Mini cakes “Bouchee” – legendary dessert of the Soviet era

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The mini cakes “Bouchee” are made of a fluffy sponge cake, the delicate butter cream and covered with sweet fondant chocolate icing. They taste soft, creamy and so delicious. Although the pastry has a French name, it used to be very popular in the Soviet Union. Here I show you how to make it yourself. You can find a detailed recipe for the mini cakes “Bouchee” with exact quantities and step-by-step instructions here at the very bottom.

Russian pastry with French name

Who invented the mini cakes “Bouchee” is not known. Even though they have a French name, they don’t exist in such a way in France. French bouchees are small pastries, often made with puff pastry. There is an assumption that the recipe for the mini cakes “Bouchee” came from Soviet pastry chefs and has nothing to do with France except for the name.

Popular dessert of the Soviet period

The assortment of Soviet confectioners used to include sponge slices with butter cream, tarts “Penyochki”, korzinochki, puff pastry horns with Italian meringue or choux pastry rings with curd, as well as the mini cakes “Bouchee”. Meanwhile, the pastries found in Russia hardly correspond to the original in taste. However, the Soviet recipe for the mini cakes “Bouchee” still exists. After that, we can make the dessert ourselves at home.

What are mini cakes “Bouchee” made of?

The pastry has the shape of sandwich cookies with the sponge cake “Bouchee” and the butter cream filling in between. On top it is covered with the fondant chocolate icing and decorated with white fondant. The butter cream is made with the home-made cornstarch syrup, which is whipped with butter to the cream.

The sponge cake “Bouchee”

The peculiarity of the sponge cake “Bouchee” is that for its making egg white is necessarily separated from the yolk. In addition, unlike the classic sponge cake dough, it is made with a larger amount of flour. As a result, the dough for the sponge cake “Bouchee” is firmer, keeps its shape and does not melt when setting the cookies from it. Accordingly, after baking, the sponge cake “Bouchee” is not as soft as the classic.

Quick filling alternatives to the classic butter cream

If you ever don’t have time to boil the cornstarch syrup and let it cool, and only then whip it into cream with butter, you can make a quick butter cream with sweetened condensed milk and butter and fill the mini cakes “Bouchee” with it. To do this, take butter and sweetened condensed milk in a ratio of about 1:1, let it sit at room temperature for a while so that the two ingredients become room-warm, and then whip them together into a cream.

By the way, Soviet confectioners sometimes used jam instead of butter cream as a filling for the mini cakes “Bouchee”. This also makes the dessert much faster. Take a firm jam, which does not taste too sweet, to fill the pastry.

How to decorate mini cakes “Bouchee”?

After covering the surface of the mini cakes “Bouchee” with the fondant chocolate icing, decorate them with the white fondant by drawing different patterns from it on the chocolate icing. For example, this can be simple stripes or wavy lines. You can also pipe small drops with the white fondant onto the mini cakes. You can see how I decorated my mini cakes in the pictures. I used a piping bag with a very narrow nozzle.

Idea: fruity or nutty “Bouchees”

By the way, you can give a fruity or nutty flavor to your mini cakes “Bouchee” by spreading fresh fruits on the cream and the icing or by mixing nuts into the cream and the icing. In summer, fresh berries are ideal for this. In this way you can create a summer dessert on the dining table. If you refine the mini cakes “Bouchee” with nuts, roast them beforehand, so that the pastry becomes even more aromatic.

The mini cakes “Bouchee” are

• creamy,
• soft,
• fluffy,
• tender,
• sweet,
• aromatic,
• very tasty,
• made with common ingredients,
• an eye-catcher on the dining table,
• ideal for dessert during the week or for a celebration,
• popular pastry of the Soviet era.

Recipe for mini cakes “Bouchee”

The recipe for the mini cakes “Bouchee” is a bit elaborate, but once you try them, you will find that the effort is definitely worth it. Here you can get a rough idea of how the making works and what you need for it. The exact quantities and step-by-step instructions for making the mini cakes “Bouchee” yourself can be found in the recipe box below.

At least one day before making the mini cakes, you should prepare the fondant. For this you need sugar, water and some lemon juice.

1. Boil water with sugar, add lemon juice and simmer the syrup until 114 – 115 °C.
2. Then let it cool down to 40 °C, whip it into a firm fondant mass and let it mature in the refrigerator for about 24 hours.

For the sponge cake you need eggs, separating the egg whites from the yolks, then sugar, flour and vanilla sugar.

1. First, beat egg whites with sugar until stiff, then stir in egg yolks briefly, and then fold in flour.
2. Now place the sponge cookies on the baking tray, bake them and let them cool down.

For the sugar syrup to soak the cookies, you need water, sugar and vanilla.

1. Boil the water and sugar briefly, then add the vanilla and let the sugar syrup cool.

For the filling, you need room-warm butter, milk, sugar, cornstarch and vanilla.

1. Boil a pudding-like syrup with milk, sugar and cornstarch, add vanilla and let it cool.
2. Now you whip soft butter and add the cornstarch syrup in batches.

Now you’re ready to make the mini cakes (Check out the detailed recipe below.)

1. To do this, soak half of the cookies in the sugar syrup.
2. Heat the fondant in a water bath and add cocoa powder. Cover the second half of the cookies with the fondant chocolate icing.
3. Now glue one cookie soaked in the sugar syrup and one cookie covered with the chocolate icing together with the butter cream and chill the mini cakes for a few hours. Done!

With these tips and tricks you will succeed in making mini cakes “Bouchee”

• Stir the egg yolks carefully and only briefly into the stiffly beaten egg whites so that the egg white mixture does not lose its firmness.
• Also fold in flour very carefully, preferably through a sieve of the egg-sugar mixture, so that the dough remains airy.
• The sponge dough must be processed (baked) immediately, it must not be left to stand.
• You will need a piping bag with a round hole nozzle to pipe the sponge cookies from the batter.
• The cornstarch syrup for the filling should be simmered for a few minutes so that the cream does not taste like cornstarch later. Use a thick-bottomed saucepan and stir the syrup continuously to prevent it from burning.
• Butter, the cornstarch syrup, and alcohol need to be room warm and all about the same temperature when whipped together into the cream so they can combine well.
• You can just omit alcohol for the filling.
• Vanilla for the filling and sugar syrup can be vanilla sugar, vanilla powder, vanilla extract or vanilla bean scraped out.
• To spread the filling on the sponge cookies, I used a piping bag and a star nozzle.
• The temperature of the sugar syrup for the fondant, to which it must be cooked, is very important. It’s best to use a kitchen thermometer to measure. If your sugar syrup reaches a higher or lower temperature than it needs to while cooking, it may not whip into white fondant later, but will remain runny and translucent.
• Don’t overdo it with the lemon juice you add to the sugar syrup for the fondant. A few drops are enough. Otherwise, the sugar syrup will not whip into fondant even in this case.
• After boiling the sugar syrup for the fondant, you should only pour it into a clean bowl and not scrape anything off the edge of the saucepan with a spoon, so that no possible sugar crystals get into the syrup.
• You can prepare the fondant in advance and store it wrapped in plastic wrap in the refrigerator for up to two months.
• Do not overheat the fondant when melting it. Melt it slowly in a bain-marie and do not heat it above 50 °C.
• If your fondant chocolate icing is too dry after adding cocoa powder, add warm water only drop by drop until the icing has the necessary consistency. If you overdo it with the water and the fondant glaze is too runny, you can make it thicker by adding a little powdered sugar or more cocoa powder.
• Store the mini cakes “Bouchee” in the refrigerator. You can enjoy them for about 3 days.

Have you made mini cakes “Bouchee” yourself according to this recipe? I’m looking forward to your results, your star rating and your comment below on how you liked the dessert.

Got an appetite for more delicious mini cakes? Try also:

• Napoleon tarts: recipe for quick mini variant of the Russian cake
• Mini chocolate sponge cakes – easy recipe for chocolate eye-catchers
• Sponge nut slices – the sweet taste hit from the Soviet era