Crunchy meringue snow atop a tiny mountain of peaches, dulce de leche and sponge cake. # 400: Chaja Cake

This cake made quite the impression when I first laid eyes on it at a bakery in Buenos Aires. The pastry shop was just down the block from our Airbnb, so of course we went every day for alfajores and eclairs. When we were waiting in line to pay on our first visit, they brought out a giant chaja cake to be boxed up for a custom order and it stopped everyone in their tracks. At over eight inches tall and covered in tons of crumbled meringue and perfect peach slices, we all turned into paparazzi desperate to catch a picture before she disappeared into the box.

I mean come on, look at this ridiculous cascading cape of crumbled meringue. Like a lady at the opera decked out in peacock feathers, this cake wants you to know how high maintenance she is. You go to all the time and trouble to make meringues just to smash them for decoration? Woof. Though the smashing part was pretty fun, not gonna lie.

Chaja cake is a Uruguayan treat, named after a bird called a “crested screamer” in English. Which I immediately had to look up because yikes what a name:

You’re welcome.

This cake was a two-day affair thanks to a certain tiny human and the fact that meringue takes up more than its fair share of oven time.

Floof.

Cutie cookies blissfully unaware of their doomed fate. Or glorious fate? They really are the the star of the show!

Sponge cakes always make me nervous – will I get a lovely, delicate base for the fillings and toppings, or will I get a dense rubbery frisbee that smells like scrambled eggs? This one was closer to the latter on the texture spectrum, but still had a good flavor. C’est la vie! Next time I’m going back to Sophie Bamford’s recipe.

Ready for a magic trick?

Voila! Air bubbles putting in the work.

Cloudy with a chance of flour flurries.

The cake decided it didn’t want to rise in the oven but since three layers are essential for this cake, I had to go rogue and halve it. That way, I could squeeze three layers out by trimming a third off the top of each half and stacking them together. Work with what you got, amirite?

The filling is split into two distinct layers: one with whipped cream and chopped peaches and one with dulce de leche and crumble meringue.

The peach juice from the can makes a perfect cake soak! Also it took me way too long to find canned peaches at the store; who knew canned fruit has it’s own section! Why aren’t they with the canned vegetables? Or next to their corresponding fresh fruit in the produce section? Grocery store logic is beyond me.

Luscious.

Another high maintenance element to this cake: meringue soaks up liquid super quickly and loses its crisp texture. Like a pavlova, it needs to be made quickly and eaten within a day so the textures don’t get wonky.

Somehow my cake layer hack worked out structurally! Just don’t look too closely.

It’s giving Guy Fieri.

She’s lopsided sure, but the yum factor makes up for it. Now all she needs is a distracting coat of crushed meringue!

Note to future self: add a bit more whipped cream to the top of the peaches before plopping the final layer on.

Happy munching!

Recipe from: Alice Fevronia’s Instagram