The cake under number 40 of my cake journey is from home. Today I am going to tell you about Bulgaria and prepare a wonderful cake, which I have made many times, but now I have slightly modified it to give a slightly patriotic look to the dessert. 😉
Bulgaria is located on the Balkan Peninsula, at the crossroads. This has greatly influenced our lives, our culture and the food we prepare. We have over 1300 years of history, marked by triumphs and falls, great battles and victories, gloomy slavery centuries. Maybe that has made us who we are today.
Our country was founded in 681. Then Asparuh and the Byzantine emperor Constantine made an agreement, according to which much of the territory between the Balkan Mountains and the Danube is given to the Bulgarians and Slavs. Following are the rule of several cans, in which after heroic battles and skillful diplomacy Bulgaria became more powerful, with more territories, to reach the reign of Tsar Simeon I and the so-called. “Golden century”. During his time, Bulgaria stretched over three seas, and he himself conquered Constantinople and proclaimed himself emperor of Bulgarians and Greeks. But what unites the peoples inhabiting the territory of the state – Thracians, Slavs and Proto-Bulgarians, happens during the reign of Simeon’s father – Prince Boris I. He accepts Christianity as an official religion, smashes the rebellion of the boyars and even blinds his firstborn son because he refuses to accept the new religion. All this he does to unite his people and to give Bulgaria international prestige. It also does something very important for us as a people – it gives us language and script. Accepts in Bulgaria the exiled students of Cyril and Methodius – Clement, Naum and Angelarius and they bring with them the Glagolitic script, which is later transformed into Cyrillic.
The times of Byzantine slavery followed, the Second Bulgarian State with Assen and Peter and Turkish slavery lasting for five centuries. Dark times for the whole Bulgarian people, when the Ottomans in our lands killed, raped and harassed people. They took children for Janissaries, forcibly changed their faith, slaughtered them. Even today, in the small town of Batak there is a church in which between 1400 and 5000 people are slaughtered (it depends who counts them) – children, women, men. After many years of slavery, the people rebelled (April revolt), declaring to the rest of the world that they would no longer tolerate Ottoman rule. The uprising was cruelly crushed but provoked the Russo-Turkish War of Liberation, and on March 3, 1878, the Third Bulgarian State was created. The following are a few misguided political moves, engaging in several wars in which we lose prestige and territory and after the end of World War II another 45 years of totalitarian rule. Bulgaria is isolated from the world and highly dependent on the COMECON and the Soviet Union.
On November 10, 1989, history changed – Bulgaria began its efforts to become a democratic state. I have witnessed these times. I was 14 when Zhivkov’s regime collapsed, I was on the squares in 1997, when hyperinflation caught up with me and I sang revolutionary songs with a whole throat. I still live in a currency board, though since 01.01.2007 Bulgaria is a member of a large European family. I became a contemporary of all the changes we have experienced in the thinking, lifestyle and attitude of the world towards us. And although pessimism persists in Bulgaria, I see the changes, I see that things are changing for the better. Maybe not as fast as we would like, but they are a fact.
But history and politics are enough. Let’s talk a bit about the wonderful nature in our country. We have great mountains – Rila, Pirin, Rhodope, Stara Planina. I grew up at the foot of the Balkan Mountains, but the Rhodope Mountains are my heart. These hills like green waves with their calmness and clearness make me feel at peace. The air, water and forest are so beautiful. We also have the Black Sea with its golden sands, few remaining pristine beaches and rocky shores where settlements like Nessebar, Sozopol have landed… We also have rose gardens, and our rose oil is known worldwide. We have scented raspberries, juicy strawberries, golden fields of wheat, vineyards, tomatoes that are nowhere else to be found. We also have our unique yogurt, cheese and hard cheese. We have an abundance of everything. And everything that grows on our earth is delicious. I may be biased, but vegetables abroad taste like plastic and fruits have nothing. Well, we don’t have tropical flavors, but it’s not necessary. We have everything we need.
Our kitchen is influenced by history and human flow, past and left in our country. We have a lot in common with the other Balkan countries, with Turkish and Greek cuisine. Traditional foods are tarator, moussaka, shopska salad, lukanka, banits with cheese, leeks, cabbage and whatever. In our restaurants, the menus are so large that it is difficult for you to choose your food. We have breakfast with banitsa or mekica and boza (a drink unknown to foreigners, but much loved in Bulgaria). Traditionally, brandy and wine are drunk. Our unique grape variety is Mavrud. The wine from it is a special homage to the house. When I thought about what kind of cake to make from Bulgaria, I first thought of the ones my mother made in my childhood. Back then, there was not such an abundance of sweets at the shops, nor so many choices at the pastries. I was lucky that my mother liked to do sweet things and she was good at it. From it began my passion for making cakes and then being modified in the love of cooking at all.
But then I remembered that we had an emblematic Garash cake for the country. In 1885 the famous confectioner – Costa Garash from Austro-Hungary arrived in Rousse. At the end of the 19th century the first grand hotel in Bulgaria, Islach Khan, was built in Rousse. Furniture, appliances, curtains were specially delivered from Vienna and the glamor of Austro-Hungary of that time was transferred to Ruse. When he arrives in the city, Costa Garash takes over the management of Islam I Khan. Prince Alexander Battenberg was accustomed to welcoming Swedish King Oscar II, Serbian Milan Obrenovic and Romanian Carol I at the hotel. A few years after its arrival, Carlos Garash left Rousse and moved to Sofia. This is where the talented pastry chef begins work at the famous Palah Hotel, where he also offers his famous cake. I always made this cake according to her original recipe so far, but because of the idea of the blog, I now decided to cook it differently and change the black chocolate in it with white. So, along with her traditional decoration with a ring of green coconut shavings and an addition of candied pink petals, I got our flag on the cake plate. 🙂 And besides, I prefer white over black chocolate. 😉
The required products are:
For cakes:
8 egg whites
240 grams of sugar
330 grams of ground nuts
pinch of salt
For the ganache:
300 grams of white chocolate
300 ml of cream
100 grams of butter
For the glaze:
200 grams of white chocolate
3-4 tablespoons of oil
coconut shavings / ground pistachio for decoration
candied pink flowers for decoration
Steps of preparation:
Prepare five cut circles of baking paper, 26 cm in diameter or six (as I did) with a diameter of 23 cm. In a dry bowl with dry stirrers, whisk together the egg whites, a pinch of salt and the sugar until thick and glossy mixture. It takes time, but the mixture has to have solid peaks.
Then gently add the ground nuts (I don’t grind them a lot to make them feel better) and gently stir with a spatula, scraping down to bring in more air. Preheat oven to 190 degrees. Grease the baking paper with grease before pouring the baking mixture to make it easier for peels to peel off.
Bake for 6-9 minutes each or until lightly browned. Do not bake them, they become brittle. After removing them from the stove, allow them to cool on a grid.
Let’s also prepare ganache. Put the cream on the stove and bring it to a boil. Pull it out, wait 3 – 4 minutes and pour it over the chocolate pieces. Leave the mixture for 2 to 3 minutes and then stir until smooth . Finally, add the butter and stir the ganache. When using black chocolate in the mixture and it needs less time to thicken and at room temperature. But in the case of white, it is better to put the cream in the fridge for about half an hour.
This is followed by the assembly. In a cake ring, alternate cakes and ganashe by placing as least ganashe as possible on top. Leave the cake in the fridge for 3-4 hours.
It remains to make the glaze. In a water bath, melt the chocolate with a little oil.
Remove the cake from the fridge. Allow the melted chocolate to cool slightly. Place the cake on a grid and pour from above the glaze.
Sprinkle with coconut flakes or ground pistachios. I also made a rose from candied rose petals because the rose is a symbol of our country. 🙂 Leave the cake in the fridge for 5-6 hours, or preferably overnight.
This cake is proven delicious. It is not the easiest to prepare, but if one learns to bake nuts and egg whites, the rest is easy. And what did I do with the yolks left over from the eggs? So how what? The brulee cream fits perfectly because it requires just as many yolks. 🙂 So I have two desserts and twice as happy people at home.
I have traveled to five continents so far and visited 28 countries. I love to travel a lot, but I increasingly want to go home. Where there is sun and snow, where the water is the most delicious, and the food is just as tasty not as anywhere , where my friends and family are, where there are both good and bad in life, and crazy moments . Because this is good for us – we are impulsive, warm people. Our life, nature and seasons are colorful. And for the finale, I will end with something in rhymes: “Earth, like a man’s palm … But to me you are a whole universe, that I measure you not at a distance, but with the love of which I am drunk!”
Next destination – Vanuatu.
