Grandmother's Russian Birthday Cake

by Tatiana
(Yekaterinburg, Russia)

Birthdays are a magical time for kids. Most enjoy opening up a stack of presents in bright wrapping paper with colorful ribbons and bows. Some love getting together with their friends the best, for a big celebration filled with little adventures and fun.

Other kids are very happy just to turn a year older!

For me, the best part of birthdays was indulging in my grandmother’s home-made birthday cake! You see, I was born and raised in Russia where home-made cakes are a big part of birthday tradition. And while my mom made delicious cakes for the guests to enjoy, my grandmother’s cake was a special treat, just for me and a couple of my closest friends.

It’s not that I was the type of kid who didn’t like to share. But my grandmother always kept the recipe for her cake a secret, and only made it once a year – for my birthday.

Main ingredients for the cake were simple: eggs, sugar, butter and sweetened condensed milk. Egg whites were whipped with sugar and slowly baked to make three layers. In the meantime, a can of sweetened condensed milk was boiled and, then, hardened milk that tasted a lot like caramel was mixed with butter to make icing. The cake stood in a fridge for a few days for the layers to take on some of the icing’s flavor.

But a few secret ingredients plus my grandmother’s magical touch turned that unsophisticated cake into a crunchy-gooey sweet delicacy!

When all the guests had gone home, my mom would get grandmother's cake out of the fridge with a smile on her face, and cut it for me and a couple of best friends.

My grandmother passed away a few years ago, but she will always live in my heart. Every year on my birthday I remember the taste of her special birthday present!