoa with a heaped tablespoon, and whip it until it is puffy.
Gradually add the custard part and continue beating. The cream is ready!
Assembling the Prague Cake
Take the biscuit out of the fridge and cut it into layers. To make it easier to cut the biscuit into layers, first make a shallow about 1 cm incision around the perimeter of the entire cake, and then deepen it with careful sawing motions. On a cake liner or a plate, put pieces of baking paper, which we will remove after pouring the cake with chocolate.
Put the first layer of sponge cake (it is better to take the top part and put it with the crust down). Brush a little syrup on the biscuit layer, not too much, so that the bottom of the cake holds its shape and does not soften. Spread half of the cream, about 1 cm thick. Put the next layer of sponge cake. Soak in a lot of syrup. Drench with custard. Put the top cake, soaked well with syrup underneath. In the end the top of the cake is the bottom of the sponge cake. If you got the top of the sponge cake without any breaks, you can put the top part on top – it comes with a small slide and looks nice.
Spoon the cream over the sides of the cake. Put the cake in the fridge for 2 hours.
Brush the top and sides of the cake with a thin layer of microwave-heated apricot jam and put it in the fridge for a couple of minutes.
Prepare the chocolate glaze to pour over the top of the cake. At this time, heat the cream in a saucepan until the first bubbles come to a boil. Remove the cream from the heat and add the chopped dark chocolate. Stir everything thoroughly until smooth.
If you are making a chocolate glaze with butter, you can melt the chocolate with a little milk or cream, then add the melted butter.
Once the frosting has cooled to room temperature, pour most of it into the center of the top crust. Spread over the surface and sides with a hot long knife or spatula. You need to have time to spread the frosting before it hardens. Once the surface of the cake has “set”, remove the backing paper.
Put the finished cake in the fridge overnight and you can treat yourself tomorrow!
The cake turned out juicy with soaked crusts, apricot jelly gives a great taste, in the cut the “Prague” cake looks like a real favorite cake, though this time we know exactly what ingredients are inside this sweet delight. It’s nice to be able to make cakes – delicious and high quality, and the cost of such a cake is about 700 rubles, if you count only the products.
Enjoy your appetite!