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Esterhazy Cake

Recipe for this delicious cake is not easy, it will take a little effort, but the result is worth it! A very tasty cake with its own history. The cake is named after the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Pal Antal Esterhazy. He once ordered this cake for his son's birthday, and word quickly spread about its delightful taste. It turned out that the cake was named after its famous customer, not the pastry chef. The cake is simply delightful, highly recommended!

For the layers:

Eggs

8-9 egg whites, 250 g

Sugar

250 g

Walnuts

250 g (can use almonds or hazelnuts)

Cinnamon

1/2 tsp

Salt

pinch

For the cream:

Milk

200 ml

Vanilla Sugar

1 tsp

Eggs

Sugar

100 g

Flour

20 g

Cornstarch

20 g

Sweetened Condensed Milk

200 g (cooked)

Butter

200 g

For decoration:

Apricot Jam

2 tbsp

Pomade

200 g (white)

Cocoa Powder

1 tsp

Walnuts

50 g (or almond flakes)

To prepare Hungarian Esterhazy cake, start by toasting nuts in a dry skillet, then grind them almost into flour using a blender.

Next, beat egg whites with sugar and a pinch of salt until the sugar is completely dissolved. Add sugar gradually, if you add all the sugar at once, it will be difficult to lift later. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, the mixture should be dense and hold its shape.

Fold the ground nuts and cinnamon into the egg whites, gently mix.

Since the layers for the Esterhazy cake are baked without a mold, you will need parchment paper, a pencil, and a round 8-inch diameter form. Trace a circle on the parchment paper and use a pastry bag to pipe meringue in a spiral pattern up to the outlined circle. You should end up with 6-7 meringue layers.

You can also spoon the meringue evenly in a circle, but the layers won't be as neat.

Bake the layers in the oven at 160 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 minutes. Once baked, remove each layer from the oven, flip it, and carefully peel off the paper. If any layer breaks, don't worry, you can fix them with the cream later.

Prepare the cream for the Esterhazy cake. Pour milk into a saucepan, add a pinch of vanilla (or vanilla sugar), and bring it to a boil. Meanwhile, lightly beat eggs with sugar. Then add starch and flour, mix.

While the milk is not yet boiling, add some warm milk to the eggs, mix.

Then pour the egg mixture in a thin stream into the boiling milk, stirring constantly. Bring the cream to a boil, boil for less than half a minute, and remove from heat.

Set aside and let the cream cool completely.

Beat softened butter with condensed milk until fluffy and homogeneous. Gradually add the cooled custard cream, beating each time until smooth.

Optionally, you can add 2 tbsp of cognac to the cream.

Assemble the cake by spreading cream between each layer except the last one, which should be thinly spread with apricot jam. Spread cream on the sides of the Esterhazy cake. Sprinkle crushed nuts or almond flakes on the sides of the cake.

Now, decorate the Esterhazy cake with its characteristic web. Heat the white (without cocoa) pomade until it's liquid. Separately sprinkle 20-30 g of pomade with cocoa and mix.

Pour the white pomade over the surface of the cake layer and quickly smooth it out.

Pour the chocolate pomade into a small parchment cone, cut the tip, and draw a spiral. Take a toothpick and draw lines from the center to the edge at equal distances from each other. Then, in reverse, draw lines from the edge to the center between the lines already drawn.