“A cherry orchard by the house.
– Taras Shevchenko
Above the cherries beetles hum.”
Sadok Vyshnevyi Kolo Khaty
This cake is simple and super impressive at the same time. The specialty is in its form. It reminds a hut, especially its triangle roof, while dough tubes associate with wood logs – like a building material! I always say that pastry reminds me of architecture. “Hatynka” is a diminutive name of “house” in Ukrainian. Being a strong symbol, it brings back rustic, cozy and family atmosphere.
INGREDIENTS
For the dough
- 200 gr unsalted butter
- 200 gr. sour cream (20% fat)
- ¼ spoon of salt
- 400 gr. flour
For the filling
- Frozen cherries without pits – 1 kg.
- Sugar (with vanilla bean, optional)
- Lemon juice (optional)
For the cream
- 750 gr sour cream (20-30%)
- 220 gr powder sugar
- Lemon zest (1 lemon, optional)
- 100 gr. dark chocolate (70-85%)
METHOD
- Freeze butter in a freezer.
- Grate butter into a bowl of sifted flour. Grind into crumbs with a scraper without touching with your hands.
- Add salt and cold sour cream, knead with a scraper but not until completely smooth so that the dough exfoliates.
- Form the dough into balls with your hands, but make sure to do it quickly without warming the dough.
- Sprinkle the table with flour and divide the dough into 5 pieces in the shape of rectangles.
- Sprinkle with a little flour each piece, cover with film and put in the refrigerator for an hour.
- In the meantime you can make the filling. Put frozen cherries into a saucepan with a little bit of sugar (depends on the acidity of cherries, don’t make it too sweet so you can still taste the natural flavor of the cherries) and some lemon juice, if you want.
- Boil on a small heat until juices come out and the sugar dissolves. Put on a sieve to drain the liquid.
- When your dough is ready roll each piece into a thin rectangular layer (30 cm х 25 cm). Cut into three 8 x 30 cm pieces.
- Preheat an oven to 200 C.
- Place cherries in a row one by one about 1.5 cm away from the edge. Cover cherries with dough, rolling tightly into a tube.
- Moisten the edge with water and fasten. Pinch the edges (make it look like a long candy).
- Put seam down on parchment. Make 15 tubes.
- Pierce all tubes in some places with a toothpick.
- Cook at 200 C for 20 minutes
- Leave to cool. Trim the edges with a knife, making all tubes the same length.
- Put sour cream, powdered sugar (you can add more or less depending on your preference) and lemon zest in a bowl.
- Beat with a mixer, but not too hard to not make the cream too dense. Remember that it will still harden in the refrigerator.
- Take 200-250 gr. of cream and put aside in the refrigerator.
- Smear a suitable dish with a little bit of the rest of the cream (like a foundation).
- Build the hut like a pyramid, smearing each layer with cream and reducing the number of tubes (start with 5) by one with each floor.
- Use the ‘clay’ to fill all the cracks between logs.
- Let it chill in the refrigerator for couple of hours, or better overnight
- Cover the cake with the rest of the cream to make it look more like a triangle roof. Then rub dark chocolate on a grater over the “house”.
