Recipe of the week: Six-layered / Hatlapos

Six-layered (hatlapos) has been a popular dessert in Hungary for a long time, as it costs very little to make. Because of this, it is often called ‘beggar’ cake, referring to how easy it is to prepare, even in hard-up times. 

This cake is believed to originate from Vas county, from the Western part of the country. Its name perfectly describes the dessert: it has six layers of pastry, each topped with a layer of cream filling. The cream can vary from household to household. The most popular is the chocolate filling, though a number of people make the dessert with caramel or coffee cream, or with a simple vanilla cream filling.

Recently, there has been some debate about the origins of another alternate name for this dessert: Horthy-slice, after the Hungarian admiral and statesman of the 20th century. However, this name is less well-known and is not very flattering to Horthy himself. It contains some degree of criticism, alluding to hard-up circumstances of his time when this cheap option was the most likely dessert to be made.

In Győr, in the North-Western part of the country, the six-layered recipe became rather famous because of a graffiti that appeared in the underpass of the city one day. The artwork appeared in 2013 and includes the recipe as well as a pair of kissing deer and some decorative symbols.

Even when the underpass was painted and renovated, this part was left out, preserving the artwork.

Recipe of six-layered

Ingredients for the pastry

500 g flour

80 g butter

100 g icing sugar

200 ml milk

1 packet rising agent

Ingredients for the cream filling

1 l milk

350 g sugar

6 tbsp flour

50 g butter

1 tsp vanilla essence

4 tbsp cocoa powder

Ingredients for the top

50 g butter