Description
Reminiscent of tiramisu, this layered dessert is sweeter than most Polish pastry
Ingredients
Scale
for the cake:
- 4 eggs, seperated
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup cocoa
- 1/3 cup flour
- 1/4 cup coffee liqueur
- 1/2 cup seedless blackberry preserves
For the frosting:
- 14 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
- 14 ounce can Dulcede Leche (or a can of sweetned condensed milk that you have submerged in boiling water for 3 hours, you’ll have to keep adding water, but the milk will caramelize)
- 1/4 cup Ajerkoniak (I substituted Bailey’s Irish Cream)
- 2 teaspoons instant coffee
- 8 ounces dried meringue kisses
- 2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
- 16 ounces heavy cream
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 ounces semi-sweet or dark chocolate
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 340 F
- Grease a 9 inch x 13 inch pan
- Beat egg whites for 2 – 3 minutes, slowly add sugar and beat 3 minutes more
- Beat in egg yolks
- Sift together cocoa and flour, add to fluffy egg mixture in 3 small batches, mix until just combined
- Bake for 20 minutes or until the top springs back when touched lightly, or a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean
- Cool
- Combine the coffee liqueur with 1/4 cup water and brush over cake
- Warm the blackberry preserves until thin and brush over cake
Frosting and assembly
- Beat the butter until light and fluffy
- Add the dulce de leche, ajerkoniak and instant coffee, beat until light and fluffy
- Crush meringues, and stir into the caramel buttercream
- Spread over the cake and chill
- Sprinkle gelatin over 2 tablespoons water
- Warm in the microwave for a few seconds to melt the gelatin, cool
- Beat cream until soft peaks form, continue to beat while slowly adding sugar and vanilla
- When the beaters are leaving a track in the cream, add the gelatin
- Spread the whipped cream over the buttercream layer
- Use a microplaner or a box grater to shave chocolate over the cream
- Refrigerate until ready to serve, cut into small cubes
Notes
If you don’t want to be one of those bakers with a dozen liqueur bottles on the shelf (not that I see anything wrong with that, but it gets expensive), mini-bottles are just the right size for this recipe. Total Wine and More is a great source for mini-bottles of just about everything.
Using dissolved gelatin to stabalize whipped cream is a great trick. It will keep the cream from seperating and getting runny if you need to make it in advance.