Invented in 1956 at the Karl Marx Confectionery (now Roshen) in Kyiv by pastry chef Kostiantyn Petrenko and his apprentice Nadiya Chornohor — a happy accident when meringue mass left out overnight had to be salvaged into a baked layer. The cake was originally made with cashews (tied to a 1956 shipment of cashews from India); bakers switched to hazelnuts in the 1970s, the form it keeps today. A 1973 patent credited Galina Fastovets-Kalinovskaya and Anna Kurilo for refining and popularizing it. It remains an emblem of Soviet-era Kyiv.
Original Roshen factory recipe remains a trade secret to 2026; the closest published reconstruction is by Kyiv pastry chef Liza Hlinska in her 2019 book Kyiv-Solodke, which calls for 18-hour-rested whites and Vinnytsia oblast hazelnuts. The factory shifted cashews to peanuts in 1989 during the Soviet-era nut shortage; the cashew version returned in 2002.
Crisp-crunchy meringue base shattering under fork, hazelnut grit, soft charlotte cream layer in pale buttery yellow. Sides crusted with chopped hazelnut and cashew. Sweet-rich, almost too much by the third bite — designed to be cut thin and eaten with strong black tea.
Meringue layers must be made the day before with the egg-whites left at room temperature 12-18 hours to develop a slight tang — straight-from-fridge whites don't develop the proper structure. Baked low at 110°C for 90 minutes until crisp through but not browned. Charlotte cream is a custard-butter emulsion, never American buttercream.
Variations
1956 Roshen original (cashew-fruit-glaze top); 1989 Soviet peanut-substitute version; Liza Hlinska's 2019 home reconstruction (Vinnytsia hazelnut); Lviv café Centaur's 2014 chocolate-glazed riff; the modern Kyiv Honey-restaurant deconstructed version served as individual meringue stacks with hazelnut praline.
On the Palate
Where Kyivskyi Tort sits in the Ukrainian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 10
How it's made
4 steps · 35 min active + 5 hours 35 min waiting
- 195 min
Bake 2 hazelnut-meringue discs: whisk 8 egg whites with 200 g sugar to stiff peaks; fold in 200 g ground hazelnuts; bake 150 °C 90 min until crisp.
Watch outBake the meringue low and slow until crisp all the way through but still ivory-pale — any browning means the oven's too hot and the layers turn chewy.
- 225 min
Make charlotte buttercream: 4 yolks + 100 g sugar + 250 ml milk cooked to custard; beat into 250 g softened butter.
Watch outCook the custard base until it thickens enough to coat a spoon, then cool it before beating in butter — too warm and the buttercream splits into a greasy soup.
- 310 min
Sandwich the two meringue discs with thick layer of buttercream; coat top with more cream.
- 4240 min
Press chopped hazelnuts onto sides; chill 4 hr to set.
Watch outChill the full four hours before slicing — cut it warm and the buttercream oozes and the meringue layers slide apart.
Archive tool suggestions — not reviewed
These legacy suggestions have not been evidence-reviewed and are not presented as required tools.
