Ptich'e Moloko (Bird Milk Torte)

Diana and I decided on Saturday, that for our MLK holiday celebration, we would make a Russian Bird Milk Torte. Apparently this is a very popular Russian treat and hard to get the recipe for. Anyway, we haven't tasted it yet, but each of the individual parts were delicious, so, we assume all together they will be great. I thought you might want the recipe, so I will do the best I can to put it down as I remember...

Bird Milk Torte

Cake:

2 cups flour
6 eggs (divided--whites and yolks)
1 cup sugar
1 cube softened butter

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg yolks one at a time and cream. Mix in 1 cup of flour. Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until very stiff. Fold the egg whites into the batter. Then gently mix in the other cup of flour. Bake in a greased round cake pan (we used our cast iron fry pan) at 350 degrees for about 30-35 minutes until the cake is done in the middle and the top is lightly browned.
When done, the cake has a kind of corn bread consistency.

While the cake is cooking, make the "pudding".

Pudding

2 cups milk
3 T cream of wheat or farina
1 cup sugar
2 cubes butter (that's right, one cup of butter, oh yea, softened)
2 bananas
white chocolate-grated (I think we used about 1/2 a symphony bar--the large one)--well, actually we used a white chocolate bar Diana had brought with her from Russia.

Heat the milk in a saucepan until warm, then, while stirring add the farina. Stir and cook over low heat until thick and creamy (we did it for about 15 minutes). Turn off the heat Then stir in the 1 cup sugar (we ended up using only 3/4 cup)continue stirring until the sugar is dissolved in the cereal. Put in a bowl, then into the freezer to cool.

Cut up the bananas in small pieces into a mixing bowl.

Now, do your dishes and wait for the pudding to cool and the cake to cook.

When the cake is done, remove it from the pan, cut in half lengthwise (so you have two round pieces) and let cool. Meanwhile take the pudding from the freezer, put into the mixer bowl and add the 2 cubes of butter. Mix well, until fluffy (longer than you think). Remove about a cup of pudding stuff and add it to the bananas. Mix the bananas and pudding stuff well with the mixer then add in the grated chocolate.

When the cake is cooled, spread the banana/chocolate/pudding mixture on the bottom piece of cake. Put the other piece of cake over it. (If you have left over, just add it to the other pudding, which you will now spread over the top and sides of the cake.

After the cake is "frosted" with the pudding, cover it with chocolate glaze.

Glaze

about 1 cup of chocolate chips (we used some special dark and some semi sweet). Melt in a double boiler with about 2 Tablespoons of milk. When chocolate is warm and gooey, stir until you have a smooth glaze. Pour over top of cake. Spread, if you like (Diana liked to spread). Refrigerate until ready to serve.

We'll take a picture in a minute and post it for you.