What Is Kartoshka Cake? History and Recipe

Kartoshka cake in short

• Kartoshka ("potato") is a no-bake cake of crumbs, butter and condensed milk, rolled in cocoa.
• It contains no potato; the name comes from its shape and colour.
• Bakeries made it from sponge cake crumbs and butter cream; home cooks used plain cookies.
• It most likely began as a thrifty way to use leftover cakes and trimmings, and became a Soviet bakery staple.
• The story that it descends from Finland's Runeberg torte is unproven; that cake is baked.
• Kartoshka keeps up to 5 days in the fridge and freezes well.

Why is it called a potato cake?

Because it looks like one. Shaped by hand into an uneven oval and rolled in cocoa, a kartoshka has the size, the lumps and the dusty brown skin of a small potato just dug up. The two dots of pale cream on top are its sprouts. The name is a joke that children understand at once, and it has stuck.

In Russian the pastry is pirozhnoe kartoshka, "potato pastry", shortened to kartoshka. In Ukrainian it is tistechko kartoplia, with the same meaning. English-language bakeries and blogs mostly use the Russian form, so abroad the cake is best known as kartoshka.

Where does kartoshka cake come from?

Kartoshka began as a way to waste nothing. The culinary historian Pavel Syutkin traces it to the early 20th century, when pastry shops of the Russian Empire gathered up unsold cakes and trimmings, crumbled them, bound them with butter cream and rolled them in cocoa to hide their humble origin. He quotes a memoir of pre-revolutionary Baku describing exactly this: pastries left from the day before were collected, and "potato" cakes were made from them.

Soviet public catering gave the idea a system. Large bakeries produced sponge cakes every day, and the trimmings from cutting them had to go somewhere under strict rules on waste and yield. Crumbled sponge, butter cream made with condensed milk and a coating of cocoa became a standard pastry sold in bakeries, cafés and canteens, and kartoshka turned from leftovers into a classic in its own right.

At home the recipe changed again. Few families baked a sponge just to crumble it, so home cooks crushed plain cookies or vanilla rusks, mixed them with condensed milk and butter, and often added cocoa and nuts straight into the mixture. Recipes travelled from hand to hand, which is why no two families make kartoshka quite the same way.

Did kartoshka come from Finland?

You may read that kartoshka descends from the Runeberg torte, the small cake named after the Finnish poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg. His wife Fredrika Runeberg made it in Porvoo in the 1850s, and the story goes that she used up broken biscuits and crumbs to create it.

The link is a hypothesis, and the evidence for it is thin. The Runeberg torte is a baked cake of flour, breadcrumbs and ground almonds, soaked with rum or arrack and topped with raspberry jam in a ring of icing; kartoshka is never baked. Syutkin points out that the only thing they share is the use of crumbs, and that bread-crumb cakes appear in Russian cookbooks decades before the Runeberg torte. The safest summary is that thrifty bakers in many countries turned crumbs into cake, and kartoshka is the East European answer.

Kartoshka today

Kartoshka is still sold in bakeries across Ukraine and in Eastern European delis in Canada, and it is one of the most made-at-home desserts of the region: no oven needed, children can help shape it, and a pack of cookies and a can of condensed milk turn into a plate of cakes in half an hour.

Modern bakers dress it up with chocolate glaze, chopped nuts, dried fruit or coloured icing, and some shape it into small round truffles. The oblong cocoa-dusted potato with two cream sprouts remains the version people recognise.

What kinds of kartoshka cake are there?

Sponge-crumb kartoshka (the bakery classic)

A plain sponge cake is baked, dried and crumbed, then mixed with a butter cream of butter and sweetened condensed milk, flavoured with rum or cognac and a little cocoa. The cakes are rolled in cocoa mixed with icing sugar and finished with two piped cream sprouts. Soft, fine-textured and rich.

Cookie-crumb kartoshka (the home version)

About 400 g (14 oz) of plain dry cookies crushed fine, 150 g (⅔ cup) soft butter, about 200 ml (¾ cup) sweetened condensed milk and 2 to 3 tablespoons of cocoa, often with 50 g (½ cup) chopped walnuts. In Canada, Maria cookies, arrowroot biscuits or plain tea biscuits work best. Firmer and sweeter than the sponge version, and ready in half an hour.

Leftover-cake kartoshka

The original idea: any plain cake scraps, sponge offcuts or the trimmings from a medovik can be crumbled and used. Cakes with jam or fruit make a wetter mixture, so add crumbs a spoonful at a time.

Glazed kartoshka

Instead of a dusting of cocoa, the shaped cakes are dipped in melted dark chocolate or a cocoa glaze. They look neater and keep their coating better in a warm room.

With nuts or dried fruit

Toasted walnuts or hazelnuts, or raisins soaked in rum, are worked into the mixture. A roasted nut can also sit in the centre of each cake.

Kartoshka truffles

The same mixture rolled into small balls, coated in cocoa, chopped nuts or coconut, and served in paper cases. Popular for children's parties and gift boxes.

How do you serve and store kartoshka cake?

• Serve kartoshka chilled, then let the cakes stand for 10 to 15 minutes so the butter softens and the flavour comes through.
• One cake per person with tea or coffee is the traditional portion; they are rich.
• Keep them covered in the fridge for up to 5 days. The cocoa coating soaks in over time, so dust again before serving if needed.
• Freeze in a single layer, then transfer to a container, for up to 2 months. Thaw in the fridge for a few hours.
• For a party, set each cake in a paper case so the cocoa stays off fingers.
• The butter cream softens in heat, so on a warm day keep the plate out of the sun and bring out a few at a time.