"Fabulous" photo report: how your favorite Soviet cakes are made
The development of retail chains has hit hard and continues to hit traditional bakeries. These huge productions are static, like the Titanic against the backdrop of nimble boats. Rarely does a new store open without its own bakery, which is faster, more up-to-date and often cheaper. However, there are trump cards in the factory sleeve, which are still too tough even for large stores. One of these is classic recipes for breads and cakes, famous since Soviet times.
The expression “cake is no longer a cake” sounds ridiculous, but literally reflects the current desire to complain: they say that cakes used to be tastier, but today they are not the same. Manufacturers defend themselves with prescription cards: the recipes are old, so why are the products getting worse? The most meticulous of them suggest that the reason for dissatisfaction (apart from the age grumblings of customers) may be the changing quality of products - the raw material for the cake, which becomes different, more "long-term". To verify the quality of the production of classic cakes, Onliner.by went to the shops of the Minsk bakery No. 3.
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2. Minsk Bakery No. 3 has been operating since 1953 and remembers different times. Once upon a time, up to 50 tons of bakery products and more than a ton of Skazka cakes were made here per day. Now less in total, but in a wider range. Traditional varieties are complemented by products that previously could only be dreamed of.
3. “Be sure to write about our new Healthy Heart bread,” Larisa Lisovskaya, head of the laboratory, immediately draws attention. “This is a continuation of the breads of the European line: Oat Valley, cereal Hercules, English Grain — breads that are not only tasty for everyone, but also healthy for diabetics.”
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5. "Healthy Heart" bread containing essential minerals and vitamins is recommended to reduce the risk of diseases of the cardiovascular system. So far, employees are showing a prototype, but soon the recipe will go into industrial production. A loaf will cost about 14 thousand rubles.
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9. Having familiarized ourselves with the novelty, we are allowed into the confectionery shop - one of the four production sites of the bakery. The workshop is a “factory within a factory”: it has its own warehouse, oven, production equipment and employees. By the way, there are few young people, but in the context of classic cakes, this is only a plus: try to convince a skeptic that a young girl will make the very “Fairy Tale”. Moreover, cakes are little influenced by modern production technologies, the main work is manual labor.
10. The 3rd bakery makes about 30 types of cakes, not counting individual orders. From the old recipes - "Kiev", "Leningrad", "Capital" and "Fairy Tale". The enterprise is not a monopolist, the same cakes are made by other factories in the capital. More than once I had to watch how buyers ask for a certain bakery in the Skazka store. Although the recipes for everyone (this information is in the public domain) are the same.
“Perhaps, we are talking about the external design of the cake, which can be excellent even within the same factory,” suggests Larisa Lisovskaya. - Confectioners are also artists who can design a cake within the limits of their skill and imagination. Only the recipe and weight do not change.
11. "Fairy Tale" begins with baking a semi-finished biscuit. After 8 hours, the biscuit will stand, and the confectioner takes over. Initially, the biscuit must be soaked in syrup, which includes water, sugar, dessert wine (for example, Cahors) and brandy (Minsk Crystal). The syrup exudes a light alcoholic flair, but you won’t get drunk from it: it tastes like ... sweet syrup.
12. By the way, the degree of impregnation is just the main object of criticism. However, confectioners assure that the biscuit is soaked in the traditional, equal volume of syrup. To do this, there is a scale and a measuring cup. For especially suspicious buyers, here is a wonderful tip from confectioners: the “Fairy Tale” becomes much juicier and tastier after freezing in an ordinary home chamber.
13. The same applies to the volume of the cream, which is made from butter with the addition of brandy, condensed milk and sugar. It is also smeared by hand, but the sharpened eye of the confectioner will most likely add as much cream as required by the recipe.
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15. After the cream, the biscuit is rolled up and left to soak.
16. The rolls are cut into pieces of suitable size, weighed, and then the precise work begins to fit the still semi-finished product to the required size and weight of the cake. To begin with, the workpiece is covered with a layer of the same cream as inside. Then waves are drawn with a figured crest.
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19. The next step is to sprinkle the side surface with crumbs.
20. “This baby is specially prepared for sprinkling,” says Larisa Lisovskaya. “The biscuit is baked separately, crushed and dried.”
21. The transformation of the cake into a "fairy tale" is completed with the design. The cake becomes not only appetizing and beautiful, but also kilogram. The most delicious cake will be the next day after production, but it is extremely difficult to find such a cake on sale: the official expiration date of Skazka is only 36 hours.
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27. Similarly, "Kiev" is made. First, air-nut cakes are baked. According to the cake recipe, nuts are interchangeable. Peanuts were always used at the 3rd bakery. The cakes are glued together with butter cream, and then a procedure similar to a “fairy tale” is carried out: glazing, sprinkling the sides and decorating the surface.
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35. “There are hardly any employees left at the factory who remember how they started making cake sets. It seems as if they have always been, - Larisa Lisovskaya answers the question about the age of the popular dessert. - Since then, their assortment, weight has changed. Some types of cakes, such as bouché or biscuit strips, are more difficult to find today. Instead, new types with vegetable cream appeared. The only thing that remains in each set is the Potato cake.
"Potato" is another complex of the modern buyer. From which only, judging by the rumors, this cake is not made. The reason for this is the little one.
““Potato” is actually made from biscuit crumbs with the addition of cream, cocoa and impregnation. Only these are crumbs not from the table or from expired cakes, but specially baked from a semi-finished biscuit product, our guide assures. “By the way, expired products have no right to be returned from the store to the bakery.”
36. Next to the conveyor belt - tables for work on individual orders. The main limitation for buyers is the finished recipe. You can't bring grandma's recipe and ask her to bake a cake from it. The bakery offers to make cakes according to six popular recipes. Well, the appearance can be the most bizarre.
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38. Here is, for example, a blank that will turn into Sponge Bob.
The price of the cake is from 90 thousand rubles per kilogram. The cost of an “elite” cake is from 150 thousand. For this, you will be decorated with mastic, caramel and other expensive ingredients. The largest cake, which was made to order here, weighed about 120 kilograms and was made for the holiday at BSU.
39. If the recipe for classic cakes was left, then almost all bakeries removed the old “clothing” made of cardboard. Now cakes are packed in transparent plastic boxes, which are both more convenient for transportation and more popular with customers. Although there will surely be those who miss the famous picture pasted on every box of the Fairy Tale. Whoever makes cakes, no matter how, they remain a matter of taste. And they argue about tastes.
Keywords: Cake