Charodeyka: the Soviet Enchantress Cake, Explained

Every country has a cake that is not for anything. Not a birthday cake, not a wedding cake, not a cake you would put candles in. Just the thing that was bought on the way home because it was there and it was cheap and everybody liked it. In the Soviet Union that cake was Charodeyka.

The name means the Enchantress, and it comes from a 1978 television film that was popular enough for a confectionery factory to borrow the title. There is no deeper story than that. It is a marketing decision from nearly fifty years ago that outlived the film, the factory and the country.

What is in it

Three parts, and none of them is complicated on its own.

A very light sponge, closer to a genoise than to the heavy layers of a Napoleon, baked in one piece and split. A custard cream, cooked on milk and egg yolk and then beaten with butter until it is pale and holds its shape. And a chocolate glaze poured over the top and left to set in a thin sheet.

What makes it work is proportion. The cream layer is thick, easily as thick as the sponge above and below it, which is the opposite of how most layer cakes are built. You are eating mostly cream with sponge to hold it, and the sponge exists to carry the cream rather than the other way around.

The sponge is the hard part

A sponge this light is made without chemical raising. All the lift comes from eggs beaten with sugar until the mixture triples and holds a ribbon on the surface for several seconds, then flour folded through by hand in as few movements as the job allows.

Every extra fold costs air. A sponge that has been stirred rather than folded bakes into something tight and rubbery that will not absorb cream, and once it has happened there is no fixing it. This is why the recipe reads as though a child could make it and why a first attempt usually fails.

The baked sponge is left overnight before it is split, because a warm sponge tears and a rested one cuts clean.

Cake “Charodeyka”Charodeyka cake, the Soviet Enchantress. Airy sponge, custard cream and a glossy chocolate glaze.£61Order this

Why the glaze is thin

The chocolate on a Charodeyka is a sheet rather than a coating. Poured warm, it runs to a few millimetres and sets glossy, and when you cut the cake it cracks rather than smears.

There is a reason not to make it thicker. The cake underneath is mild. Custard cream and airy sponge are gentle things, and a heavy layer of ganache would simply be the only thing anybody tasted. The thin glaze gives you the snap and the bitter note at the start of the mouthful and then gets out of the way.

Where it sits in the range

This is the cake to order when you do not want an occasion.

It is the mildest of the chocolate leaning cakes. It has no nuts. It is not rich in the way Prague cake is rich, and it does not need the ceremony a Kyiv cake asks for. Children eat it without being persuaded. It goes with tea in the afternoon better than anything else we make except perhaps the Napoleon.

It is also the cake most often ordered alongside something else for a table that has both adults and children at it, which is a reasonable way to solve that problem.

Prague Cake (18cm)£82Bird's Milk Cakefrom £78

What tends to go wrong elsewhere

Three things, in order of how often you meet them.

A dense sponge, from overmixing, which turns the cake into something closer to a shop bought slab.

A cream made with margarine or with too little egg, which tastes of sugar and fat rather than of custard. The custard flavour is the entire character of this cake and there is nowhere for it to hide.

And a cake served straight from the fridge, which mutes the custard completely. Thirty minutes out of the cold before cutting makes more difference to a Charodeyka than to almost anything else on the list.

How to spot a factory one

Charodeyka is still made industrially across the former Soviet Union and imported into British shops frozen, and a frozen one gives itself away in three places.

The glaze. A factory glaze is usually a compound coating rather than real chocolate, made with vegetable fat so it sets reliably in a cold room and survives transport. It looks right and it has a waxy melt that real chocolate does not.

The cream. A long life custard cream is stabilised, which makes it smoother and more uniform than a butter and custard cream should be. If it has no grain at all and tastes faintly of vanilla essence rather than of egg, that is what you are eating.

The sponge. Freezing and thawing puts water into a light sponge, and a thawed Charodeyka is damp at the base where the moisture has settled.

None of this makes the imported version inedible. It makes it a different product at a different price, and it is worth knowing which one you are buying before you decide one of them was disappointing.

Common questions

What does Charodeyka taste like?

Vanilla custard, mostly, with a bitter chocolate note from the glaze on top. It is the mildest and lightest of our chocolate cakes rather than a rich one.

Is it suitable for children?

Yes, and it is usually the one they choose. No nuts, no alcohol, nothing sharp. It does contain gluten, eggs, soya and milk.

How far ahead do I need to order?

Forty eight hours. The sponge is rested before it is split and the glaze needs time to set properly.

How big is it and how many does it serve?

18 cm, which cuts into ten to twelve slices. Because it is light, it tends to serve towards the lower end of that when people are helping themselves.

How should I store it?

In the fridge and out of it thirty minutes before serving. It keeps three days, though the glaze is at its glossiest on the first.

Can I have a message written on it?

Yes, on most of our cakes, and it is added at checkout rather than arranged separately. On a Charodeyka the writing goes on the set glaze.

Ordering one in London

Charodeyka is baked to order in Belgravia and delivered across London and Surrey, £12 within central London and £15 elsewhere, with a £50 minimum order and 48 hours notice. Choose your date at the checkout and it is made for that day rather than taken from a shelf.