Contents:
- “Pigeon’s milk”: how was everything begining?
- Recipe of a “pigeon’s milk” which is closed to a state standard specification
- Recipe of a “pigeon’s milk” with using of gelatin
- Recipe of the third variant of “pigeon’s milk” cake
- Recipe of a “pigeon’s milk” with using of starch
- Simple recipe of “Pigeon’s milk”
- More complicated recipe of “pigeon’s milk” cake
- Recipe of quick cooking
Pigeons’ Milk” cake is a favorite sweet dessert from childhood. Everybody liked to bite off soft white souffle covered with the tastiest chocolate. This cake has a lot of rules. Can we cook this amazing cake at home? It may seem complicated, but the pleasure is well worth the trouble. Recipes of this cake are rather interesting, but ingredients are available and inexpensive. We will tell you about the most interesting of these recipes.
“Pigeon’s Milk:” What Was Its Beginning?
What is a source of the superstition that pigeons’ milk is the most tasty sweetness among others? The ancient legends narrate that beautiful birds from paradise were feeding their nestlings with the help of milk and nothing can be more delicious on Earth. People dreamed to taste pigeon’s milk from the beginning of history. They were creating fairy tales and poems about it. Of course, we understand, that pigeon’s milk is only beautiful fiction, but thoughts about mysterious nectar excite our hearts still. Therefore, the tastiest cake in history was named “Pigeon’s Milk”. It is tasty, soft and exquisite.
The story of this excellent cake is unique. “Pigeon’s Milk” is the pride of the Soviet confectionery industry. A recipe for this cake received a state patent. Vladimir Guralnik developed technology for cooking this dessert. He was a confectioner of the Moscow restaurant Prague. He borrowed an idea of souffle and usual candies, which were released by a local confectionery factory. But Vladimir changed the recipe to perfection. It really melts in your mouth.
The cake is cooked from a small crust, souffle and chocolate glaze. Dough must be as a cupcake, not a biscuit, not flaky or like a shortbread. Guralnik, together with partners, were developing a recipe of ideal dough for nearly six months. He required even more time for the recipe of the souffle. But the result surpassed all the boldest expectations: the new cake became too popular.
The recipe for the souffle received a state standard. The cake got a patent in 1980. But the name of dessert wasn’t patented, therefore anyone can make fancy cakes with the name “Pigeons’ Milk”. It is not surprisingly, that we are disappointed by the taste. Some producers don’t follow the recipe.
The first cakes were produced for sale as early as 1968. Cakes were produced in small amounts because of the too complicated recipe and lack of time saving technology. It was possible to buy a cake only in Moscow and Leningrad. People were standing in long queues at night and in the morning to treat oneself and relatives with this excellent cake. The recipe was top secret. Sometimes, they had to buy a ticket to get into a queue from enterprising businessmen to buy this tasty cake. People use all ways to buy and taste this miracle.
Such cake remains “number one” in a list of favorite sweets for many years. “Pigeons’ milk” is perhaps the most unique cake in the world, which has more than one-hundred recipes. You may bake a cake using starch, gelatin, lemon and berries to make your really unique dessert. Of course, recipe of the state standard specification still exists. It was approved by an USSR state many years ago. But it is necessary to use agar-agar instead of usual gelatin for the souffle. It is a special food which is produced from red algae. Agar-agar is much like gelatin according to its properties. But any souffle and jellies become extraordinarily soft and tasty. So, if you want to cook a real firm “Pigeon’s Milk” cake, search for recipes with agar-agar!
The recipe for this cake (by state standard) is also complicated because agar-agar must be boiled down with sugar treacle at a temperature of 117 degrees Celsius (not more and not less!). It is simple to do in industrial conditions with special equipment. Agar-agar will not be viscous enough at lower temperatures. But product will lose necessary properties at higher temperatures. It is complicated to follow the recipe, technology of cooking and bake a cake exactly by the state standard.
Agar-agar can be replaced by gelatin at home. There are many excellent recipes even with this product. It will not influence the taste, but souffle will become denser and solid. If you want to buy agar-agar and cook cake by the state standard specification, you may acquire this ingredient in spice shops or pharmacies (alga extract is used as remedy for stomachaches!). You may also negotiate with employees of confection factories. Agar-agar must be there.
It is hard to say which recipe of “Pigeon’s milk” can be considered the best. Each of them is interesting and unique. So, we are presenting the best ones and the most interesting recipes of this famous cake “Pigeon’s Milk”. Choose the best recipe that will be liked most of all by you!
Recipe for “Pigeon’s Milk” Which is Close to the State Standard Specifications
It will not be hard for you to reproduce the “Pigeon’s Milk” cake you remembered in childhood, if you find agar. Follow the recipe below and do everything exactly. You will need the following products to prepare the cake of your dream:
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Use for crusts:
- Butter – one hundred grams;
- Sugar – one hundred grams;
- Two eggs;
- Wheat flour – one hundred and forty grams;
- Vanilla extract.
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Souffle:
- Two egg whites (sixty grams);
- Sugar – four hundred and sixty grams;
- Citric acid – half of teaspoon;
- Agar – two teaspoons;
- Butter – two hundred grams;
- Condensed milk – two hundred grams;
- Vanillin or vanilla extract.
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Glaze:
- Chocolate – seventy-five grams;
- Butter – fifty grams.
Cake pans need to be at least twenty-five cm. Vanillin or vanilla extract can be used by taste. Extract can be replaced with powder of vanilla sugar.
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Crusts
Mix butter with sugar, adding eggs and vanilla gradually. Sugar must be dissolved completely. Add a tablespoon of flour slowly. Knead dough. Spread half of dough on a circle of form for cooking and setup temperature at two hundred and thirty degrees. Leave it in oven for ten minutes. Make one more crust after the first one.
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Souffle
Put agar in one hundred milliliter of water and leave it for three-four hours. Warm up to room temperature condensed milk and oil, then mix them into cream. Add vanilla. Leave such cream, but not in refrigerator.
Put wet agar on a low heat. Attention: agar mustn’t be burn, even slightly! It must be boiled for one minute and add sugar into substance. Adjust heat to medium level. Agar and sugar must be boiled again, stirring continuously. Pick up syrup from stove when you see white foam. Lower the spoon into the syrup and raise it a little bit: if you see a thin “thread,” it means that syrup is prepared properly.
Syrup must become colder by approximately eighty degrees Celsius. We will begin to make a protein component of souffle, while it is becoming colder. Mix proteins, adding citric acid into them. Mix to high density.
Pour hot syrup into the whipped proteins. Mix proteins with syrup to homogeneous texture. Add cream from oil and condensed milk, stir and mix at low speed of your mixer. Souffle is ready.
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Glaze
Melt any dark chocolate with bean chocolate of eighty per cent and butter in proportions specified in a recipe.
Final steps in preparing the cake:
First put the crust on the bottom of a high form for cooking and pour half of ready souffle. Leave cake on a shelf of a refrigerator for twenty minutes, so that the souffle becomes slightly solid. Put another crust on the top and pour souffle again. Cover cake by chocolate glaze (cook it immediately before fill) and leave it in refrigerator for several hours.
Recipe of a “Pigeon’s Milk” with Use of Gelatin
This recipe allows the use of gelatin instead of agar. It will help you prepare cake without special bustle at home. Gelatin can be used in plates and even in granules. The most important is following the recipe.
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Crusts:
- Butter – one hundred grams;
- Sugar – one hundred grams;
- One egg;
- Flour – one hundred and fifty g;
- Vanillin at tip of a knife.
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Souffle:
- Egg whites – 2 pieces;
- Sugar – three hundred and ten grams;
- Butter – one hundred and eighty g;
- Citric acid – half of teaspoon;
- Gelatin – twenty grams;
- Condensed milk – one hundred grams;
- Vanillin at tip of a knife;
- Water – one hundred and thirty milliliters.
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Glaze:
- Chocolate – one hundred g;
- Cream – one hundred grams.
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Crusts
Recipe of biscuit dough for crusts is very simple. Oil must be gradually warmed up to room temperature (it mustn’t be melted!) and mix it with a mixer (it is possible wooden paddle). Add eggs, a handful of vanillin into oil and mix well. Add all the flour which remained and knead dough.
Separate dough on two parts and bake each crusts at temperature of two hundred and thirty degrees Celsius. Duration of baking is ten-twelve minutes.
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Souffle
Mix gelatin with a small amount of water and leave it for approximately thirty minutes. Make cream from condensed milk and butter and mix all ingredients well. Pour water into sugar, mix and warm up on a slow fire till boiling. Boil syrup for five minutes, mixing it during all time. Egg whites must be mixed till foam condition, adding gradually vanillin and citric acid. Mix cream till high density. Pour as fast as possible the hot syrup into whipped up egg whites (thin trickle), without stopping a mixer. Pour gelatin and cream from condensed milk and butter into substance. Mix future souffle at low speed till homogeneous substance.
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Glaze
Melt chocolate together with cream on a water bath till homogeneous substance. You may do it also even in microwave.
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Formation of a cake
Put a cooled crust on a bottom of a high form for cooking. Pour half of ready souffle on a top of it. Put the second crust and pour in the rest of the remaining souffle. Leave this cake on a shelf of a refrigerator for approximately 3-4 hours, than pour chocolate glaze on top of it. You may also adorn the top of the cake with chocolate figures, berries or nuts (put in the center). It is necessary to put the cake into cold place for seven-eight hours.
Third Variant of “Pigeon’s Milk” Cake
This recipe is very simple and fast cooking. As a rule, any one can cook a soft and tasty cake even if they decide to make such dessert for the first time.
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Crusts:
- The chicken eggs – four pcs;
- Sugar – three quarters of a cup;
- The wheat flour – one hundred and fifty g.
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Souffle:
- The chicken eggs – ten pcs;
- Sugar – three hundred g;
- Butter – two hundred grams;
- Milk – two hundred milliliters;
- Gelatin – thirty g;
- The wheat flour – one tablespoon.
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Glaze:
- Cocoa – three tablespoons;
- Sugar – three tablespoons;
- Milk – 4 tablespoons;
- Butter – one hundred grams.
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Crusts
Egg whites must be carefully separated from yolks. Put them on the top shelf of a refrigerator and mix yolks with sugar till homogeneous white substance. Add flour slowly, stirring it well. Shake up cream, that their volume would increase five-six times. Add whipped up egg whites into yolk substance carefully. It is necessary do it carefully, that bubbles will not disappear. Separate dough on two parts and bake it at temperature of one hundred and eighty degrees. The baking time is twenty-five or thirty minutes.
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Souffle
Add gelatin into cool water (one hundred and fifty ml.) and leave it for approximately one hour. Separate egg whites from yolks and mix yolks with one hundred and fifty grams of sugar. Add warm milk and stir well. Add also wheat flour and mix it till voluminous and necessarily homogeneous substance. Warm up substance such substance on a water bath till consistency of dense sour cream and make it colder.
Put butter into cold substance and mix it well with the help of a blender. Warm up gelatin until granules dissolve completely and reduce temperature of it. Add small pinch of salt into egg whites and stir it well with a help of blender. Add 150 grams of sugar into cream and keep stir it. Add gelatin into foam and mix it. Mix cream with yolk substance in blender on a low speed and leave it in refrigerator for several hours (it must get thick).
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Glaze
Mix cocoa, milk and sugar, then put it on stove with a small fire. Add butter in a few minutes and keep stir. Take away glaze from stove as soon as it starts boil.
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Formation of a cake
Put the first crust on a bottom of form for cooking and pour souffle on a top of it. Put the second crust on a top of it. At the end pour a chocolate glaze over a cake. It is recommended leave it approximately for six-eight hours in a refrigerator.
Recipe for “Pigeon’s Milk” Using Starch
This recipe is distinguished from the others by the fact that souffle has such an ingredient as potato starch. It will make your cake light and airy.
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Crusts:
- Vanilla sugar – one teaspoon;
- Sugar – one glass;
- Flour – one glass;
- The chicken eggs – four pcs.
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Souffle:
- The chicken eggs – ten pcs;
- Milk – one glass;
- The potato starch – one tablespoon;
- Sugar – two glasses;
- Gelatin in granules forty g;
- Vanilla sugar – three teaspoons;
- Butter – three hundred g.
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Glaze:
- Butter – fifty grams.
- The dark chocolate – two hundred g.
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Crusts
Mix eggs with sugar, adding gradually vanilla sugar. Add flour into whipped up eggs, stirring it. Knead homogeneous dough and pour it into a deep baking tray and lubricate with a help of oil. Put a baking tray into oven, which were warmed up to one hundred and eighty degrees for ten minutes. Wait when temperature of sponge cake will become less and separate it on two parts.
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Souffle
Dilute starch in one tablespoon of water. Separate yolks and whites. Mix yolks with one cup of sugar, gradually adding milk and vanilla sugar there. Stir it till homogeneity, add diluted starch. Stir such substance with a help of blender and put it on a water bath to warm up. It must get thick. Take away from stove, cool it down, add butter and stir it till highly voluminous and homogeneous substance.
Dilute gelatin in one hundred and fifty milliliters of water and leave it for approximately twenty minutes. Warm up diluted gelatin on a water bath or the lowest heat. Filter gelatin substance. Stir egg whites with a glass of sugar to get foam. Pour gelatin into cream, stirring at the same time. Pour such substance into cream and stir till homogeneous condition. It is not good idea do it at high speed of blender, otherwise structure of souffle will be damaged.
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Glaze
Melt chocolate and butter on a water bath or in microwave. Stir it thoroughly.
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Formation of a cake
Pour souffle on the first crust and put the second crust on it. Put cake in refrigerator for 2-3 hours and pour chocolate glaze on it. Also you may saturate crusts with a help of sweet syrup or any cream liqueur. Put the cake in the refrigerator for six-eight hours.
Simple Recipe for “Pigeon’s Milk”
This recipe is so simple that any woman will be able to cook it. The main advantage of this recipe: all ingredients presence in every house and every refrigerator. Try recipe with cream, which is cooked from semolina and lemons, but not from gelatin and starch!
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Crusts:
- Margarine – 250 g;
- Sugar – two glasses;
- Eggs – six pcs;
- Baking soda – one teaspoon;
- The wheat flour – two glasses;
- Cocoa – three teaspoons.
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Cream:
- Butter – three hundred grams;
- Sugar – 1,5 glasses;
- Semolina – three tablespoons;
- Lemons – two pcs.
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Glaze:
- Sour cream – two tablespoons;
- Cocoa – two teaspoons;
- Sugar – three tablespoons;
- Butter – one tablespoon.
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Crusts
Melt margarine (butter can be also used), add sugar there and stir everything well. Add chicken eggs (one by one) and stir it with the help of a blender on the highest speed. Add baking soda with vinegar or lemon juice into egg substance and stir it. Put flour there. Stir it till homogeneity. Separate such sponge cake dough on two parts and add necessary amount of cocoa in one of this part. Put crusts in oven, which were warmed up to one hundred and eighty degrees. Leave it there approximately for 35-40 minutes. Crusts must be cooled down and separated each of them on two more parts.
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Cream
Mix butter with sugar. Boil semolina porridge from two glasses of milk and three tablespoons of semolina. Cool it down to room temperature. Grate lemons together with a peel on a small grater (you may do it also in a blender), stir citron and mash in a semolina porridge. Add butter with sugar into received substance. Stir cream well with a help of blender and leave it to a refrigerator for thirty minutes.
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Glaze
Mix sour cream and sugar, pour cocoa and and boil it on small fire till it gets thick. Add butter, boil and take away from stove.
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Formation of a cake
Put a chocolate crust on the bottom of a cooking form and cover it with cream. Put chocolate crust between two white. Each crust of the cake (besides the top one) is covered by cream. Cover top and across sides of cake with the help of glaze.
More Complicated Recipe for “Pigeon’s Milk” Cake
This recipe is one of the most complicated. But it is the most described in this article. Such recipe doesn’t have anything impractical. You must be careful and strictly follow the instructions. Choose this recipe for “Pigeon’s Milk”, if you want to surprise relatives and cook amazingly tasty and soft cake!
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Crusts:
- Margarine – one hundred grams;
- Sugar – one hundred grams;
- Chicken eggs – two pcs;
- The wheat flour – 150 grams;
- The vanilla sugar – by taste.
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Souffle:
- Sugar – three hundred g.;
- The chicken eggs – five pcs.;
- Milk – half of glass;
- Butter – 150 grams;
- Gelatin – twenty grams;
- The citric acid – quarter of a teaspoon.
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Glaze:
- Butter – fifteen grams;
- Cream or milk – six tablespoons;
- Chocolate – one hundred g.
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Crusts
Mix soft margarine with sugar. Add eggs (one by one) flour, vanilla and sugar. Mix ingredients until homogeneity. Dough must be as a thick sour cream. Put a half of dough into cooking form, which must be lubricated by oil. Leave it in oven at temperature of two hundred and twenty degrees Celsius. The baking time is ten-fifteen minutes. Crusts must have beautiful yellowish color. Bake the second crust in the oven by the same way. Put paper for baking on a bottom of cooking form, if you worry, that crusts will burn slightly.
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Souffle
Put gelatin in two hundred milliliters of cold water. As a rule, time of soaking (one hour will be enough) is specified on package. Heat gelatin on slow fire until you see that the granules dissolve, (but don’t boil!). Gelatin substance must be filtered.
Separate egg whites from yolks. It must be done too carefully: even the smallest drop of yolks mustn’t get in egg whites, otherwise it will be complicated to whip them to necessary consistency. It is also necessary pay attention, that tableware and beaters of a blender are degreased. Leave proteins in refrigerator. Then start to cook the yolk custard.
Mix yolks with one hundred grams of sugar till consistency of white color. Heat milk nearly till boiling temperature and pour it into whipped up yolks. It is better do it without hurrying by small servings. Continue to stir substance at low speed of blender. Transmit such substance into a ceramic receptacle and put it on a water bath. Bottom of our receptacle mustn’t touch bottom of saucepan where cream is cooking. Receptacle with yolks mustn’t cover all «bath» fully, otherwise steam in it will begin condense, which will hinder cooking of cream. Such substance must be as a condensed milk. Put the bowl with cream into a saucepan with cold water to cool it down.
Next cook sugar syrup. Pour one hundred milliliters of boiling water into 250 grams of sugar and stir it well. Put syrup on a very slow fire (don’t forget stir constantly). Sugar must be dissolved completely. It is very important, that sugar must be dissolved before it will boil. Crystals and little balls mustn’t be on bottom and sides of a saucepan. Stop stir it, if sugar syrup boils. Boil syrup for approximately seven – ten minutes. The degree of its readiness can be determined like that: large bubbles are forming on a surface and syrup stretches as a thick trickle (thread) from spoon.
Stir egg whites until high density. You may also add several pieces of salt. Proteins will increase in volume approximately five-six times, but it mustn’t become solid. Add citric acid into foam, continuing stir cream. Make speed of a mixer lower and pour sugar syrup and substance from gelatin into foam.
Now prepare butter foundation of cream. Stir soft butter in a blender during three – four minutes and add carefully custard. Stir cream until you get homogeneous substance.
Add butter cream by small portions into cream substance, continuing stir with a blender at minimum speed. Souffle is ready as soon as cream became homogeneous!
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Glaze
It is simple cook soft and melting in mouth glaze. Heat chocolate on water bath or in a microwave. Add butter and milk to it, stir up substance until homogeneous consistence.
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Formation of a cake
Put the first crust on bottom of a high cooking form and pour half of souffles. Leave cake on a shelf of a refrigerator approximately for 20 minutes, that souffle slightly solidify. Put the second crust on souffle and cover it with the souffle, which has remained at you. Leave it in refrigerator for twenty minutes. Pour chocolate glaze on a top of cake. Leave it in refrigerator for six-eight hours.
Recipe for Quick Cooking
The recipe of this cake is interesting, that it doesn’t required too much time for cooking. As a result you will get a surprisingly tasty and soft cake.
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Crusts:
- The chicken eggs – four pcs;
- Sugar – one glass;
- The wheat flour – one glass.
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Souffle:
- Eggs – ten pcs.;
- Milk – one glass;
- Sugar – 1,5 glasses;
- Butter – two hundred grams;
- The wheat flour – one tablespoon;
- Gelatin – one small bag.
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Crusts
Mix eggs with sugar, add flour and stir everything well. Lubricate cooking form with the help of oil and put cooking paper inside. Pour dough into cooking form and leave it into warmed up oven. It is necessary thirty minutes for baking of a sponge cake (sometimes less). Everything depends on possibilities of your oven. Check readiness with help of a match.
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Souffle
Pour a glass of cold boiling water over gelatin and set it aside. Separate yolks from egg whites for preparation of souffle. Mix yolks with a half of sugar norm, also add milk, flour and stir it well. Leave it on a water bath. It must get thick on a water bath. Cool it down. Add soft butter into cold substance and stir it (with a help of blender). Heat gelatin, that it would completely dissolve in water and set it aside for cooling down.
Stir cream until consistence of voluminous foam. You may add a pinch of salt. Add the second half of sugar norm, continuing to stir. Pour gelatin into voluminous foam and stir it. Mix cream substance with yolk one, stir and leave it for some time to a refrigerator.
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Formation of a cake
Separate ready sponge cake in to two parts. Put it on the bottom of cooking form. Put souffle on crust and then the second half of a crust. Leave ready cake in a refrigerator for eight hours. Cake can be decorated with mastic or melted chocolate by your taste.
We have introduced the most interesting recipes of the “Pigeon’s Milk” cake. Each cake is similar to that famous Soviet cake despite strongly differing from each other: soft and light souffle. You may choose any recipe, but if you follow instructions and our advice you will get the best cake. We are sure that you will be able to cook tasty sweetness!
Bon Appetit!
