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“Firewood on Snow” Cake

This cake looked unusual even for me when I saw it first time: doesn’t it resemble a bunch of firewood covered with a snow to you?

This recipe is Yuriy’s mom speciality dessert and it often appears on the table during family celebrations. Yuriy’s mom preserves pitted sour cherries in their own juices under sugar each season, so there are always plenty of them ready for use.

If you don’t have sour cherries preserved in such way – you can always go with pitted cherry kompot like I did, but in this case add a bit of sugar to the dough, or cake will not be sweet enough.

I would want to tell you that this cake is easy and fast to do, but I can’t. It took me quite some time to make dough, prepare “firewood” sticks and then assemble the cake; but that is probably because I cooked it first time in my life.

After cake is assembled allow some time for layers to soak in sour cream frosting to get soft: leave it in cool place (but not fridge) at least over night (depending on how liquid sour cream is it may take longer). It is good idea to prepare cake at least a day before you are planning to serve it.

Ingredients:

• 
  Cake:
  
  About 3 cups of flour (or a bit more)
• 6.5 oz of margarine (about 1 2/3 sticks)
• 1 cup of sour cream
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• Vinegar, about 1 teaspoon
• 2 pint jars of pitted sour cherry kompot or pitted cherries preserved in sugar
• 1/4 cup of sugar (optional)
• 
  
  Frosting:
  
  25 oz of original sour cream
• 1/3 cup of sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla sugar
• Up to 1/2 cup of kefir (optional)

How to prepare, step-by-step:

1. Prepare ingredients: sour cream frosting should me liquid enough to soak into baked dough, but not too liquid to it doesn’t run: if sour cream you have is too liquid drain excessive liquid through coffee filter before preparing frosting, on other hand if sour cream is too thick dilute it with kefir:
   
   

   Cake “Firewood on Snow” Recipe: Step 1

2. Pour about 2 cups of flour into deep bowl, and all margarine (at room temperature):
   
   

   Cake “Firewood on Snow” Recipe: Step 2

3. Mix margarine with flour using fork or pastry blender:
   
   

   Cake “Firewood on Snow” Recipe: Step 3

4. Add sour cream, if kompot isn’t sweet enough (as an opposite to sour cherries preserved in just their own juices and sugar) add about 1/4 of sugar too, mix everything:
   
   

   Cake “Firewood on Snow” Recipe: Step 4

5. Pour vinegar over baking soda, after they start reacting, mix them in:
   
   

   Cake “Firewood on Snow” Recipe: Step 5

6. Continue mixing flour in until dough becomes thick enough to work with it by hands:
   
   

   Cake “Firewood on Snow” Recipe: Step 6

7. Then pour dough over flour dusted wooden board, knead couple of times, add more flour if needed:
   
   

   Cake “Firewood on Snow” Recipe: Step 7

8. Separate dough in 18 pieces (with that amount you can make either 5 + 4 + 4 + 3 + 2 layers setup like I did or 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 layers if you wish, if you want to lay sticks differently – just adjust amount of pieces at this point):
   
   

   Slice all dough in 4 pieces, then slice 2 of them in 5 pieces and 2 of them in 4

   

   Roll dough bolls

   

   And put them to fridge for about 1 hour

   
   
   
9. Drain liquid from cherries, this recipe calls for cherries only, kompot can be used for jello or anything else (picture shows only 1 jar, I did them one by one):
   
   

   Cake “Firewood on Snow” Recipe: Step 9

10. Lay 2 baking sheets with parchment paper; prepare “firewood” sticks from dough bolls and cherries, stick length should be close to width of you baking sheets (roll dough thin, move ready sticks to prepared baking sheets):
    
    

    Roll a dough ball into thin long sheet

    

    Arrange line of pitted cherries on dough

    

    Fold dough into “stick”, seal sides tight

    
    
    
11. Prepare firewood “sticks” from all dough and cherries:
    
    

    Cake “Firewood on Snow” Recipe: Step 11

12. Warm oven up to 390F. Put both sheets with sticks to oven for 20-25 mins (some juices may come out, that is ok), don’t bake too long or dough will become too dry and will require longer time for soaking to become soft later:
    
    

    Cake “Firewood on Snow” Recipe: Step 12

13. Now it is time to prepare frosting: if frosting isn’t liquid enough the cake will not be soft, so if needed add a bit of kefir to get it to required thickness, but not too much:
    
    

    Pour sour cream to mixing bowl

    

    Add sugar to taste (I used 1/3 cup)

    

    Add 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla sugar, mix

    
    
    
14. Now it is time to assemble the cake: as I mentioned earlier, I did 5 + 4 + 4 + 3 + 2 sticks setup of layers; if you have any broken sticks put them in the middle layers and in the center of a layer:
    
    

    Put first layer of sticks next to each other

    

    Generously cover with frosting and put second layer of sticks

    

    Cover with frosting, move sticks together if they are trying to get apart

    
    
    
    
    

    Put third layer of cake

    

    Again cover with frosting and assemble fourth layer

    

    Cover with frosting, put remaining 2 sticks and evenly spread remaining frosting over the top and sides

    
    
    
15. Leave cake in cool place (but not in fridge) for a day to soak in sour cream (I covered it with plastic wrap and put close by the window):
    
    

    Cake “Firewood on Snow” Recipe: Step 15

16. Next day cake is ready, slice it up and serve:
    
    

    “Firewood on Snow” Cake

Enjoy!

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