Honey cake with brandy, creamy dried apricots puree, roasted candied almonds & cream cheese

Please note: I'm writing the recipe for 1 portion of cake; I have a double portion in the photo (there are two cake layers left).

• All the ingredients should be at room temperature. Whip the eggs with sugar and demerara sugar for 4-5 minutes, the mass will turn white and increase in volume.
• Add the butter at room temperature, 50 g (1.75 oz oz) of flour, honey, baking soda quenched with lemon juice.
• Then brew the dough in a water bath, stirring constantly for 4-5 minutes, add brandy, cook for another 5-6 minutes (as in the previous version with prunes, I will clarify if you have a thermometer, you can play it safe and measure the temperature of the finished dough, it should be 76-78 °C / 170-175 °F).
• Then leave the dough to cool down to 40 °C (105 °F). Gradually stir in the sifted flour, knead the elastic dough (it should not stick to your hands, but it should not be heavily hammered). Set aside for 5 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 180 °C (355 °F) in convection + top mode. It took me 120 g (4.25 oz) of dough for each cake layer with a diameter of 18 cm. Roll out each cake, chop with a fork and bake for 3-4 minutes, cut off the finished cake.

• Rinse the nuts, bake in the oven or fry on a pan. Peel and chop coarsely. Mix sugar and water in a saucepan, put on medium heat, bring to a boil, remove foam and cook until caramel-golden brown. Add lemon juice 5 minutes after boiling. Mix almonds with caramel, pour on a silicone mat, let cool.

• Rinse the dried apricots, and soak in boiling water for 15 minutes. Drain and squeeze dried apricots. Beat with the dairy cream with a blender until smooth.

• Whip all the ingredients in a mixer bowl until smooth (try for sweetness, if necessary, increase the amount of confectioners sugar).

• Just before applying to the layer cake, it is necessary to mix the crushed roasted nuts with dried apricot puree.
• Then, the order is as follows: cake layer + dried apricots puree with roasted nuts + sour cream and curd cream + cake layer and so on.
• Wrap the finished cake in a plastic food wrap and refrigerate for 5-6 hours. Coat the finished cake with any kind of cream to taste (I had cream cheese butter-cream, and I used butter + confectioners sugar + dried apricots puree for decoration.