By Hafsa 
Russian Honey Cake – Last week was the egg version, I’m sure you’re expecting an eggless version this week. I was thinking should I use milk, yogurt or even flaxseed for the egg replacement. At the end, I used none of those. I’ve just added a couple of cornstarch to bind the batter together. I was worried it will turn out too soft and crumbly or hard, but the cake layers turned out an amazing texture exact same as the egg version. I was using a 7 inch ring, and the dough should be able to give you at least 8 layers. Or you can also use a 6 inch ring for 9-10 layers. Not difficult to make at all. I hope you’ll inspired to give this a try.
INGREDIENTS:
Eggless Honey Cake Layers
(I used 7 inch ring cutter)
360g [3¼ cups] all-purpose flour aka plain flour
8g [2 tsp] baking powder
170g [½ cup] honey
30ml [2 tbsp] water
150g [¾ cup] sugar
113g [½ cup] unsated butter
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp grd cinnamon
15g [2 tbsp] cornstarch
Yogurt Frosting:
600g [2½ cups] whipping cream
240g [1 cup] plain yogurt
50g [⅓ cup] powdered sugar
60g [¼ cup] honey
1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
syrup
[1 tbsp honey + 2 tbsp hot water]
METHOD:
Eggless Honey Cake Layers
Sift the flour and set aside.
In a stainless steel pot, add honey. Bring it to a boil on low heat until the honey is further caramelised and slightly thickened. This will take a few seconds to a minute or so. Off the heat. Carefully add in the water. Move the pan to mix them.
Add in the sugar. Give it a quick mix to combine. Put the heat back on low as you’re going to dissolve the sugar.
Add in the butter. Cook until the butter is completely melted. The sauce is gradually thickened up and caramelised looking. The longer you cook, the darker the sauce will be. Off the heat. Immediately as in the baking soda. Be cautious as the volume will double up and frothy. Keep mixing. Remove the pot from the stove.
Add in salt, cinnamon powder and cornstarch. Mix until combined respectively.
Transfer the sauce into a large mixing bowl.
Add the sifted ingredients in a few batches. Use you use a whisk to mix them to combine. Towards the end, it will become a wet dough. Whisk will be hard to move around, switch to a spatula to fold them together. The dough is soft and sticky, do not attempt to add more flour. Wrap the dough with cling film. Refrigerate for 1 hour or just until it’s slightly firm up.
After 1 hour, the dough is pretty much firmed up. Flour the work surface. Cut the dough into 8 pieces. Roll individually into a ball shape and set aside on a pan with a tea towel covering them to keep them moist.
Sprinkle some flour on a non-stick parchment paper. Roll the dough out into a very thin layer of about 1mm. The thickness is just nice for the cake layers. Roll out to the size of your ring cutter. If you do not have a ring cutter, it’s totally fine. Just cut a piece of paper of the size you desire as a standard guide for all the layer. Once cut out the size, keep the excess of the sides for use later.
Bake in preheated oven at 180°C/355°F for 4½ – 5 minutes. Do not over bake. I baked mine for 4½ minutes. The colour of the layers depends on your baking time.
Let the layers completely cool before removing from the parchment paper. Once cooled, it will be easier to remove the paper.
Set all the baked layers aside.
For the remaining excess of the dough, line them on a pan. Bake them in preheated oven at 180°C/355°F for 6-7 min or until they are dry and crispy. Let them cool completely.
In a food processor, crush the baked excess fine. Set these aside for the deco part later.
Honey Syrup:
Mix honey and hot water until the honey dissolved.
Set it aside to a cool completely before use.
Yogurt Frosting:
In a mixing bowl, add whipping cream. Whisk or mix it until it’s slightly thickened.
In another bowl, add yogurt, powdered, honey and vanilla extract (optional). Mix until it’s softened and creamy.
Add the yogurt mixture into the whipping cream. Mix until stiff (the mixer paddle is able to hold a lump of cream in it), do not over mix. It will give you a soft and smooth frosting.
Enjoy your Russian Honey Cake.