The Layers of a Russian Honey Cake

When Michelle Polzine opened 20th Century Cafe, a tiny pastry shop in San Francisco in 2013, her majestic Russian honey cake enchanted sweet tooths everywhere. Food writers and pastry chefs flew in from across the country to marvel at the gravity-defying stack of airy cake layers slathered with glossy honey-cream frosting. Polzine first encountered her honey cake’s progenitor, the medovik torte — seven or eight cookielike layers alternating with sour-cream frosting — on a cake-tasting tour of Vienna, Prague and Budapest, where she visited dozens of traditional coffeehouses. 

From “The Secrets of Russian Honey Cake, Revealed,” by Samin Nosrat for New York Times Magazine

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