Snow White Cake

You know how there are cakes that are SO good that make you want to say "I could live on this" ?
This is one of those cakes, the fav cake of my childhood. My mom never made it (she did however make lots of other goodies) and even more so I loved it whenever I had the privilege to eat some.
It is a cake I spotted on Romina's blog and needless to say it brought back fond memories and now I am going to share with you this amazing creamy cake ! (For those wondering, she was ok with me sharing the recipe here.)
They call it Snow White for two reasons, in my opinion: one could be because it looks white, puffy, delicate, topped with coconut like snow and the other reason could be because you can also fill this cake wit chocolate filling and then it would be like the Snow White, the cheerful character from the story: with white skin and very dark hair.


Ingredients:
For the 3 sheets of dough:
7 TBSP sugar (90 gr)
7 TBSP oil 7 TBSP milk
pinch of salt
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 1 TBSP lemon juice or another acid
flour as much as you need to make a soft, smooth, pliable dough (she does not specify, but I used 400-450 gr which would be like 3.5 cups )

For the filling:
1 liter milk, which is like 4.5 cups (use any kind, but I would go for a richer variety, maybe swap at least 1/2 cup for heavy cream or half & half)
15 TBSP sugar
10 TBSP flour (I used 5 TBSP flour and 5 TBSP cornstarch to make it finer in texture and more smooth)
1 teaspoon good vanilla extract
pinch of salt
250 gr butter or 2 sticks (1 cup)
the zest of one lemon or any other citrus zest you like
juice of half of lemon (add a little bit at a time and taste before you finish adding all the juice as it may be too sour for your particular taste)
coconut or powder sugar for topping (or you can skip this step altogether)

Directions:
For the dough sheets:
- dissolve the baking soda in 1 TBSP lemon juice and place in a large bowl where you can knead the dough a bit (the baking soda is the ingredient that will help this dough become soft)
- add the milk, oil, egg, salt, sugar and a little bit of the flour and keep adding as you go until all of it is incorporated and the dough is pliable and smooth.
- divide the dough in 3 equal pieces and preheat the oven to 350 F
- choose your baking sheet and if it has rims, turn it upside down as you will not be able to remove the baked dough from it easily
- roll the dough to a rectangle with the dimensions 9 by 11 inches
- as you stretch and roll the dough, you may experience difficulty as the dough does not have much if any gluten formed, unlike the yeast doughs, but don't panic, just pinch together and any pieces that may break
- I used aluminum foils to roll my dough onto and it was easy to just transfer them that way to the baking sheet
- bake for 5 to 7 minutes and keep a close eye on the dough as it can burn easily
- have a wet towel ready to cover the dough for when you remove it from the oven
- repeat with the remaining 2 pieces of dough and make sure they are covered with a wet towel and stacked on each other
- let them cool and let's get to the filling part

For the filling:
- place the milk, salt and sugar in a saucepan that does not burn or simply choose the microwave option and place the milk and sugar in a microwave safe bowl, and bring to a boil.
- remove 1 cup of the boiling milk and to that cup add the flour and cornstarch and stir to combine, and then transfer back to the milk saucepan or bowl
- if using a saucepan, keep on medium- low heat and stir almost all the time until your mixture thickens
- if using the microwave, cook it in 30 sec increments so you don't end up with a solid block of filling, and make sure you stir really well in between cooking sessions
- your goal is to thicken the mixture
- now let it cool down (I put it in the fridge) and stir every now and then to help it cool more easily
- when cool, add the butter, one small piece at the time so you avoid any curdling
- this is a time when you should use your electric mixer or a wire whisk
- when the butter has been fully incorporated, add the lemon zest, some lemon juice and the vanilla extract

- you are now ready for the assembling:
* choose a baking sheet with rims and lay the first piece of dough (keep in mind that the finished cake can go up to 2 inches height )


* spoon 1/3 of the filling and level it nicely
* top with your 2nd piece of dough, followed by another 1/3 of the filling
* now lay over the last piece of dough and top it with the remaining filling and top with coconut.
* if you did what I said, you can now wrap the baking sheet with rims in plastic foil and you can place it in the fridge to rest for at least 6 hours or overnight. The cake needs to absorb any humidity from the filling and soften.
* needless to say, I had to wait anxiously until the next day before I could eat any, but let me tell you : it was SO worth it !

Thank you Romina