Snowball or Cossack's hat

A week before Christmas my family's kitchen would transform into a council room. The women of the family, my grandmother, mum, and myself, would sit around the table poring over the traditional Christmas recipes. Most of the cakes required the best of a day's work, and many needed to sit in a cold room for a day or two to reach an edible state. But they also kept well, as the lack of refrigerator space and the desire to abandon all hard work for a few days compelled our ancestors to select recipes with that criterion in mind.

So, one would imagine cookies were the sweets of the season. Alas, it was not so. Christmas was a time when even if we lacked the monetary ability to ensure nice gifts would await everyone under the Christmas tree, the women would try to provide rich, creamy cakes for every day of the holidays. And as you will see, these were not cakes layered with simple buttercreams, but rather with pastry cream-types. They were not the (in my opinion) overly sweet, whipped butter and icing sugar mixtures, but ones based on a cooked custard which was then enriched by the incorporation of some butter. There is an enormous difference, I think everyone who has ever tried one of my Hungarian-style cakes can attest to this.

Snowball, variations of which are also called Cossack's hat, is a traditional Christmas cake in my family. Google "cossack AND hat" and you will immediately understand the name choice. The above picture also contains a little rummy coconut ball, which happens to be a delicious byproduct of this cake. Such rum-coconut balls are a popular way to recycle leftover cake materials in Hungary. Personally, I think Snowball makes the best leftovers for this.

On to the recipe:
Ingredients
Cake:
4 egg yolks
4 egg whites whipped to a hard foam
200g / 1cup sugar
4 tbsp hot water
125g / 1.25cup flour
1/2 tbsp baking powder
30g / 2tbsp cocoa powder

Cream:
2.5tbsp flour
200mL milk
1 tbsp vanilla flavor
100g butter
100g icing sugar

unsweetened, organic coconut flakes for coating

Optional: chocolate and butter for the icing

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Grease and flour a 9x11 inch baking shape.

Mix the egg yolks with the sugar until smooth and light yellow. Add in the hot water and mix.

In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and cocoa. Add to the egg mixture and stir until smooth. If the batter is too hard, you may add a little more water. Whip up the egg whites and fold the foam into the rest of the batter.

Pour evenly into the baking shape. Immediately bake in the preheated oven. Done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a minute. The edges will separate from the baking shape during this time. Place a cutting board on top of the baking shape and flip them together. Allow to sit for 20 seconds, the cake should fall out from the shape onto the board.

Remove the baking shape and flip the cake on the board so the top is facing up. Set aside.

For the filling: mix the flour and the milk in a saucepan, adding a little milk at a time. When they are blended, turn on the heat and stirring constantly bring to a boil. The flour should thicken the mixture until it's a thick custard. Pull off the heat and allow to cool completely, finishing up the process in the fridge.

When the cooked portion of the cream is cold, with a handmixer whip into it the soft (not melted!) butter, the icing sugar and the vanilla. You can taste the cream now, it should be delicious :-)

Finally, assembling the cakes: cut the rectangular cake horizontally in the middle to form two layers. Using a round cutting shape, cut small (1.5 inch) circles from both the top and the bottom layers. Match the top and bottom circles so you get equally tall pairs in the end.

With a knife, spread the butter cream in the middle, and around the cakes as well, leaving the top and bottom dry.

Roll the creamy edges in coconut flakes. All done. Now repeat with each of the pieces!

The remaining cake will be crumbled into the leftover cream. Rum can be added for flavor, as well as extra milk if necessary to bring the mix together. Then form balls (you can insert a rummy sour-cherry in the middle...if you have some at hand...if you don't, I will post the recipe for those later :-), finally roll the balls in the coconut flakes as well.

Now, if you are fond of chocolate, you may want to coat these with some real chocolate frosting. If so, melt about 100g of dark chocolate on the lowest possible heat (alternatively over a water bath or in the microwave). Mix in 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter until you get a shiny, smooth chocolate sauce. Use this to top the cakes. It will solidify into a beautifully glossy, real chocolate frosting.

If you are brave enough to make these, let me know how they worked!