How to cook an airy and light cake “Flight” – a classic of our childhood, crispy meringue and nuts, soft cream. The most difficult thing in preparing such a cake is baking protein cakes and meringues, which takes the most time. And everything else is done pretty quickly and easily. To make a cake “Flight” you need a lot of eggs and nuts.
All ingredients are listed below.
Cake meringue layers:
- protein from 5 eggs;
- sugar 300 g;
- peanuts 130 g;
- vanilla sugar 1 tsp;
- a pinch of salt.
Cream Charlotte:
- butter 250 g;
- milk 150 ml;
- 1 egg (or 2 yolks that will remain from the cakes);
- sugar 200 g;
- 1 tbsp cognac (optional).
Cake decoration
Sprinkling:
- peanuts 30-40 g;
Cream for decoration:
- butter 220 g;
- milk 120 ml;
- 2 yolks;
- sugar 180 g;
- 1 st. l. cognac.
How to cook cake layers “Flight”
Proteins from 5 eggs should be at room temperature. We take twice as much sugar as proteins.
Grind the nuts to medium-fine crumbs in a blender, with a knife, or just buy chopped peanuts.
Beat the whites with a pinch of salt until a fluffy light transparent foam. Gradually add sugar and vanilla sugar to the foamed proteins, whisking everything together until all the sugar is dissolved. It is better to add sugar in small portions so that it dissolves better and faster. You need to beat the mass until a glossy steady state, hard peaks.
We separate two tablespoons into a food bag or a pastry bag – from this part we will make meringue for decoration.
Pour the peanuts into the remaining mass in parts and gently mix quickly so that the proteins do not fall off. From this mixture we will bake cakes. You will need two baking sheets lined with baking paper. It is necessary to bake two cakes at once at the same time and additional beringes for decoration.
You can grease the baking paper under the cakes with butter so that the cakes do not stick. If the paper is siliconized, then you can bake directly on it.
Lay two cakes on baking paper, or use cake rings or other tools to form “two pancakes” of the same size. You need to try to make a flat surface for the cakes and a similar diameter so that the finished cake looks neat. Next to the cakes, make 7-10 meringues, they can be formed using ordinary breakfast bags, cutting off the tip of the bag.
Dry the cakes in the oven on baking paper at a temperature of 100 degrees (without convection) or 80 degrees (with convection) for 2.5-3 hours. If using two baking sheets, then place them on the 2nd and 4th level of the oven. Meringue can be removed earlier than cakes – after 2 hours. As soon as about 3 hours have passed (until the cakes are completely dry), open the oven “on a pencil” and leave the cakes inside until the oven has completely cooled.
How to make Classic “Charlotte Cream”
The cream is prepared from two parts: custard (Charlotte syrup) and meat.
We begin to prepare the custard of the cream – Charlotte syrup:
In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, stir the egg with a small amount of milk (of the total volume) until the egg is completely mixed. Then pour all the remaining milk into the pan. Mix thoroughly. Add all the sugar. Stir and put on a small fire. Bring to a boil, remembering to stir.
As soon as our mixture boils, reduce the temperature to a minimum and cook the cream at a boil for 3 minutes until a thicker consistency. If we see lumps from the “protein”, they can be removed with a false one.
Stir the cream so that it is homogeneous. Turn off the heat and pour the cream into a separate bowl through a sieve. We close the cream with cling film “in contact” and let it cool completely at room temperature.
When the custard part of the cream has cooled, you need to prepare the whipped butter. Before whipping, the butter should be soft, at room temperature, but not melted. Beat the butter until white fluffiness at pre-maximum speed for about 5 minutes. Once the white buttermilk is often done, add the custard bit by bit and beat it all together. As soon as all parts of the cream are mixed, add a tablespoon of cognac at the very end. Instead of cognac, vanillin or rum essence can be added to Charlotte cream.
Cream Charlotte is ready! Let’s add it to the “Flight” cake, and you can also use this cream to decorate the cake.
We use two thirds of the resulting cream for the layer of the “Flight” cake, and one third for decoration. The cream for decoration can be kept in the refrigerator while we make the base of the cake.
How to build the “Flight” cake
At the bottom we smear a little cream to “stick” the cake to the base. Next, we divide two-thirds of the entire Charlotte cream in half to smear between the cakes and smear the cake on top of the second cake and on the sides.
In one third of the Charlotte cream (which we had in the refrigerator), add half a teaspoon of cocoa and draw decorations on the cake on top. Next we expose the meringue.
We mix the bezeshno-nut crumb from the leftovers and sprinkle the sides of the cake and the outer edge of the surface along the sides.
Cake “Flight” is ready! Let’s put it in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight so that the cakes are saturated with cream.
Enjoy your meal! Write in the comments, on what occasion do you think to cook the “Flight” cake?