Variation on a Theme: Lemon Medovik and Spartak

This... is.... SPARTAK! 

 

(I know, that's a terrible joke. I do apologise)

A few months ago, I did a Medovik: a Russian cake made of layers of honey flavoured biscuit and slightly sweetened sour cream. 

Immediately after making I knew I wanted to do a chocolate version, and took to the internet. I discovered that a chocolate medovik has its own name. It’s called a spartak, and is made a little differently. However, to keep things simple, I just used my medovik recipe, with two changes. 

One, I swapped the honey for condensed milk in the biscuit mixture, and replaced a sixth of the flour with cocoa powder. I made the biscuits in the exact same way thereafter.  

Two, I flavoured the cream with a touch of cocoa powder, to taste. It really does depend on how dark you want your chocolate flavour, but I made mine fairly light. 

I equally thought that something made with a whipping cream and sour cream filling could easily be adapted to have a cheesecake theme. I simply used the medovik recipe and added the zest of a large lemon to the biscuit mixture, and a touch of zest and juice to the creamy filling. This one was very light, summery, and refreshing. 

You could very easily do a strawberry cheesecake theme, too: you could gently fold some strawberry purée or strained jam through the cream and decorate with a strawberry fan. In fact, any tasty summer fruit would work perfectly here. 

All in all, this is an extremely adaptable cake technique. I even think a coffee flavoured one, or even a gingerbread one... or a coconut one.... really, I could come up with loads of variations. Watch this space!