This dessert is surely adored by everyone who remembers the times of the Union. Fortunately, today's sweet tooth has the opportunity to taste "Bird's milk". Everything is perfect in this dessert: the most delicate soufflé, chocolate icing with an expressive taste, appetizing look, and in the case of a cake, also a soft biscuit. The name itself is associated not just with a treat, for many it is a symbol of the era.
But why is "Bird's milk" called "bird"? Surely this question at least once puzzled everyone.
The first swallows
Many people know that the Poles were the pioneers. It was in Poland, at the E. Wedel factory, back in 1936, that these sweets were first produced. The filling was similar in composition to marshmallows, but did not contain eggs.
Once the Minister of Light Industry of the USSR tried the Polish sweets "Ptichye Moloko". He liked them so much that the country's leadership set the task for confectioners to develop an analogue.
Origins of the name
When answering the question of why "Bird's milk" is called "bird's milk", it is worth looking even not at 1936, but at even earlier times. In medieval European folklore, a plot is very common in which an insidious beauty sends an unlucky boyfriend in search of bird's milk. Drawing analogies, we can mention the Slavic image of a fern flower and the fabulous “I don’t know what”. Of course, the cavalier had to either return with nothing, or disappear, because there is no bird's milk in nature. In any case, it definitely did not exist in medieval Europe.
But there are even more ancient references. They will also help us figure out why "Bird's milk" is called "bird's milk". The ancient Greeks believed that the birds of paradise nursed their babies with milk. If a person happens to try this delicacy, he will become invincible, strong and healthy, and will retain his youth for many years.
In Rus', there was a proverb saying that the rich man has everything except bird's milk. It was understood that some things (friendship, health, love) cannot be bought with money, no matter how rich a person is.
As you can see, in many cultures there were legends that birds can give milk. And everywhere it was associated with unearthly pleasure, blessings, treasure. No wonder Polish confectioners gave their creation this alluring name.
Since 1967, the production of sweets began in the USSR. Unusual name it was decided to leave. By that time, it had already gained fame and popular love. Why "Bird's milk" is called "bird's", the Soviet people may have wondered, but they were definitely not surprised. Apparently, the memory of generations worked: the dessert evoked persistent associations with an outlandish delicacy, a fabulous pleasure, a feast of taste.
The Polish manufacturers kept the manufacturing technology and composition of "Bird's Milk" a secret. Therefore, their Soviet colleagues had to work hard to create something similar to taste. The most interesting thing about this story is that the name misled Soviet technologists: they were sure that it was due to the presence of eggs in the candy filling. In fact, eggs have nothing to do with the name. But if they were not in Polish sweets, today they are present in many desserts of the same name.
Unique Component
But the confectioners did not set the task of completely repeating the recipe. On the contrary, they went their own way. The specialists of the factory in Vladivostok used not only their professionalism, but also the wealth of their native land. Instead of gelatin, it was decided to use agar-agar, extracted from Far Eastern algae. It was this factory that first launched the production of new items. The recipe has been registered.
The second factory was Rot Front. And after some time, other confectionery enterprises in all parts of the country, including the famous Red October, joined the implementation of the plan.
Today Vladivostok sweets "Ptichye Moloko" are considered the best. In a 300-gram box, the buyer will find sweets with three different flavors (chocolate, lemon and cream), which can be stored for no more than 15 days. They still contain useful agar-agar.
Legendary cake from the restaurant "Prague"
The success of the sweets inspired culinary specialists as well. Vladimir Guralnik forever inscribed his name in the history of sweets, because it was he who developed the recipe for the Bird's Milk cake in the early 80s. Conjuring over the ingredients, the master initially decided that he would also use agar-agar. The composition also included egg whites, powdered sugar, water. And the basis was an air biscuit.
The number of orders grew exponentially. If at the very beginning only visitors to the Moscow restaurant "Prague" could taste the delicacy, then after a few months the shop also worked to take away.
It was difficult to scare a Soviet person with a queue, and therefore the workers calmly lined up behind a secret cake, taking their places before dark. Eyewitnesses of those times recall that the tail of the queue often turned to the neighboring Stary Arbat. The recipe for the "Bird's Milk" cake has been officially approved. Violation of the recommended norms was prosecuted by law.
"Bird's milk" today
Sweets "Bird's milk" are produced today. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, not all manufacturers adhere to the original Far Eastern recipe. Expensive agar-agar is often replaced with gelatin; preservatives are used to extend the shelf life. But there is a plus in this: the price of some types of "Bird's milk" is very low. You can find both loose sweets and packaged in beautiful boxes.
No less popular are cakes, pastries, soufflé "Bird's Milk", which today many hostesses have learned to cook on their own.
Like many "airy" desserts, "Bird's milk" has existed for no more than a century. It was created in 1936 in Poland, at the Warsaw confectionery factory "E. Wedel" and released in the form of sweets. They became popular not only at home, but also in other countries.The creator of the recipe, Jan Wedel, said that they are so airy and tasty, like something inaccessible, which is very small, like bird's milk. The recipe for sweets, by the way, is very simple: it is a milk soufflé based on whole condensed milk, sugar syrup and gelatin.
In Poland "Ptasie mleczko"- pride and the most popular sweets for which the country has exclusive rights, therefore, under this name they are produced only there. The technology is also exclusive and kept secret.
AT Soviet Union sweets "Bird's milk" came 20 years later, in 1967, after a government trip to Czechoslovakia. Returning from it with a sample of sweets, the Minister of Food Industry in Moscow gathered confectioners from the country's leading factories with the task of unraveling the secret of this miracle.
Across the country, work began to boil: confectioners experimented, studied, compared. As a result, one of the best was the version of the Vladivostok confectionery factory. There, under the guidance of technologist Anna Chulkova, special conditions were developed: whipping technology, manufacturing temperature.
In 1968, the Moscow confectionery factory "Rot-Front" began to produce them. And mass production was launched in 1975 at the Krasny Luch factory in Moscow.
Interesting Facts:
- Sweets - a source of inspiration for the creation of the cake "Bird's milk"
- The first batches of sweets were 35 tons per month!
Creating a fabulous cake "Bird's milk"
This cake is the first in the USSR for which a patent was issued to its creator, a confectioner Vladimir Mikhailovich Guralnik. A hereditary confectioner, at the age of 16 he came to work in an elite Moscow restaurant "Prague".We can say that Vladimir Guralnik wanted to go beyond the usual and create something special. Having visited the Krasny Luch factory, the confectioner was impressed by the taste of Bird's Milk. He wanted to create a "big candy", a whole cake with this most delicate and lush soufflé.
In 1978 work began on the creation of the famous Soviet cake "Bird's Milk" in the restaurant "Prague". Together with Margarita Golova and Nikolai Panfilov, Guralnik searched for the perfect recipe and technology for half a year.
These were sleepless nights and intense search: cakes were prepared, tasted, thrown away and all over again, so many times. The standard recipe did not fit, according to V. Guralnik, “on a large volume - marshmallow marshmallow, it gets stuck in the teeth!”. And I wanted the same airiness.
Success came: ideal proportions and new components were found. For a cake, unlike sweets, you need whole condensed milk, sugar syrup, agar-agar instead of gelatin, protein mass and butter. The optimum cooking temperature is 117 ° C, so agar-agar is ideal for boiling the filling. Only in this way will the soufflé harden and remain airy!
For the cake, Guralnik chose a semi-cupcake dough, tender, light and at the same time thin. And they decorated it laconically - covered it with hard chocolate icing and decorated it with an ornament with birds. The cake was even outrageous at the suggestion of the creator: the rectangular shape at that time was unsettled and attracted attention.
The Firebird, a character from primordially Russian fairy tales, adorned a box with the Soviet Bird's Milk cake. There was something native and truly fabulous in this.
The popularity of the cake "Bird's Milk"
The workshop of the Prague restaurant at first produced test batches of 20-30 pieces, but after six months the volumes increased to 500 pieces, and the lines for the "bird" lined up at 6 in the morning. It was possible to get a cake by appointment or by famous coupons.Vladimir Guralnik did not make a secret out of the recipe, on the contrary, he generously shared his achievements. It was a real sensation, so by the end of the 80s other shops across the country were also preparing the cake, only about 30 enterprises, but it still remained in short supply for residents outside the capital of the USSR.
Today, the cake can be bought in a store or pastry shop. But if you want to feel the same taste, you should still cook this miracle yourself. Moreover, it is not difficult. Try the Bird's Milk cake recipe: checked, everything will work out!
In childhood, many asked this question when they first tried the Bird's Milk sweets. But how is it really: do birds have milk, how is it obtained, and where do sweets get their name from? We will answer these questions and tell you about others interesting facts in our article. Believe me, you will learn a lot for yourself!
Why was the candy called "Bird's Milk"?
Children often wonder what kind of milk birds give. Adults know for sure that birds don’t give any milk, and it’s definitely not in the composition of sweets. But it is difficult to answer where such a name comes from. A treat appeared in Poland in 1936 under the name “Ptasie Mleczko”. And only in the 1960s, the Rot Front factory launched production in the USSR, simply by translating Bird's Milk into Russian. Many then thought that the name was metaphorical and associated with something very rare and valuable, since such sweets were in a terrible shortage. In fact, the creators were based on old legends and works of ancient Greece. They mention the milk of birds of paradise, which gives almost immortality and is considered a delicacy (ambrosia) of the Gods.
For example, in the old days, when young men wooed girls, they were asked to bring unheard-of gifts as a token of love. The more incredible the gift was, the more likely it was to win the heart of the beauty. But, if the girl did not like the groom, then she asked to get her bird's milk. Thus, she made it clear that he had no chance of becoming her chosen one. This tradition is found in many peoples. There is even such a proverb: "The rich have everything, especially bird's milk." In this way, candy producers wanted to attract the attention of consumers, thereby emphasizing the value and sophistication of taste.
But how much do we know about birds to say with certainty that they cannot produce milk? Let's figure out this difficult issue together!
The whole truth about bird milk
In fact, scientists have proven that some birds can produce milk that is completely different from what we are used to. Bird's milk consists of protein (about 60%), fat (up to 36%), a small amount of carbohydrates (up to 3%), a number of minerals and antibodies, but does not contain lactose and calcium. But like mammalian milk, it contains antioxidants and immunomodulatory proteins that are important for the growth and development of young animals.
Such milk is also called goiter, or pigeon. This secret is secreted by the cells of the goiter or special glands of the esophagus and stomach (depending on the type), it resembles a yellowish curd mass. It is noteworthy that goiter cells react to hormones during lactation in a similar way to the mammary gland. The curd is created from fat-filled cells (at the site of the crop where food is usually stored to soften before digestion) that break open and regurgitate the substance to nourish the offspring. Birds differ from other animals in that they do not have sweat glands, but they do have the ability to store fat in their outer skin cells (keratinocytes), which act as sweat glands. It has been found that the “lactation” of birds is related to this ability to divide fat cells. Interestingly, both males and females can feed offspring with "bird's milk". Milk is characteristic of representatives of the pigeon family, a number of parrots, flamingos and imperial penguins.
This process is best studied by example. pigeons. They usually lay two eggs. Soon after the chicks hatch from them, the parents begin to feed them with nutritious milk, which begins to be produced two days before the offspring appear. After that, after a week, the chicks switch to eating crushed "adult" food, such as seeds, fruits, insects and other invertebrates. However, if one of the eggs for some reason falls out of the nest, or one chick is born dead, then the remaining chick gets all the "bird's milk", and therefore it grows even faster. By the end of the first week after hatching, this chick will hardly differ in size from its parents. And here is the female penguin lays only one egg, which the male penguin warms with the heat of his body for a long two months until the long-awaited chick appears. After the appearance of the offspring, the caring father nurses him for another month and feeds him with milk along with the mother, who gets food. At flamingos The whole process of breastfeeding is amazing. Their nutritional secret also contains hemoglobin, which indicates the presence of bird blood in the milk, and this gives it a reddish color.
Interestingly, a number of studies were carried out in 1952, when chickens were fed pigeon milk, and their growth rate increased by as much as 38%! At the same time, attempts to reproduce goiter milk artificially did not lead to success. The chicks fed by the analogue either died or were too weak. Accordingly, this nutrient has also been shown to contain certain unique antibodies.
You did not even suspect that these animals also give milk
We know how important milk is for babies. It is a rich combination of nutrients that are necessary for the development of the child and his immunity. In the entire animal kingdom, only one group of animals produces milk for their offspring: the mammals, to which we belong. The milk of mammals is considered to be real milk. However, some living organisms have secretions that strongly resemble milk and are intended for feeding. This "false milk" is not like cow or human milk, and it is not produced in the same way. But it serves the same purpose: it feeds baby animals until they are old enough to take care of themselves.
cockroaches. Yes, you heard right: some cockroaches feed their young with milk. One such example is the beetle cockroach Diploptera punctata, or Pacific cockroach.
Most female cockroaches lay their eggs in a kind of sac that exits the body before the eggs hatch. After the young cockroaches hatch from their eggs, they fight to find food. But the female Pacific cockroach beetle takes a different approach to childcare. Instead of hatching from a clutch, the embryos develop fully inside her body. As soon as the embryos have fully formed digestive organs, they begin to drink "milk" produced by special crystals (cells), and quickly gain weight. Since young cockroaches get a lot of food while still in their mother's body, they are more developed and mature at the time of birth. Such interesting feature these cockroaches attracted the attention of Indian scientists. The crystals of these cockroaches, as it turned out, contain a complete set of nutrients: fats, proteins, carbohydrates and amino acids. This product has a high calorie content, so it would be useful in conditions of overpopulation and long-distance space flights. Researchers are now trying to reproduce the substance in the laboratory.
false scorpions, or false scorpions. Like Pacific beetle cockroaches, female pseudoscorpions produce a milky-like substance. But it does not come out of her womb, but out of her ovaries. The female carries her fertilized eggs in a special pouch attached to her abdomen. Once the babies hatch, they stay in the pouch and feed on their mother's milk. Even after they leave the pouches, they continue to ride on their mother's back until they are old enough to live on their own. Pseudoscorpions are 2-3 mm long. They are often found in rooms with dusty books, which is why they are sometimes referred to as "book scorpions".
Discus fish. Their milk is actually a mucus-based secretion that coats the bodies of both parents. It is rich in proteins and antibodies. A few days after the young fish hatch from their eggs, they attach themselves to their parents and feed on the slime secretions that cover their bodies. During the first two weeks, they spend most of their time feeding their offspring. Feeding lasts 5-10 minutes, after which one of the parents dumps the young on the other parent. From the third week, parents stop feeding. They sail away for more for a long time, forcing young fish to look for other food sources. This example is very similar to how mammals take care of their children.
Legless African amphibians, or caecilians. Vertebrate amphibians are very similar to worms. Most species guard their eggs until they hatch and then leave them. But caecilians native to southeastern Kenya have developed a more sophisticated parenting style. When the offspring hatch from their eggs, they are completely immature and completely dependent on their mother. To feed her children, the female caecilian produces a thick layer of protein and fat on the top layer of her skin. Newborns clean this layer of skin with the help of special suction cups that look like small teeth. The layer of nutrients is so dense that in a week the young individual increases in length by about 11%. This greatly affects the mother. After one week of feeding, she loses about 14% of her body weight.
The world around us still holds many mysteries. It would seem that it is well studied, but something new always opens up. Did you know that some birds actually have milk?
Do birds give milk?
"Bird's milk" - as the name suggests - was once a real scarcity and luxury. Today, everyone can afford this square confectionery miracle from the Soviet past. By the way, few people know that the candy of the same name was the first to be invented. The cake was not a success for the production masters right away.
Photo from the book of confectioner Alexander Seleznev "Soviet cakes and pastries" (EKSMO)
The name "Bird's milk" often misled us in childhood and was presented as the main ingredient. Later, of course, it turned out that bird's milk is a non-existent thing. Even the ancient Greek authors Aristophanes, Lucian and Strabo used "bird's milk" in their works as a symbol of great rarity. The milk of birds is also sung in old Slavic fairy tales. Ancient legends tell about birds of paradise that fed their chicks with milk. If a person drinks this milk, he will be able to resist all diseases and enemies. Beautiful princesses turned out to be especially enterprising, who sent bored gentlemen in search of bird's milk.
candy period
The history of dessert began in Poland. Jan Wedel, the owner of the E.Wedel confectionery factory, having returned from a trip to France under great impression, asked himself the question: “What can a person who has everything want? Except bird's milk. And so the legendary name appeared (in Polish - ptasie mleczko).
True, the recipe for the first Ptasye Mlechko sweets was somewhat unusual. In 1936, E.Wedel began to produce them filled with marshmallows glazed with chocolate. Marshmallows are candies that taste like marshmallows, but without eggs and applesauce. Marshmallows contain sugar or corn syrup, gelatin, dextrose, and flavorings. All this is whipped to the state of a “sponge” and formed into small pieces.
State order
In Russia, Ptichye Moloko sweets appeared ... by order of the government. Sweets similar to the “bird milk” were also produced in Czechoslovakia, where our minister of the food industry arrived in 1967. A member of the government appreciated the work of confectionery art and took a small batch with him on the way back. Returning to the USSR, he gathered the leading confectioners at the Rot Front factory and, having treated them to a treat, ordered them to invent the same, relying only on their taste buds. After the same minister ordered all factories to learn how to make such sweets, from that moment their mass production began.
Anna Chulkova, a confectioner from Vladivostok, also attended courses that taught the secrets of the production of Bird's Milk. Returning to her native factory, Anna decided to refine the recipe, experimenting with the main recipe, additives, production process. She also came up with the idea of mechanizing the manual cutting method, which significantly accelerated the production of sweets (instead of the planned six tons, the factory received 12). Later, the Vladivostok "bird" was officially recognized as the best in the Union, which the locals were very proud of. They carried sweets as a local attraction as a gift to their loved ones, and Anna Chulkova was made an honorary resident of the city.
Now there are many different candies "Bird's milk". Vladivostok are now called Ptichye Moloko Primorskoye, while Rot Front has merged with Krasny Oktyabr and Babaevsky and simply produces Ptichye Moloko - without any clarifications. There are also quite tasty analogues with similar names - for example, "Bird's Sweetness". Modern sweets "Ptichye Moloko" are chocolate-covered soufflés based on milk (condensed or dairy products), sometimes flavorings (amaretto, almonds, rum ...), as well as agar-agar are added.
tricky jelly
About one of the main "bird" components - agar-agar (sometimes they write just agar or even - E406) - many have never heard of it at all. Nevertheless, agar-agar is used in confectionery quite often - it is because of it that a delicate, but dense texture is obtained not only for bird's milk filling, but also for marshmallows, marmalade, soufflé.
Agar-agar means "jelly" in Malay. It is similar to gelatin in properties, however, it is more expensive. In addition, the structure of products “captured” by agar is more plastic; it is more often used to create the most delicate air layers with bubbles. Agar usually looks like a white or yellowish powder.
Agar-agar is produced from marine red and brown algae that grow in the Pacific Ocean and the White Sea. It is completely natural and “suitable” for vegetarians, since, unlike gelatin, which is made from animal connective tissues, it contains only vegetable raw materials.
Stuffing: high technology
The next step in the development of the "bird" theme is the famous cake. It was also invented here, in the Prague restaurant, in 1978. Moreover, the "Bird's Milk" cake made a splash. Monstrous lines lined up behind him, they even had to “turn” onto Stary Arbat so that the “tail” from the government highway (Novy Arbat, then Kalininsky Prospekt) was not visible. A little later, for the first time in our country, a patent was issued for the cake.
The famous cake was invented by the confectionery duet - Margarita Golova and Nikolai Panfilov, under the guidance of the head of the confectionery shop of the restaurant Vladimir Guralnik. By the way, it is precisely Guralnik that we owe the appearance of many Soviet desserts - for example, the no less famous Prague cake.
Initially, they tried to make a cake according to the same recipe as sweets, the production technology of which at that time had already been debugged. However, what is good in sweets, on large layers for a cake, looked more like marshmallow - there was no necessary lightness and tenderness. The recipe needed to be revised. Guralnik spent six months with assistants in the "culinary laboratory" before the recipe was brought to perfection. Big role in the filling, in addition to agar and condensed milk, egg whites and butter play.
For the test, an unusual recipe was invented that distinguishes it from the sand and biscuit familiar to us. The cake for the “Bird” was more like a soft cupcake, which went well with the delicate filling. There are two thin "flat cakes" in the cake - one at the very bottom, then the filling, one more in the middle and soufflé again on top. The quality of chocolate is also important, which must be at a certain temperature (38 ° C).
By the way, initially the cake was called modestly - “soufflé”. And only then the "real" Bird's Milk cake could be distinguished by the firebird on the box. The recipe was not kept secret, moreover, it was decided to transfer it to the Mosrestorantrest plant, which is about 30 large enterprises. Nowadays, finding the “same” cake is difficult, but possible. We must carefully look at the packaging (focus on the image of the "bird of paradise"), the composition of the product and - try.
home option
What our mothers didn’t come up with in order to “perform” the famous cake at home. To achieve tenderness and airiness of the soufflé, semolina was even added to it! So, in the semolina version, the recipe then became for many housewives the home version of Bird's Milk. But now there is no need to invent something - after all, all the ingredients can be bought in the store, if not agar-agar, then gelatin - for sure.
Cake "Bird's Milk" (from Alexander Seleznev's book "Soviet Cakes and Pastries")
Ingredients. Dough: 140 g flour, 105 g sugar, 105 g butter, 75 g eggs (1.5 pieces), 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar. Cream soufflé: 308 g of sugar, 4 g of agar-agar or 20 g of gelatin, 200 g of butter, 95 g of condensed milk, 60 g of protein (2 pieces), 3 g of vanilla sugar, 2 g of citric acid. Chocolate glaze: 100 g chocolate, 10 g vegetable oil.
Cooking. Dough. Beat butter with sugar. Dilute vanilla sugar in the egg. Mix everything and beat for 15-20 minutes. Pour in the pre-sifted flour and knead the dough. Make two balls of dough and roll them into two thin cakes. Preheat the oven to 220ºС. Bake 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven. Put one of the layers in a round shape with a diameter of 22 cm.
Cream soufflé. Beat butter with condensed milk. Soak agar-agar in water for half an hour. Add sugar to it. Boil for 5 minutes, up to a temperature of 110ºС. Add vanilla sugar and citric acid to the proteins, beat. Introduce agar-agar in a thin stream. Beat gently until the cream cools down to 50ºС.
Then add the oil-condensed mass, mix and immediately put the cream on the dough in the form. Cover with the second part of the dough. Place the cream on top again. Remove to cool in refrigerator.
Frosting. Melt chocolate, mix with butter. Pour mixture over cake.
Note. If gelatin is used instead of agar-agar, it should also be soaked for half an hour in cold water and melted in a water bath without boiling. Then add to the whipped and cooled to 50ºС protein-sugar mass.
As a child, gobbling up on both cheeks a candy called bird's milk I really thought that birds give, the father said doves, and the mother laughed and said - do not confuse the child. Growing up, I realized that these are fairy tales, and yet my father was right, bird's milk is pigeon's milk.
What is pigeon milk
Where does bird's milk come from?
The birds that feed their chicks are pigeons. True, they feed their newly hatched chicks with a special curd mass, which produced in their goiter. It " children food” and is called bird or pigeon milk. Pigeon milk is so nutritious that in the first two days of life, the baby becomes twice as heavy!
To grown up chicks of a dove bird or pigeon milk after a week, it becomes theoretically unnecessary, they feed on plant seeds, although very often you can see how parents feed pigeon milk even on the wing.
Wild pigeons living in Russia.
In forests North Caucasus a secretive and cautious wood dove, or vitiuten, nests. Turtle doves live in gardens and parks throughout Russia, as well as rock pigeons - the most numerous city dwellers among relatives with whom we are all well acquainted.
