Markiza Cake (Marquise Cake) (2024)

Markiza cake is made with shortbread cake layers that are topped with crunchy meringue and walnuts, all brought together with sweetened condensed milk buttercream. This cake is what dreams are made of!

Hands down the most favorite and most requested cake in our family, Markiza Cake gets requested every single time when there’s any celebration calling for cake. It is a bit tedious to roll out the dough and to put it all together, but if you can push through and make it you will get praises from all around the table.

As I have mentioned in the Holiday Cake recipe, Holiday Cake and this Markiza Cake are somewhat similar but not completely. Both have shortbread cookie layers as the base, but this one does not have plum butter and that one does.

Markiza Cake also uses buttercream as the choice of cream, but this one is based on sweetened condensed milk, while Holiday Cake was based on custard. This means that you can easily use the interchange the buttercreams between the two cakes.

Markiza will still be good with the custard-based buttercream from the Holiday Cake, and the Holiday Cake can be easily adapted to use the Russian Buttercream from this Markiza cake. Hope you’re not confused yet 😉

How to change Buttercream Flavors

The buttercream can also be made with additional flavorings.

• The recipe below is for the classic version. But, depending on your taste you can use cooked condensed milk, aka dulce de leche instead of regular condensed milk for a bit of a caramel flavor.
• Or add 1/4 cup cocoa powder to give it the chocolaty flavor.
• Or even make it coffee flavored by mixing a tablespoon of instant coffee powder with 2-3 tablespoons of hot boiling water, then bringing it to room temperature and adding it to the buttercream.

Make the Markiza Cake Yours

There are several people that make this cake in our family, and each one of us has a favorite way of making it. So depending on who brings this cake to the party, it will have a choice of the above buttercreams to reflect our own favorites.

The step-by-step pictures of the cake below are of 12 inches by 18 inches cake, so it is party-sized already.

The recipe card though is for half that cake (12″x9″), which is still a good size cake that will make around 24 slices.

Yields: 24 servings (12″x9″cake)

Ingredients for the Shortbread Base:

• Margarine or unsalted butter, room temperature
• egg yolks
• sour cream
• baking soda & vinegar
• vanilla extract
• flour

Meringue for Markiza Cake (Marquise Cake)

• egg whites
• granulated sugar
• walnuts, chopped

Cream for Markiza Cake

• sweetened condensed milk/dulce de leche
• unsalted butter, room temperature
• cocoa powder, sifted(optional)
• instant Coffee & boiling hot water (optional)

For Decorating the sides of the cake:

• chopped walnuts

For Lattice top decoration

• unsalted butter, room temperature
• condensed milk
• White Chocolate Chrispearls

How to make Markiza Cake (Marquise Cake):

• Combine together the baking soda and vinegar, stir and set aside.
• Cream together the butter or margarine until smooth, about 2 minutes, scraping down the sides several times. Add egg yolks 2 at a time, creaming in between each addition. Add the sour cream, vanilla, and the baking soda mixture and cream until combined. Add flour in two additions and mix until the dough forms.

• Split the dough into 6 pcs and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 24 hrs.

Make the Meringue:

• 10 minutes before you’re ready to roll out the dough, start making the meringue.
  Start whipping the egg whites going from low to high speeds. After about 30 seconds start adding sugar 1 tablespoon at a time until all sugar has been used.
• Now whip for about 5-8 minutes until the egg whites are increased in volume drastically and look very pearly white. Make sure the bowl and whisk are impeccably clean and no traces of grease or egg yolk have gotten into the egg white, or it will not whip up.

Roll and Bake:

• Preheat the oven to 350F, with the baking rack in the middle.
• Turn a 12×18 baking sheet over and place it on a damp rag to prevent it from moving. Work with one dough ball at a time. Roll it out thinly on the back of a baking sheet. Try to go over the edges. Now scrape the uneven edges off with a knife. Add the scraps to the middle of the rolled-out cake and roll them flat again.
• Add1.5 cups of meringue on top and spread it into an even layer. Sprinkle about 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts on top of the meringue and bake for about 15 -20 minutes or until the meringue is dry and the bottom (the cake layer) is golden in color.
• Remove to a cooling rack, or to a flat piece of foil placed on the table. If you have two baking sheets, you can start rolling one layer out, while the other one is still baking.
• Repeat the above steps with the reaming pieces of the dough.

Make Russian Buttercream:

While the layers are baking, you can make the sweetened condensed milk buttercream.

• With a mixer whip room temperature butter for about 5-7 minutes or until it is very fluffy and pale in color. Scrape the bowl several times throughout the process.
• Now, while continuing to whip, pour the condensed milk down the side of the bowl. Minimally whip to combine, to avoid the buttercream from separating.

Assemble the Markiza Cake:

• Once you have all of your layers baked and completely cooled, start layering the cake with cream. Put a dab of frosting on a platter and place the first layer of cake on top, then press to adhere.
  Put about 1.5-2 cups of frosting and spread it around into a thin layer.

If you would like to decorate the top with buttercream and make the intricate design like you see in the pictures, you need to put the last cake layer meringue side down.

{tip: you can layer the whole cake (except for the first layer) meringue side down, this will help with spreading the cream, because spreading it on top of bumpy meringue could be challenging}

Otherwise, you can leave the meringue up and make it serve the purpose of your ‘decoration’, as we did in the Holiday Cake.

Continue layering until all cake layers are frosted. You should have some remaining cream to frost the outside of the cake in a thin layer of buttercream.

If you do not have a large party to serve this big cake to, split it into two equal parts. One can be frozen (well wrapped), while the other one is eaten.
Either way, cover the outside of the cake with a thin layer of frosting, hiding the cake layers underneath it. Use additional 2 cups chopped nuts, per each half to press against the sides of the cake. You will need about 3 cups of nuts if you are keeping the cake whole.

If you would like the intricate lattice design on top, you will need to make additional buttercream with 230 gr butter (2 sticks) and 1 can sweetened condensed milk, by following the same directions on how to make it as above.

See Also

30+ Best Middle Eastern Desserts: Baklava & MoreThe Best Carrot CakeStuffing Muffins , Buttery CRUNCHY and QUICK Muffin Tin RecipeMultekrem Recipe (A Whipped Cream and Cloudberries Norwegian Dessert)

Fill a piping bag with about 2 cups of frosting, pipe a border all around the top of the cake. Then make a lattice pattern like you see on the pictures. Using the same piping tip, pipe a little star inside each square and top with chocolate crispearls.

• Refrigerate or leave at room temperature until ready to eat. The cake is best 12-24 hours after being made. But if you’re pressed for time, it can be eaten within 2-3 hours of making it. The additional time is needed to adhere the layers together and make it easier to cut the cake.