Medovik: The Layered Honey Cake from Eastern Europe Winning Over U.S. Bakeries
- janna225
- Sep 17
- 4 min read
Updated: Oct 14
Article by: Devorah Lev-Tov | Photography by Aya Brackett from “Baking at the 20th Century Cafe” by Michelle Polzine, Ashley Solter & Malin Hilleman | Published September 18, 2025
Three years ago, a few days before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year holiday, I found myself in Breads Bakery, one of New York City’s most popular bakeries, best known for its babka. Before every Jewish holiday, they offer a few special items traditional to the holiday: hamantaschen for Purim, jelly doughnuts for Chanukah.
On Rosh Hashanah, it’s traditional to eat honey as a symbol of wishing for a sweet new year ahead. The classic dessert is honey cake—a dense, dark loaf often criticized as overly sweet and dry. It’s the kind of dessert that appears on nearly every holiday table, even if few people truly enjoy eating it.
That year at Breads though, I spotted a different type of honey cake, one I had never heard of before: medovik. This cold, layer cake alternates spongy honey cake with cream filling. It looked strikingly elegant compared to the humble loaf, and it tasted even better: rich, velvety, and balanced by deep honey flavor.
Photos: Ashley Solter & Malin Hilleman
The Contested Origins of Medovik
Curious, I googled “medovik” on my way home, wondering what this cake was and why I had never seen it on anyone’s table on Rosh Hashanah. The first few hits said it was a Russian cake, but it didn’t seem to be specifically meant for Rosh Hashanah at all–although it was popular around secular New Years. Instead, some called it“Russia’s most famous dessert,” in a Moscow Times article from 2022. I soon learned that like many storied recipes, its history is contested.
The most common Russian origin story is that the wife of Alexander I, Elizaveta Alexeyevna, was known for hating honey, but a new chef who didn’t know this fact added it to a new cake he made for her. Because the honey was caramelized, she decided she loved this cake and all was forgiven—and the medovik cake became famous.
But historians have largely debunked this tale. The Moscow Times article writes that it’s highly unlikely any chef cooking for the czar and his family wouldn’t be briefed on their likes and dislikes. In reality, the first printed recipe for medovik appears in a 1960 Soviet cookbook, Ukrainian Dishes. Variations soon spread across Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Some versions boast five layers, others fifteen. Some incorporate walnuts, prunes, lemon, or even chocolate. In the Czech Republic, medovnik uses sour cream and whipped cream, while marlenka (an Armenian cousin) relies on condensed milk, caramel, and butter.
Medovik finds a home in the U.S.
Pastry chef Michelle Polzine, alum of Chez Panisse and Delfina, discovered medovik in Eastern Europe in 2011.
“The honey cake was the only really good pastry I had in Prague—it stood out from all the other things because I had it in a couple different places,” says Polzine. “It was a little stout, I think it was five or seven layers.”
She didn’t think much of it until she had the cake again a couple years later, this time from a Russian deli in the Bay Area. She searched for recipes but couldn’t find any, so she recreated it on her own, while she worked on opening her restaurant. When she opened 20th Century Café in San Francisco in 2013, her 10-layer medovik became the signature item.
“I basically burn the honey, and then also I make the dulce de leche, and it’s really dark—I cook it for 10 hours,” says Polzine. “Honey is a very acidic ingredient, and when you take it that far, all kinds of things start appearing in the honey flavor, like coffee and licorice, and all these very deep flavors.”
Her restaurant closed in 2021, but the cake lives on in a recipe on The New York Times, in her cookbook, and for local direct ordering.
“I first heard about medovik from my wife, who comes from Russia,” says Gadi Peleg, co-owner of Breads Bakery. “I made it for her birthday about eight years ago, because she loves it and it was a memory of her childhood.”
He believes its attraction lies in its simplicity.
“It’s made from stuff that everybody had around: honey and dairy, and it’s just the finesse of the layering and how you apply those elements together,” says Peleg. “It’s really not complicated at its core, but there’s something about years of tradition that makes it magical.”
“And then I never thought of it again,” continues Peleg, “Until one day, I came into Breads Bakery, and Edan mentioned medovik.”
Why Medovik Belongs on the Rosh Hashanah Table
“I was looking for ideas that we could incorporate into our Rosh Hashanah menu at that time,” says Edan Leshnick, head pastry chef at Breads Bakery. “And of course, medovik has so much honey. I didn’t grow up eating medovik at all, but my wife also did.”
The two introduced medovik on their Rosh Hashanah menu in 2019. Their version includes mascarpone, sour cream, and buckwheat honey in the cream, while the batter is made with butter, flour, eggs, buckwheat honey, and a little bit of baking soda, which gives the cake a more open crumb—the better to hold the cream filling.
“Ours has double honey in the dough and in the filling,” says Leshnick, noting that most recipes only have honey in the cake layer.
Polzine saw a huge jump in orders for her medovik around Rosh Hashanah.
“When I had the café, I made a ton of them for Rosh Hashanah,” Polzine recalls. “I know it’s not the traditional honey cake, but people would always say, ‘This isn’t like my grandma’s—hers was dense and dry. This is actually good.’”
And as for whether medovik “belongs” on the holiday table, Peleg and Leshnick don’t see the need to debate.
“The most beautiful thing about these traditions is their evolution to fit the times, and so this is just one of those,” says Peleg. “We were never looking for some household 600 years ago or something that said medovik was okay to eat on Rosh Hashanah.”
