I finished nursing school a month before our wedding and then moved to Florida to join my new husband. I had to fly back to New York to take my State Boards a few months later. When I came back home, relieved to have it over with but and still nervously awaiting the results, I was met at the airport by my new husband, who was late. When he brought me home instead of taking me out for dinner, I found out that he had made dinner himself, which was the reason for his tardiness.
Serge isn't one of those guys who cooks, even though he always lends a hand in the prep work. (He's kind of like a sous chef.) But that day he had put in a full day of work, shopped for groceries and made dinner. Ah... the things we do for love. I also found two bikes on the back patio, which we later frequently took to the beach to enjoy relaxing evening rides. The grandiose finale of the evening was a gorgeous cake that he had created. As you can see, this cake always brings me back to that beautiful evening of newlywed sweetness.
This cake is assembled from “lady fingers” made from pate choux dough (заварное тесто), the same one that you use to make cream puffs or eclaires. This gives it such a unique flavor and texture but is so simple to put together. I also include a recipe for chocolate glaze that we use all the time. When using melted chocolate to decorate a cake, it will harden in the refrigerator but this glaze still continues to have a perfect texture that melts in your mouth. The flavor is so delicious, deep, intense and chocolaty.Yields: 1 cake
Ingredients:
Pate choux batter for lady fingers:
1 ½ cups water
1 ½ sticks of butter
⅛ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups flour
6 eggs
Frosting:
2 (16 oz.) containers sour cream
1 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
½ cup powdered sugar
Chocolate glaze:
2-3 Tablespoons cocoa powder
4 Tablespoons sour cream
6 Tablespoons sugar
2 Tablespoons butter
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Lady Fingers:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
Bring the water, butter and salt to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add flour all at once. 
Mix with a wooden spoon until it forms a ball and the flour is mixed in thoroughly. 
Cool for about 5 minutes or mix with a paddle attachment in a standing mixer or with a hand mixer until steam is no longer rising. Add eggs one at a time. 
Transfer the batter to a large ziptop bag or a pastry bag and pipe 2-3 inch long strips, about 1 cm thick onto the prepared baking sheet. 
Bake for 15-20 minutes in the preheated oven. 
Frosting:
Combine the sour cream, condensed milk, powdered sugar and vanilla in a standing mixer using the whisk attachment. Add the heavy cream and continue whisking until frosting thickens. (This way, you are actually whipping the cream right in the sour cream mixture. Cool, huh?)
Chill the bowl and the whisk attachment to help the frosting whip up better. I usually place the bowl and whisk attachment in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Also, use very cold sour cream and heavy cream. The frosting will not be as thick as butter cream, but it will certainly thicken as you mix it.
In a 9 inch spring form pan, spread some frosting, about ¼ of a cup, on the bottom of the pan.
Dip the lady fingers in the frosting. 
Starting at the rim, arrange the lady fingers in a circle in multiple layers to fill the pan all the way to the top. 
Make sure to arrange the day fingers tightly, with no spaces in between them. If you have little gaps, break the lady fingers into the size that you need. 
Reserve the leftover frosting in a small bowl.
Refrigerate the cake for at least a few hours. I usually keep it refrigerated overnight. It's very important to give the cake time to set and chill, otherwise it will fall apart when you take it out of the springform pan.
Line the edges of a cake stand or plate with aluminum foil. (This is to facilitate easy clean up later.) 
Run a knife or spatula around the edges of the cake. 
Invert the cake onto the center of the platter and take it out of the spring form pan. 
Cover the top and sides with the reserved frosting. 
Chocolate glaze:
In a small saucepan, whisk together all the ingredients EXCEPT the butter, while they are still cold. 
Cook over medium heat until it comes to a boil, simmer for a few minutes, until sugar dissolves and the glaze thins out to a syrupy consistency.Whisk in the butter. 
Make a pastry bag from parchment paper or regular printer paper, by taking the edges of the paper and bringing them together to form a thin point. 
It will be a triangular/cone shape. 
Pour the hot glaze in, snip off a small hole in the tip of the paper and decorate the cake.
You need to work quickly, since the glaze will harden as it cools. (You can always return the hardened glaze to the saucepan and reheat it.)
Carefully remove the aluminum foil. 
Isn't this a great trick to keeping the frosting and chocolate of the plate? Notice how clean and neat the plate is. 
Of course, you can decorate the cake any way you like. Use your imagination and enjoy.
Lady Fingers Cake (Торт "Дамские Пальчики")
- Prep Time: 25 mins
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Total Time: 45 mins
- Yield: 1 cake 1x
Ingredients
Pate choux batter for lady fingers:
- 1 ½ cups water
- 1 ½ sticks of butter
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cups flour
- 6 eggs
Frosting:
- 2 (16 oz.) containers sour cream
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
- ½ cup powdered sugar
Chocolate glaze:
- 2-3 Tablespoons cocoa powder
- 4 Tablespoons sour cream
- 6 Tablespoons sugar
- 2 Tablespoons butter
Instructions
Lady Fingers:
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Bring the water, butter and salt to a boil in a medium saucepan.
- Add flour all at once. Mix with a wooden spoon until it forms a ball and the flour is mixed in thoroughly.
- Cool for about 5 minutes or mix with a paddle attachment in a standing mixer or with a hand mixer until steam is no longer rising.
- Add eggs one at a time.
- Transfer the batter to a large ziptop bag or a pastry bag and pipe 2-3 inch long strips, about 1 cm thick onto the prepared baking sheet.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes in the preheated oven.
Frosting:
- Combine the sour cream, condensed milk, powdered sugar and vanilla in a standing mixer using the whisk attachment.
- Add the heavy cream and continue whisking until frosting thickens.
- Chill the bowl and the whisk attachment to help the frosting whip up better. I usually place the bowl and whisk attachment in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Also, use very cold sour cream and heavy cream. The frosting will not be as thick as butter cream, but it will certainly thicken as you mix it.
Assembly:
- In a 9 inch spring form pan, spread some frosting, about ¼ of a cup, on the bottom of the pan.
- Dip the lady fingers in the frosting. Starting at the rim, arrange the lady fingers in a circle in multiple layers to fill the pan all the way to the top.
- Make sure to arrange the day fingers tightly, with no spaces in between them. If you have little gaps, break the lady fingers into the size that you need.
- Reserve the left over frosting in a small bowl.
- Refrigerate the cake for at least a few hours. I usually keep it refrigerated overnight. It's very important to give the cake time to set and chill, otherwise it will fall apart when you take it out of the springform pan.
- Line the edges of a cake stand or plate with aluminum foil. (This is to facilitate easy clean up later.)
- Run a knife or spatula around the edges of the cake.
- Invert the cake onto the center of the platter and take it out of the spring form pan. Cover the top and sides with the reserved frosting.
Chocolate glaze:
- In a small saucepan, whisk together all the ingredients EXCEPT the butter, while they are still cold.
- Cook over medium heat until it comes to a boil, simmer for a few minutes, until sugar dissolves and the glaze thins out to a syrupy consistency.Whisk in the butter.
- Make a pastry bag from parchment paper or regular printer paper, by taking the edges of the paper and bringing them together to form a thin point. It will be a triangular/cone shape.
- Pour the hot glaze in, snip off a small hole in the tip of the paper and decorate the cake.
- You need to work quickly, since the glaze will harden as it cools. (You can always return the hardened glaze to the saucepan and reheat it.)
- Carefully remove the aluminum foil. Of course, you can decorate the cake any way you like. Use your imagination and enjoy.
Wow. This looks so yummy, will be making this cake tomorrow. Olga do you think it would be a good idea to add raspberries to the cake?
Hi Lidiya!
You can certainly add raspberries. I love the fresh taste that it gives cakes. However, if you're not planning on eating the cake right away and will keep it in the refrigerator for a few days, I wouldn't recommend it since the berries will become soggy.
I made this cake yesterday and it turned out perfect. Everyone thought it was delicous! Thank you for posting it.
Thank you!! It turned out great and wasn't as sweet as most cakes, which is wonderful! Thanks again.
Hi Olga! I was wondering if, store bought lady fingers would work?
Julia, store bought lady fingers won't work for this recipe. They are two completely different doughs. Store bought lady fingers are sponge cake pasties. For this recipe, the "lady fingers" are made from a pastry dough, just like cream puffs or eclairs. As you can see, it would be a completely different cake.
Olga, THIS IS SUCH AN AWESOME WEBSITE!!!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Cake being made in the process right now, coming out runny as well, but i put it in the fridge to cool a bit, and proceeded to reading the VERY HELPFUL comments 🙂 Thanks everyone!!
gorgeous!
Between my husband and I the cake was gone in 2 days. Followed the recipe to the T it turned out great! For some reason I had about 1/2 of the frosting left over, but next time I will do one of three things, leave more space between ladyfingers so frosting will have room to settle, soak ladyfingers longer in frosting before arranging them in springform pan, or infuse the ladyfingers with frosting using syringe (might be too much work). Will probably leave more space between ladyfingers so that cream will have a place to go. Delicious cake!
One question though... how did you manage to decorate the sides of the cake? I tried, but almost ended up with the cake sliding off the stand! Any tricks/suggestions?
To keep the cake from sliding off the stand, spread a little bit of frosting on the bottom before you start adding the lady fingers. When it firms up and chills in the refrigerator, it should stay in place. I hope that helps. I've never had a issue with this if I put frosting on the bottom of any of the cakes the I decorate. I "glues" it in place.
saw this recipe and HAD to try it 🙂
it turned out amazing...thanks 😉
The first time I made this cake my cream came out a little runny too... but the longer I whipped the more stiff it became. All in all it was still fine to make the cake. The second time I made it, I whipped the condensed milk and the heavy cream and added the sour cream at the very end and just stirred it in gently. That way the sour cream didn't run and kept it more stiff. Hope this helps any of you who and make it again:) The cake was deff different and yummy! Thanks again, Olga 🙂
Hi Olga! Making this cake right now and I have a question. Can you please tell me if you used 2 packages of sour cream 16 oz each or 16 oz total for the cream?
thank you so much!
2 containers of sour cream, 16 oz EACH.
thank you so much! When I started making the frosting I figured that one can of sweetened condensed milk would be too much for one container of sour cream. So I used two. I really appreciate your quick response though! God bless you. And I love your blog!
Hi Olga,
I'm not sure what brand sour cream I used, since I don't always buy the same kind. I'm not sure why your frosting came out thinner than you think mine did, although it's intended to be on the thinner side. In the original recipe, the frosting is just sour cream and sugar, which is much thinner. If it's too thick, it won't absorb well into the lady fingers. Please read the comment above for the other suggestions I wrote about to make frosting a little bit thicker, although I added heavy cream to it for the purpose of taste, not to make it thicker. If you prefer a thicker frosting, you can whip up the cream on its own and fold it in gently into the rest of the frosting. You can also add some cream cheese to it. Mix softened cream cheese with sugar until it's creamy and then add the rest of the ingredients. However, as I mentioned earlier, this frosting is meant to be thin. I hope that helps:)
How come your frosting looks more thicker than mine? I couldn't ice the sides of the cake, the frosting was too runny. What brand sour cream did you use? I refrigerated the cake for several hours. Tastes amazing though.
on what temperature did you bake the lady fingures at? i did 370. and my cream did turn our really runny too i wonder why,i bake quite often. def have to try again. cant wait to taste it. mine is standing overnight in the fridge 🙂
Alina,
If you read the recipe, you will see that I baked the the lady fingers at 400 degrees. About the cream - it's supposed to be runny, otherwise, it won't absorb into the lady fingers very well. In the original recipe, the cream is made of only sour cream and sugar, so it's even runnier. If it's too runny, it may be that you didn't mix it long enough. Did you use a whisk attachment? Also, the heavy cream needs to be very cold in order to whip up well. Another trick I have for making any cream/frosting, is to pull the bowl and the whisk attachment into the freezer for about 10-15 minutes before you start mixing. Hope that helps.
Made it twice in one week, delicious, everyone loved it! Nice to see a lot of Russian recipes, keep posting 🙂
That looks very good! Thank you for sharing this recipe. I love to bake, and can't wait to bake this one for Easter.
Baked one for Easter and loved it! After reading comments i was afraid that the cream will be too runny so i put just a little more heavy cream, and it was a little too thick for me, like you said lady fingers should absorb the cream, next time i will follow the recipe exactly! Thanks again for all your recipes, i already tried a few of them and my family enjoys them very much.