Layered Liver Cake
January 28th, 2012 in Appetizers & Snacks by Julia Volhina
Total cooking time: 1h 30min
Layered liver cake, dish of traditional Ukrainian cuisine, is often served as appetizer on various celebrations, in fact I tried it first time on a wedding.
For this recipe I used chicken liver, but beef liver will work good as well.
Carrots and onions stuffing can be skipped all together – it will decrease cooking time and reduce amount of mayo to be used (since layers will not need that much mayo to stick together). However carrots go great with liver.
How many layers you get from this amount of ingredients depends on the size of the frying pan you use. I think 11” frying pan is the best – not too big not too small. The ideal amount of layers for this recipe is about 12; if you get more split them in half and assemble 2 cakes.
Ingredients:
- 3/4 lb chicken liver
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup of milk
- 1/3 cup of all purpose flour
- 2 tables spoons of oil + a bit more for frying
- 2-3 carrots
- 1 big onion
- 2-3 garlic cloves
- 1-1.5 cups of of mayo
- Fresh dill to taste
- Fresh parsley to taste
- Salt to taste
How to prepare, step-by-step:
-
Prepare ingredients:
Layered Liver Cake Recipe: Step 1 -
Start off by making stuffing: fry onions with shredded carrots over moderate heat until carrots are soft:
Peel and quarter onions, fry them with oil until yellow and soft 
Add carrots shredded on big slots 
Fry together until carrots are soft, salt to taste
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Rinse chicken livers, remove any fat or connective tissue (and discard it), put cleaned livers to the blander:
Layered Liver Cake Recipe: Step 3 -
Add half cup of milk:
Layered Liver Cake Recipe: Step 4 -
Cover with a lid and puree until homogeneous:
Layered Liver Cake Recipe: Step 5 -
Pour pureed liver to the mixing bowl, crack 2 eggs in:
Layered Liver Cake Recipe: Step 6 -
Add 2 tablespoons of oil:
Layered Liver Cake Recipe: Step 7 -
And about tea spoon of salt (or less to taste):
Layered Liver Cake Recipe: Step 8 -
Mix everything and gradually mix flour in (it will go easier if you use sifter):
Layered Liver Cake Recipe: Step 9 -
Now it is time to fry liver “crepes”, use frying pan about 10-11 inches in diameter, warm it up and smear it with oil before first crepe, the rest will fry on oil in the batter:
Ladle a bit of batter 
Pour it in the warmed up frying pan 
Evenly distribute batter with circular motion
Fry crepe until ready from one side 
Then flip to other side using spatula or hands 
Repeat for all batter, you will get 10-12 crepes in total
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Pour all mayo to a mixing bowl; peel garlic cloves and press them into bowl with mayo:
Layered Liver Cake Recipe: Step 11 -
Add chopped fresh dill and parsley, season with salt to taste and mix:
Layered Liver Cake Recipe: Step 12 -
Now let’s assemble the “cake”. Arrange one liver crepe in the middle of flat plate and spread mayo garlic sauce over it:
Layered Liver Cake Recipe: Step 13 -
Spread carrots and onion mix over:
Layered Liver Cake Recipe: Step 14 -
Cover with next crepe and repeat with mayo-garlic and onion-carrots, until last crepe it on, then just finish it up with remaining of mayo mix, get sides also:
Layered Liver Cake Recipe: Step 15 -
Serve chicken liver cake as appetizer or snack, store left overs in the fridge covered with food wrap:
Layered Liver Cake Recipe: Step 16
Awesome recipe, very tasty. Thanks.
Thank you for your feedback!
This is the recipe I have been searching for! I am 25 weeks pregnant and suddenly feeling fatigued from low iron… and knowing that liver contains lots of iron, I am now craving this cake. I will make it soon, the recipe looks like a winner!
Nice recipe! I had more liver, but ended up with 12 layers anyway (I guess I have a bigger pan). Added some cheese on top. Thanks!
It is possible, I use smaller pan for this one, because liver with all the additions to it is pretty filling. I would suggest to slice it in smaller squares when serving, to it is not too much to eat 🙂
Thanks for this recipe. I enjoyed it a lot!
I am originally from Ukraine, however do not remember this “cake” from my childhood. I made it for my BD get-together a few weeks ago and it was a real WOW-dish!! Two of my guests asked to share the recipe – always a sign of success. It looks beautifully at the table, easy to make, to slice and to dish up. Comparing to chicken liver pate which I used to make in the past for my “Russian table” dinners, the Layered Liver Cake is the better option by far! Thanks again.
Thank you for trying it!
What part of Ukraine you are originally from? Maybe it is more traditional on the west (where I am from)? It is pretty popular wedding food there…
Thank you so much for this website, such a taste from childhood. Whenever we would go to my grandparents village some of the relatives would sure cook this cake. And now I don’t have to put my recipes on paper because you have practically all of them! Great job
Internet is my paper, I am doing to not forget things as well as to share recipes with other ppl 🙂 Welcome.