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My Aunt Anna made this King’s Cake last Thanksgiving. I took a photo of it and posted it, then got a wave of requests for the recipe. 1 year later (ok, that’s more than a little embarrassing), I am finally posting it!
I just found out this is a Russian cake recipe. Korolevsky means King’s, which makes this a royal cake. Russian and Ukrainian people are known for their fantastic cakes. I’m sure you will enjoy this one!
Each cake layer has 1 cup of sour cream so it turns out very soft and moist. If you make the full recipe with all three different layers, it is very time consuming – not difficult – just time consuming.
According to the original recipe, each cake layer is mixed and baked separately (my wonderful husband so kindly washed my KitchenAid 4 times!!) This triple-layer-cake turned out huge and even a thin slice of cake was a lot!
Next time I make this, I will make double the cake portion at once, then divide the batter in half, put poppy seeds in one and walnuts in the other and bake them together in 2 separate cake pans.
This would make a double layer cake instead of a triple. You can also just make a full poppyseed cake or a full walnut cake and it will be just as good.
Ingredients For the Full 3-LAYER King’s Cake
3 cups sugar
3 cups sour cream
3 cups flour *measured correctly
3 tsp baking soda
3 tsp vinegar
1 Tbsp cocoa powder (I used dutch cocoa powder)
2 Tbsp poppy seeds
1 cup walnuts, toasted & chopped
Ingredients For Frosting:
Cake Prep Instructions:
How to Make Each Cake Layer:
Frosting Instructions:
1. Using a whisk attachment, beat together on high speed the cooked sweetened condensed milk (at room temp) and 2 sticks of butter for 3 to 4 minutes until fluffy.
Frost once the cake is cooled to room temperature. If you refrigerate the frosting before using, it may become too stiff and you will need to let it stand 15 to 30 minutes until it’s spreadable.
Russian Korolevsky Cake (King's Cake)
Ingredients
Ingredients for the Full 3-LAYER Cake
- 6 extra large eggs, at room temperature
- 3 cups sugar
- 3 cups sour cream
- 3 cups flour
- 3 tsp baking soda
- 3 tsp vinegar
- 1 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 Tbsp poppy seeds
- 1 cup walnuts, toasted & chopped
Ingredients For Frosting:
- 1 can sweetened condensed milk, cooked and at room temperature
- 2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
Instructions
Prep:
- Cake Prep Instructions:
- Grease and generously flour a 9" non-stick cake pan.
- On a dry skillet, over medium-high heat, toast 1 cup of walnuts until lightly golden then chop into small pieces.
How to Make Each Cake Layer: Preheat the Oven to 380 ˚ F (read note before starting)
- In the bowl of an stand mixer with a whisk attachment, beat together 2 eggs and 1 cup sugar until pale yellow (4 minutes on medium/high speed). Reduce the speed to low and add 1 cup flour. Mix until well-blended.
- Put 1 cup sour cream in a large measuring cup. In a small ramekin, combine 1 tsp baking soda with 1 tsp vinegar. It will fizz up, then stir it right away into the sour cream.
- The sour cream will start to visibly rise. Once you notice it rising, mix it into the cake batter using a spatula.
- In the first cake batter, mix in 1 Tbsp cocoa. Repeat steps 1-3 but In the second cake batter, mix in 2 Tbsp poppy seeds and in the third cake batter, mix in 1/2 cup toasted, chopped walnuts.
- Pour batter into prepared cake pan and bake at 380˚F for 20-22 minutes or until the top is golden and a toothpick comes out clean. Let cake layers cool to room temperature.
- Frost the top of each layer (see frosting instructions below)
- Sprinkle the top with the remaining 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Frosting Instructions:
- Using a whisk attachment, beat together on high speed the cooked sweetened condensed milk and 2 sticks of butter for 3 to 4 minutes until fluffy. Frost once the cake is cooled to room temperature.
Notes
Filed Under
This is one of my favorite cakes! And, I find the most delicious combination is: poppy seeds, raisins, walnuts, cacao. It is just incredible for the taste buds to have all the different textures and of course the condensed milk frosting tops it all! (Also nice with a simple sour cream frosting). I have adopted a routine where I make one big batch of batter, separate 1/4 into a separate bowl, add raisins, mix, pour into baking dish and bake; add another 1/4 of the batter to the same bowl, add poppy seed, mix, pour into baking dish, repeat with walnuts and cacao.This way I use less dishes and save time.
Thank you for sharing that with us, Natalie! I appreciate the awesome review!
Hi I’m making the cake now. Can I cut the layers and make it a 6 layer cake?
Hi Sofiya, that should work great to make it a 6-layer cake, but you will need more frosting 🙂
Natasha, can I make the cake layers all at once using my stand mixer if I just want to make them plain (or maybe just add nuts to all the layers)? Also, if i make it this way, wouldn’t 3 cups of sugar be too much? Is this a very sweet cake?
I’ve tried that before but it does’t rise well. Keep in mind its 1 cup of sugar for each layer. If you make two layers, just use 2 cups of sugar, I haven’t experimented with less.
Good to know…glad I asked! Thank you:-)
You’re welcome Nata!
Hi Natasha,
The recipe directs you to add “cooked” sweetened condensed milk. Can you please explain how to “cook” that item?
Hi Patty, it is essentially dulce de leche. Here is our easy tutorial 🙂
Hey Natasha, do you think there’s a sugar free version of this recipe? I would like to surprise my boyfriend with this cake but he and myself are both diabetics. Any tips on how I can modify the recipe ?
Hi Shayna, I haven’t tried any sugar free substitutes so I really can’t recommend anything. I don’t recall any of my readers trying my sponge cake as sugar free. The sugar helps the batter to form while whipping the eggs and sugar so I’m not sure a substitute would work. Sorry I can’t be more helpful!
Hello,
Why don’t you guys use Swerve or Erythritrl… you can find them on Amazon or in a fancy grocery stores… Even though my local Safeway is selling it now 😉 They work just like sugar and don’t have calories… they don’t even leave any nasty aftertaste like Stevia or other sweeteners… I have been making cakes with Swerve for a couple years and I have had lots of success… The only downside is that it is much more expensive than sugar. Erythrol is cheaper, though… I hope it helps… Check out the website https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/ Lots of good recipe for diabetics… I believe she even has a no sugar recipe for carmel which is what dulce the leche is… Good luck!
What a great suggestion! Thanks for sharing your helpful tip Ania! 🙂
Hello Natasha.
I will celebrate my birthday on Sunday and I would like to bake this cake. It would be very helpful, if you could tell me with what I can replace the sour cream, because we don’t have in Germany : (
And how much is one cup sour cream by weight?
Best wishes from Germany
Hi Anna, I haven’t tried anything besides sour cream but I imagine the next best thing would be Greek yogurt – plain. For the full 3-layer cake, 3 cups is 680 grams of sour cream.
Thank you for the quick response.
I thought maybe Russian smetana would be possible, too. But smetana has definitely more fat than Greek yogurt.
What do you think?
Hi Anna, I think that could work with Russian smetana. Let me know if you test it out 🙂
Hello Natasha. Does it matter what brand of sour cream to use? Thank you!
Hi Natalia, it should be a thick sour cream. I always have great results with the Daisy brand, but most US brands would work 🙂
Hi Natasha at the end did you put toasted walnuts or fresh ?
Hi Mariam, sorry I should have restated it in the instructions, it’s “1 cup walnuts, toasted & chopped” 🙂
Hi Natasha! I have a question. My layers take a very long time to bake like about an hour. At first I thought I did something wrong but my second layer took just as long to bake as the first one. Do you have any idea why that might be?
Hi Dariya, are you using the same size baking pan? 9″? And are you baking all 3 layers separately? 1 hour is definitely unusual.
Yes I’m using a 9″ pan and I’m baking them separately! And I went over all the steps a couple times to see if I missed something but I’m doing everything right.. Maybe something is wrong with my oven 😳
It must be. This cake would be burnt in my oven for an hour at that temp. And you are baking in fahrenheit, not Celsius, correct?
I am always worried that my cake will turn out dry..and this one doesn’t have any syrup to saturate with prior to putting the creme. is there any syrup you’d recommend making? thank you!
I totally get where you are coming from. This cake does not require any syrup because it is naturally moist. It isn’t a sponge cake so a syrup is not ideal for this cake.
I want to frost the whole cake, what would you suggest adding to the frosting, to have enough?
Yes, you would want to increase the amount of frosting since this makes only enough to cover the layers.
Thanks. Also, about how long do you wait for the sour cream to rise before mixing it into the batter? Idk what I did wrong, my layers were heavy and not fluffy at all, I feel like they didn’t bake through completely although the crust was pretty dark. Temp was per recipe and I baked them to the max time you suggested. It’s either something I did wrong with the sour cream, or that my eggs were large not extra large.
Hi Natasha, I would say it’s very likely that it’s due to the eggs being the wrong size. Since baking is so much a science, I tread carefully when substituting ingredients. Also, with the sour cream mixture, just as soon as you see it visibly rise, which happens quickly (like seconds), you stir the sour cream in. You don’t want to wait too long. I sure hope that helps for next time. Also, did you mix the batter for the layers separately? You don’t want to let this cake batter sit at room temperature for long or it won’t rise properly.
Maybe it’s a California thing, but I haven’t seen XL eggs here, or maybe I haven’t really looked for them. I tried splitting an egg between the 3 layers to compensate a little more for the large eggs, haha but I doubt it was enough.
With sour cream, as soon as i mixed the baking soda fizz into it, I saw the sour cream fill in the lines from where the spoon was and the mixture became smooth, I took that as the sign that it rose. And I made 3 separate layers, mixed them separately and as soon as I finished mixing each I poured each into the pan and baked. They did not sit on the counter at all.
I looked over my other cake recipes and I have made a similar cake with large eggs and the conversion was about 7 1/2 large eggs for 6 extra large eggs, so it really could have been the eggs that caused the problem.
This cake is sure from Russia))) We baked a cake 30 years ago. It was in the heart of Russia. Only the eggs in the recipe was 10, and the name of another ,funny
Wow that’s awesome! I love it when recipes have strong history behind them 🙂
I`m from Ukraine .10 years I lived in Russia. I love to cook and good with dishes from different countries. So I collect recipes and prepare dishes of different peoples. I find it very interesting to cook new dishes. My first cake I had successfully prepared when I was 9 years old))) It was perfect )
Hi Natasha! Do I need to have three pans for this cake, or is it okay to use one pan and bake one at a time?
You can bake them one at a time 🙂
One more thing… Do you think this cake was really from Russia or was it like the German chocolate cake that was actually made in the U.S???
I haven’t heard anything about any other origin with this so I don’t think so.
It is Russian cake, called “Hatasha”. Have this recipe for more then 35 years. Some people do raisins instead of chocolate layer.
Mmm raisins sound nice! Thanks for sharing that with us!
Make sure you omit the nuts from the cake layer also. You could top it with fruit such as raspberries or blackberries, or shave a bar of chocolate with a potato peeler and just put chocolate shavings over the top. Here’s a cake where I used 2 poppyseed layers if you wanted to make it with just 2 layers instead of 3: https://natashaskitchen.com/2015/05/22/poppy-seed-sour-cream-cake-with-custard-cream/
Hi natasha
Thanks for all of your wonderful recipes. I had a problem with the texture of my cake it was kind of elastic.
Could u help me to solve this problem?
I really need this recipe to work for my husband’s birthday
I’m happy to help you troubleshoot. Did you do anything differently than what was stated in the recipe? Did you add the sour cream mixture once you saw it visibly start to rise (without waiting too long)? Also, did you bake the layers right away or did they sit at room temp too long?
Well i did substitute sour cream with yougert.unfortunatly there is no sour cream around here!!!
How can i make it work without sourcream ?
How did it work out when you substituted sour cream for yogurt? I haven’t tried that substitution so I’m not sure how it would affect the recipe.
it turned out quite good actually . my main concern is about the texture … should it be kind of elastic rather than spongy?
It should be more spongy, not elastic. Did you mix in the sour cream/baking soda mixture in as soon as you saw it rise? Sometimes waiting too long and then waiting too long before putting it into the oven will cause it not to rise as well. Is there anything that you did differently?
My grandparents were from Yugoslavia. As a young child, my grandmother spoke to me in Slovak. My mother watched and learned many of the ethnic recipes. My mother passed these recipes on to me and I in turn made sure my children had them. For Christmas we make the nut, apricot, and poppyseed rolls. I came across your aunt Anna’s walnut poppyseed cake today. I like the pleasant taste of poppyseed when baking. Would your recipe be altered if I added more poppyseed to it?
It would still be fine, but don’t add too much since the cake layer is pretty heavy as it is. I think you could safely double the poppyseeds.
Natasha, what size cake pan should be used for korzhi? Cпасибо!
9″ cake pans 🙂 Sorry, I didn’t realize I missed that.
I’ve made this cake before but I can never get the butter and condensed milk right… I’m always having it drip down the cake and the layers slide off can I add something to it to make it thick ?
Hi Anya, the longer you beat the two together, the thicker they become. You may not be beating them long enough. Also, are you using a COOKED condensed milk?
Hi Natasha
I stumbled on your site last week & have been excited to try out your recipes. So I’ve decided to try out this cake as my son’s biryhday is coming up on Easter. I do have a question i.e. I’m coming from Asia and I’m not sure what size eggs you are using. You mentioned extra large but I wondered if you know the grams or weight. A Google search revealed that large eggs in the US is same as extra large in the UK… or is it vice versa? Hmmm. The large eggs here weigh 58-60g. I think extra large would be 65g. I’m rather confused and would appreciate any help or advise you have for me. Thank you so much! God bless.
I don’t really have a way to weight them right now since I only have large eggs in the fridge. I found a great guide that would be helpful, but to be honest, I don’t know if the standards in other countries are the same. http://www.thekitchn.com/medium-large-jumbo-how-egg-sizes-actually-measure-up-ingredient-intelligence-200891
Thank you. Seems large and extra large are interchangeable unless if its in large quantities. Since its 2 eggs per layer, I could be on the safe side if I used 1 large egg weighing 58g & 1 extra large egg weighing 65g? I’ll do a trial & error at my end. Thanx for your help though. You have a great & blessed site. 🙂