This Traditional Armenian Cake Is Taking Over A Small Corner Of The Internet For Being Incredibly Easy And Delicious, So I Tried It
Reddit's favorite quarantine cake is making a comeback.
The wonderful world of the r/Old_Recipes subreddit is a goldmine for easy, vintage recipes. Recently, a viral cake recipe from 2020 has come back into the spotlight.
The recipe for Armenian perok cake was originally posted by user flyGERTIfly at the height of COVID baking. The original post and recreations received thousands of upvotes, becoming one of Reddit's top five most-discussed recipes of 2020.
What Is Perok Cake?
The recipe has everything Reddit loves: It looks impressive but is easy to make, uses pantry ingredients, and requires minimal prep. It consists of a base cake layer topped with apricot jam and finished with an easy lattice top. Even for those who didn't grow up on perok cake, there's something nostalgic and intriguing about this cake-pie hybrid texture.
According to TODAY Food, the original poster is a woman named Ninette who lives in New York City. In an interview, Ninette said that the recipe comes from "Armenian diasporans living in Tabriz, Iran," where her family is from. Her maternal grandmother passed down the recipe, which is a staple in their homes.
Of course, I had to try it out.
How To Make Armenian Perok Cake
Ingredients:
STEP 1: Preheat your oven to 350°F, and cream together the two sticks of butter and (I assumed) granulated sugar.
STEP 2: Mix in one whole egg, two egg yolks, vanilla (I used extract), and sour cream or yogurt until the mixture is light and fluffy.
STEP 3: Sift in the (all-purpose) flour, baking powder, and a pinch of salt. Mix everything until just combined and no traces of flour remain. Note that the batter will be very thick!
STEP 4: Pour all except a handful of the batter into a greased pan. I also lined my pan with parchment paper so the cake would be easier to remove once baked. I used an 8x8 pan, though the original uses a 9x9.
STEP 5: Spread the jam across the top of the batter. Since I used a slightly smaller pan, I used about ¾ cup.
STEP 6: Now it's time to make the lattice topping. Take your set aside batter (I had set aside about ¾ cup) and add more flour until it's thick enough to roll out like pie dough (I ended up adding ½ cup of flour).
STEP 7: Cut the dough into eight ½-inch strips and use it to make a lattice top.
STEP 8 (optional): Brush the leftover egg whites onto the lattice to make it shiny.
STEP 9: Bake for 50 minutes or until the top is golden brown and an inserted knife comes out clean. Et voilà!
Final Thoughts
Here are a few insights from making the recipe:
— While I sifted the dry ingredients for the sake of accurate testing, I'd skip it in the future. Between making the batter, adding the jam, and making the lattice, sifting was one too many steps for me to make this recipe feel seamless. And according to King Arthur Baking, it's often unnecessary.
— As the original recipe notes, the batter is thicker than regular cake batter. Mine was more like the consistency of cookie dough. In the future, I'd use a mixer instead of handmixing since it takes some elbow grease to mix the butter with the flour.
— Given how thick the batter is, be prepared to use your hands to press it into the pan.
— When you stick a knife in the center of the cake to check for doneness, you'll also pull up some of the wet jam, so it can be hard to tell whether the batter is still wet or not. Make sure the cake is fully baked before pulling it out.
— My lattice broke a bit while baking, which may have indicated my oven was too hot. If you have a finicky oven like me, err on the side of caution. It also may have been because my dough was too warm. In the future, I'd refrigerate it before rolling it out.