The history of Kiev cake

The story of the Kiev Cake goes back to a curious incident in a kitchen, where pastry chefs forgot to add a specific amount of egg white in the preparation of biscuits on a cold morning. Faced with this mistake, chef Konstantin Petrenko, with the help of his young assistant Nadezhda Chernogor, came up with an ingenious solution to cover up his colleagues' slip-up. They spread iced cakes with rich buttercream and decorated them with delicate floral decorations.

Over time, the recipe for Kiev Cake underwent modifications. In the 1970s, bakers perfected the process by incorporating a mixture of egg white and nuts, then experimented with different types of nuts such as hazelnuts, peanuts and cashew nuts. However, the use of the latter made the cake more expensive, so the factory opted to switch back to hazelnuts.

A peculiar development in the Soviet Union during those years involved India, which was paying its debts with goods. In 1956, the USSR received a large batch of cashew nuts and, following party directives, the confectioners at the Kiev factory, then called Karl Marx, took up the challenge of creating a dessert with these nuts.

Konstantin Petrenko is identified as the author of the recipe and production technology of the Kiev Cake, developed in that year. The factory itself relates that this process was preceded by several years of experimentation with old and exquisite recipes, stressing that innovation arises from constant exploration and adaptation.

In 1973, Galina Fastovets-Kalinovskaya and Anna Kurilo received the official patent for the production of Kiev Cake, a formal recognition validating their contribution to popularising and perfecting this dessert. Today, the Kiev Cake is produced by the Roshen company, keeping alive the tradition started by those creative confectioners of yesteryear.