What Is Medovik? Honey Cake Guide & Recipe

Medovik in short

• Medovik is a cake of 8 to 10 thin honey layers with sour cream frosting and a crumb coat.
• The layers bake crisp and soften overnight as they absorb the cream.
• The popular story of a chef who won over Empress Elizabeth Alexeyevna around 1820 is a legend with no historical record.
• The earliest known Soviet printed recipe appears in a Ukrainian-language cookbook published in Kyiv, "Ukrainian Dishes" (1957, reissued 1960).
• Honey doughs called medivnyk were already in Galician Ukrainian cookbooks before the Second World War.
• A medovik keeps 4 to 5 days in the fridge and freezes well.

Where does medovik come from?

Honey is the oldest sweetener in Eastern European baking, and for centuries it went mostly into spiced honey breads and gingerbread-style doughs. In Ukrainian those honey breads and cakes are called medivnyky, and the tradition is shared with Poland (miodownik), the Czech lands (medovník), Lithuania (medutis) and Russia (prianiki). The layered medovik with cream belongs to this family, and as a cake of thin sponge layers it is a much younger dish.

The written record for medovik as we know it starts in the 20th century. Ukrainian food writers have traced honey doughs called medivnyk through Galician cookbooks published before the Second World War, among them a 1938 household book from Kolomyia with a section on medivnyk that includes versions layered with cream.

In Soviet print the trail begins in Kyiv. Culinary historians Pavel and Olga Syutkin found the first Soviet recipe for medovik in the Ukrainian-language cookbook "Ukrainian Dishes" ("Ukrainski stravy"), published in Kyiv; the Ukrainian Wikipedia article and the Lviv food historian Marianna Dushar date the first edition to 1957, and the Syutkins cite the 1960 edition. The Ukrainian cookery writer Daria Tsvek later published dozens of variations.

Is the story about Empress Elizabeth Alexeyevna true?

The story you will read on most bakery websites goes like this: around 1820, a new young chef in the kitchen of Emperor Alexander I baked a honey cake for Empress Elizabeth Alexeyevna. She was said to dislike honey, yet she loved the cake, rewarded the chef, and medovik became the fashion among the nobility.

It is a legend. No memoir, court record or cookbook of the period mentions such a cake. The Syutkins, writing in The Moscow Times, list the problems: the imperial table was tightly controlled, with the court physician overseeing the family's food, so an unknown cook serving the empress an untried dish is hard to imagine; and Russian cookbooks of the time, such as Vasily Levshin's dictionary of the 1790s and Navrotsky's book of 1808, contain no honey cakes of this kind. The only honey dough in those books is for gingerbread.

The same tale of a new chef and a royal who changes her mind is told about other cakes in other countries, which is another sign of a story that travels from dessert to dessert. It is a charming legend, and it is best enjoyed as one.

How did medovik become so popular?

Medovik spread as a home cake. Everything in it was available in an ordinary kitchen: honey, eggs, flour, butter, sour cream. It needed no special pans, since the layers are rolled out and cut around a plate, and it could be made a day ahead, which suited family celebrations.

The Syutkins note that in Soviet times medovik stayed a home cake, absent from cafeteria and restaurant menus, and families learned it from each other, which is one reason so many versions exist today: some swear by sour cream, others by boiled condensed milk, others by custard.

Emigrants from the region took the cake with them, and today medovik is a fixture of Eastern European delis and bakeries in Canada, the United States, Israel and Western Europe, as well as a favourite of home bakers who like a cake they can make the day before.

Is medovik Ukrainian or Russian?

The honest answer is that medovik belongs to a shared tradition. The word exists in Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian, all from the Slavic word for honey. The romantic origin story set in St Petersburg has no evidence behind it. The documented record points to Ukrainian kitchens: honey cakes in Galician cookbooks and the first Soviet printed recipe in a Kyiv cookbook.

What can be said with confidence is that the modern layered medovik took shape in 20th-century home kitchens of the region, and that Ukrainians have every reason to count it among their own cakes.

What kinds of medovik are there?

Sour cream medovik (the classic)

Thin honey layers with a frosting of sour cream, sugar and sometimes whipped cream. It is the lightest and tangiest version and the one most Ukrainian families make. In Canada, grocery sour cream at 14% is thinner than Ukrainian smetana at 20–25%, so bakers here often fold in whipped 35% cream or drain the sour cream through cheesecloth for a few hours.

Boiled condensed milk and butter

A richer frosting of dulce de leche, made by boiling a can of sweetened condensed milk, beaten with soft butter. The Syutkins give this version as their family recipe. It is sweeter and more caramel-like, and the cake holds its shape better at room temperature.

Custard medovik

The layers are spread with a cooked custard of milk, eggs, sugar and flour, often finished with butter. It gives a softer, pudding-like crumb and suits people who find sour cream too sharp.

Medivnyk

A Ukrainian name for honey cakes, and in its narrow sense a honey cake baked without layers of cream. Many families, especially in Western Ukraine, use the word for the layered cake too.

Frying-pan medovik

A home shortcut: the rolled rounds of honey dough are baked one by one in a dry, heavy frying pan on the stovetop for a minute or two on each side. Handy when the oven is small or busy, with layers a little less even.

Czech medovník and Marlenka

The Czech medovník is a close cousin, often finished with a caramel cream and walnuts. Marlenka, the honey cake brand founded in 2003 in Frýdek-Místek, Czech Republic, by the Armenian-born Gevorg Avetisyan from a family recipe, follows the same idea of thin honey layers and cream.

How do you serve and store medovik?

• Serve medovik cold from the fridge, then let the slice stand for 10 to 15 minutes so the honey flavour opens up.
• Cut with a long, sharp knife wiped clean between slices; the crumb coat stays neat that way.
• Tea is the traditional partner, black or herbal; strong coffee works too. A spoon of berry jam or a few fresh raspberries on the side cuts the sweetness.
• Keep it covered in the fridge for 4 to 5 days. It is at its best on days two and three.
• Freeze whole or in wrapped slices for up to 2 months and thaw overnight in the fridge.
• Sour cream frosting is a dairy cream: leave a medovik out of the fridge for no more than two hours at a party.