Over the past few weeks we got a lot of currants ripening, especially red currants. I checked some websites and of course talked with my grandma and came to the conclusion that what else would you do with fresh red currants other than baking a cake. From my point of view there is only one real cool red currant cake and thats the one with a egg white foam topping. In Austria this cake is known as Ribisel cake.
| For the dough | |
| 20 g | Vanilla sugar |
| 140 g | Powdered sugar |
| 3 | Egg yolks |
| 3 Tbsp | Water |
| 50 g | Butter, melted but cool |
| 250 g | Flour |
| 20 g | Baking powder |
| 50 ml | Milk |
| For the topping | |
| 3 | Egg whites |
| 200 g | Sugar |
| 20 g | Vanilla sugar |
| 500 g | Red currants (Ribisel) |
The recipe actually is pretty simple.
Start with the dough
Divide the eggs. Make sure you have no egg yolk within the egg white, otherwise you won't get the egg white stiff at the end. Use the 3 egg yolks, mix them with the powdered and vanilla sugars and beat the mix until creamy. Add the cooled down liquid butter and go on with creaming. Slowly add the flour and baking powder, stirring them in. You will see that your dough will get pretty cohesive -> add water while you stir. Once you have the dough ready put it onto an oiled baking pan. Bake it for about 20 minutes at 180 °C (heat from top and bottom)
Topping
While the dough is in the oven we continue with the topping. Now we need the 3 egg whites. It is now time to whisk it stiff while adding the sugars. If you'd like to do that by hand it might take a while. I use a Bosch MUM kitchen machine (Amazon UK, Amazon DE). which is pretty amazing. When the egg white is stiff I slowly add the red currants, gently folding them into the mix.
Adding the Topping
When the cake bottom is due take it out of the oven and add the topping. Once you have the topping equally on the cake we bake it some more. Now for about 20 minutes at about 180° top heat. The topping should look like in the picture above (or below).
Happy cake baking & eating!
