Cake “Monastyrskaya izba” – Russian cherry honeycomb dessert

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Fruity sour cherry filling, sweet sour cream and fine sour cream puff pastry are combined in the cake “Monastyrskaya izba”. It is not only a hit in terms of taste. The Russian dessert in the shape of a monastery hut is also an eye-catcher on any coffee table. You can find a detailed cake “Monastyrskaya izba” recipe with the exact quantities and step-by-step instructions here at the bottom.

What is “Monastyrskaya izba”?

“Monastyrskaya izba” is a popular Russian cake of a different kind. It is rather a dessert. The cake is made of a puff pastry with sour cream, similar to the cake “Styopka rastryopka”, the sour cherry filling and sour cream.

“Monastyrskaya izba” translated from Russian means “monastery hut”. The cake got the name because of its shape. It reminds one of a small hut made of logs. Similarly, the name and shape of the cake “Muraveynik”.

The dessert is known by many other names, including “Drova pod snegom” (translated as “firewood under the snow”) or “Vishnyovaya gorka” (translated as “little cherry hill”).

The history of the cake “Monastyrskaya izba”, just like of the chocolate Spartak cake or the honey cake “Winnie-the-Pooh”, has been lost. Nobody knows who invented the dessert. It is only known that it was first prepared with plums. Only later recipes with cherries were added.

Prepare fruit filling

You can fill the cake “Monastyrskaya izba” with fresh, frozen, pickled or cooked cherries. Be sure to use sour cherries for this, just like for the cherry vareniki. They combine perfectly with the sweet sour cream and give the cake a sour note.

Cooked cherry filling

I used frozen sour cherries in the recipe and cooked them briefly with a little sugar and cornstarch for firmness. Cooking gives frozen cherries a more pronounced and fruity flavor. I prepared the fruit filling for my lemon raspberry cupcakes similarly.

You can also use a solid sour cherry jam for the Russian cherry honeycomb cake.

Frozen sour cherries

Alternatively, you can fill the dough with frozen cherries without cooking them. In this case, let them thaw in a sieve and drain thoroughly. Afterwards, roll them in a little cornstarch to bind the juice during baking. You can sprinkle the cherries with a little sugar after spreading them on each strip of dough.

Pickled sour cherries

Pickled sour cherries are often used to fill the Russian cake “Monastyrskaya izba”. They must also be drained thoroughly beforehand. Since such sour cherries already contain sugar, you do not need to sweeten the filling.

Fresh sour cherries

During the cherry season you can make the cake “Monastyrskaya izba” with fresh sour cherries especially fruity and really summery. Pit the cherries, mix them with sugar and let them juice for about an hour. After that, the sour cherries should be drained thoroughly.

By the way, you can experiment with the filling for the cake “Monastyrskaya izba” and try it with different fruits. For example, how about fresh raspberries in the summer?

Firmer consistency for sour cream

If you want your sour cream for the cake to have a firmer consistency, drain the sour cream thoroughly. You should do this the day before.

In this case, use a little more sour cream than indicated in the recipe. Only after draining, weigh out the necessary portion.

To drain, line a large sieve with a straining cloth and pour the sour cream into it. Hang the sieve over a bowl and allow the excess liquid to drain overnight in the refrigerator.

The next day you will get a really firm sour cream, which you can use for the cake cream. It works similarly with the draining of quark for the Polish Royal cheesecake.

Sour cream with cream or butter

The Russian cherry honeycomb cake can be prepared not only with the pure sour cream, like the medovik cake. There are also recipes for it with sour cream cream or sour cream butter cream.

Cake cream with cream

For this cake cream you take sour cream and cream in the ratio of about 1:1. The amount of powdered sugar you determine according to taste. Put the three ingredients plus vanilla in a mixing bowl and whip until creamy, just like for the medovik cake roll. It’s important to use cream and sour cream straight from the fridge.

Cake cream with butter

For this, take about 500 g of sour cream, 100 g of room warm butter and powdered sugar to taste. First mix sour cream and powdered sugar. Then add the butter in batches, whipping each time to a homogeneous cream.

Decorate cherry honeycomb dessert

To decorate, you can sprinkle the cake “Monastyrskaya izba” with grated chocolate, as I did. You can also cover it with a chocolate glaze, like the chocolate cream cake. This way the cherry honeycomb dessert looks like a real monastery hut.

Various chopped nuts are just as good for sprinkling on the cake. Take pistachios or hazelnuts, for example. Almond flakes also go very well with it.

In addition, you can decorate the dessert with coconut flakes. This will make it resemble a snowed-in hut.

The cake “Monastyrskaya izba” is

• fruity,
• creamy,
• tender,
• moist,
• soft,
• fine,
• sweet sour,
• very tasty,
• with sour cherries,
• with sour cream,
• with sour cream puff pastry,
• a fancy eye-catcher on every coffee table,
• easy, but with a certain amount of time to make at home,
• perfect at Christmas and at any time of the year,
• classic of Russian cuisine.

Cake “Monastyrskaya izba” recipe

The cake “Monastyrskaya izba” recipe, which you can find here at the end of the post in the recipe box, is not difficult. However, since it consists of several steps, it does require a certain amount of time.

Step 1:

To make the dough, finely chop cold butter with flour and salt. Then you add sour cream and knead it briefly to form a soft dough, which you chill thoroughly.

Step 2:

Then roll out the dough thinly and cut it into long strips. Spread sour cherries on each strip and roll it up. Bake the filled dough tubes for about 25 minutes and let them cool down.

Step 3:

For the cream, mix only sour cream with powdered sugar and vanilla.

Step 4:

Now stack the cherry rolls on top of each other to form a hut, spreading each layer of them with the sour cream.

Step 5:

After the dessert has been in the fridge, preferably overnight, you can decorate it with grated chocolate.

How to make Russian cherry honeycomb cake: tips and tricks

• In no case knead the dough for too long. You should only form all the ingredients into an inhomogeneous ball of dough.
• If your dough is too dry, you can add some sour cream. If it is mushy, add some more flour.
• The classic dough for the cake “Monastyrskaya izba” does not contain sugar.
• You can adjust the amount of powdered sugar for the sour cream according to your taste.
• To make the sour cream firmer, you can let the sour cream drain overnight in a sieve lined with a straining cloth in the refrigerator. You can read more about this at the top of the post.
• Instead of using the pure sour cream, you can make the cake “Monastyrskaya izba” with a sour cream cream or sour cream butter cream. Read more about it here above.
• Instead of the cooked cherry filling you can use fresh, pickled or frozen sour cherries in the recipe. There’s more on that at the top of the post, too.
• It’s normal for some juice to come out when baking the cherry rolls.
• Be careful with the hot dough tubes. They are very fragile.

Cake “Monastyrskaya izba” video recipe

By the way, on my Youtube channel you can find a short video for the Russian cake “Monastyrskaya izba”. There you can see exactly how to make it at home. If you don’t want to miss any more videos from me, feel free to subscribe to my channel.

Did you make the cake “Monastyrskaya izba” according to this recipe? I’m looking forward to your result, your star rating and your comment here below, how you succeeded and tasted the Russian cherry honeycomb cake.

Also try these Russian cake recipes:

• Leningradsky cake – sweet piece of Soviet childhood
• Honey cake “Korovka”: with taste of famous caramel candies
• Cake “Charodeyka” – Soviet classic cake with magic

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