Medovik: The Layered Honey Cake, Step by Step
The UAFest kitchen team
October 2026 · 7 min read
Medovik after its night in the fridge
Medovik is a tall cake of eight or more wafer-thin honey layers stacked with sour cream frosting and covered in crumbs. Straight after assembly it is a pile of biscuits; after a night in the fridge the layers drink the cream and the cake cuts like a soft, dense sponge.
It is the honey cake in every Ukrainian café and at most family birthdays. Its older cousin, medivnyk, is a single spiced loaf; the two are often confused, and both are worth making.
Medovik and medivnyk
Medivnyk is home baking: one dark, spiced honey loaf, baked once, that keeps for a week. Medovik is a project: a honey dough cooked over steam, rolled into thin rounds, baked one at a time in a few minutes each, then stacked and left overnight.
Both start the same way, with honey and baking soda heated together until they foam and darken, which gives the cake its caramel colour and its taste.
The dough is cooked over steam
Honey, butter and sugar are melted together in a bowl over simmering water; the soda goes in and the mixture rises into an amber foam. The eggs are whisked in off the heat, and then the flour, until the dough is soft, a little sticky and still warm.
Warm dough rolls easily and cold dough cracks, so divide it into eight while it is warm and keep the pieces covered. Roll each one straight onto baking paper, as thin as you dare, and bake it on the paper.
The cream and the night
The classic frosting is sour cream sweetened with sugar. On its own, North American sour cream is thicker than Ukrainian smetana and makes a heavy cake, so this recipe lightens it with whipped cream. Condensed milk beaten with butter is the other school, sweeter and firmer.
The rest matters most. Twelve hours in the fridge is the difference between a stack of crisp layers and medovik.
Recipe
Medovik (Layered Honey Cake)
Eight thin honey layers with sour cream frosting, rested overnight.
- Prep
- 1 hour
- Cook
- 45 minutes
- Total
- 13 hours 45 minutes
- Makes
- One 22 cm cake, 12–14 slices
Ingredients
Honey layers
- 100 g butter
- 90 g (3 tbsp) honey
- 200 g sugar
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 3 eggs
- 450–480 g all-purpose flour
Sour cream frosting
- 750 g full-fat sour cream (14%)
- 120 g icing sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 250 ml whipping cream (35%), cold
Method
- 1Melt the honey baseIn a heatproof bowl over simmering water, melt the butter, honey and sugar, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved.
- 2Add the sodaStir in the baking soda. Keep stirring over the steam for 2–3 minutes while the mixture foams up and turns amber.
- 3Make the doughTake the bowl off the heat, whisk for a minute to cool it slightly, then whisk in the eggs one at a time. Stir in the flour gradually until the dough is soft and just stops sticking to your hands.
- 4Divide and rollDivide the warm dough into 8 equal pieces and cover them. Roll each piece on baking paper into a thin round a little larger than 22 cm, and prick it all over with a fork.
- 5Bake the layersBake one at a time at 180 °C for 4–5 minutes, until deep golden. While each layer is still hot, lay a 22 cm plate on it and cut around it. Keep the trimmings.
- 6Make the frostingWhisk the sour cream with the icing sugar and vanilla. Whip the cream to soft peaks and fold it in.
- 7Assemble and restStack the layers with a generous layer of frosting between each and over the top and sides. Crush the trimmings to crumbs and press them all over the cake. Refrigerate for at least 12 hours before cutting.
Notes from the kitchen
- Buckwheat honey gives a darker, more bitter-edged cake; clover or wildflower honey a milder one.
- The baked layers keep for several days in a tin, so the cake can be assembled the day before it is needed.
- Medovik freezes well whole or in slices; thaw it overnight in the fridge.
Honey, home baking and Ukrainian sweets are sold by makers at the festival market in September.
UAFest 2026 took place on Sunday, September 13 · Riverside Park, Carleton Place
What people ask
The thin baked layers are crisp. Twelve hours in the fridge lets them absorb moisture from the sour cream frosting until the cake is soft and even all the way through.
Medovik is a layered cake of many thin honey rounds with cream between them. Medivnyk is a single spiced honey loaf, baked once and kept for days.
Yes. Beat a 300 ml can of sweetened condensed milk with 250 g soft butter for a firmer, sweeter frosting; many families mix the two.
Four to five days covered in the fridge, and it is at its best on the second day. It also freezes well.
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