EASY CHAJA CAKE

Easy Chaja Cake image

Chaja [cha-ha] Cake is a Uruguayan dessert which has: vanilla sponge cake layers, peach syrup, dulce de leche, chopped meringue cookies, whipped cream, and peach slices. I had heard about this cake on the Cooking Channel. Since there was no recipe for it on the cooking channel's website I researched it on Google and I tried finding a recipe but a lot of them were in Spanish. I tried finding a recipe in English but they all seemed a little too time consuming and the measurements were in grams. So I came up with and easier way to make this. The sponge cake part of the recipe credit goes to food.com user izza_zanab (whose recipe I doubled). I've made this cake before and it's really really delicious!!

Provided by Clara Marie

Categories Dessert

Time 50m

Yield 1 Cake, 8-10 serving(s)

Number Of Ingredients 14

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Ingredients

6 eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
2 cups unsalted butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla essence or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups flour
3 (15 1/4 ounce) cans peaches packed in heavy syrup (drained)
1 cup reserved peach syrup from the can peach
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup water
2 (4 1/2 ounce) boxes of store bought vanilla meringue cookies or 9 ounces of homemade meringue cookies
2 cups heavy cream plus 4 tbsp granulated sugar or 16 ounces store bought whipped cream
2 cups dulce de leche

Steps:

For the cake: In a bowl beat eggs. Mix in sugar, butter, and vanilla. Then, Sift the baking powder, salt and flour into the batter. Pour the batter into a 13 by 9 inch rectangular greased cake pan or 2 or 3 round 8 inch cake pans. Bake at 355 degrees F. For 25 minutes or until the cake is fully done.
For the syrup: On a stovetop at medium heat in a saucepan pour 1 cup of peach syrup, 1 cup of water, and 1 cup of sugar. Stir until dissolved. Stir until dissolved once it leads to a boil remove from the stovetop and reserve until ready to use.
For the meringue: Chop the meringue cookies into small chunks and reserve until ready to use.
For the whipped cream: If you are making the whipped cream from scratch pour 4 tbsp of sugar and 2 cups of heavy cream. Then whisk until the cream reaches stiff peaks. Set aside and refridgerate. If you are using store bought whipped cream reserve until ready to use.
Assembling the cake: Once the cake has fully cooled divide 3 layers. Use the middle layer for the cake base and baste 1/3 cup of the reserved peach syrup. After that spread spread even layer of the dulce de leche onto the cake, sprinkle 1/4 portion the chopped meringue cookies, spread a generous amount of whipped cream, and spread 2/3 cup of peaches. Top with the 2nd cake layer and repeat. For the 3rd layer baste 1/3 cup of the syrup and frost the entire cake with the remainder of whipped cream, sprinkle rest of the chopped meringue cookies all over the entire cake, and garnish the top with the remainder of sliced peaches.
Serve and Enjoy!

Nutrition Facts : Calories 944, Fat 49.9, SaturatedFat 30.4, Cholesterol 261.5, Sodium 225.4, Carbohydrate 120.4, Fiber 0.9, Sugar 101.8, Protein 7.8