Whether it goes by the name of Medovník, Marlenka, Mařenka or even just plain medový dort, the drab-looking cake has risen to fever-pitch popularity in the Czech Republic. What it lacks in looks it more than makes up in flavor; Czechs as well as foreigners have developed a seemingly insatiable appetite for it.

The honey cake in question is a delicious torte built from several thin layers of light honey cake interspersed with two types of creamy filling and a smattering of walnuts. Initially carrying a cachet of exclusivity due to its limited production and marketing strategy, the cake has now become ubiquitous.

The honey-cake phenomenon didn't happen overnight. It began when Marianna Kchibovskaya, a native of Moscow, moved to Prague with her businessman husband, Oleg Kchibovskiy, and started baking the cake for their friends. In the late 1990s, they began selling Medovník cakes commercially after setting up production in a small bakery. As word of mouth spread and demand grew, their Vizard company moved in 2000 to larger quarters in Prague 4's Modřany neighborhood.

"At first there were problems with Czechs accepting the cake," says Kchibovskaya. "They didn't know what it was, and judged it as ugly and expensive. Then when they tasted it, their opinions began to change."

Kchibovskaya's company now employs 15 and is turning out around 800 whole cakes daily, all by hand. The company is preparing for another move within the next two weeks to a production facility in Prague 10–Hostivař that is twice the size of its current space.

It was after the move to Modřany that the cake had its first imitator, called Medvídek (Little Bear). Kchibovskaya says it is no longer produced.

A couple years later, Marlenka appeared. The maker of this version is the Miko company, owned by Armenian brother and sister Gevorg and Hasmik Avetisyan, based in the north Moravian city of Frýdek-Místek. Their cake, made from an old Armenian family recipe, is named after their mother. Avetisyan says they began to bake the cake commercially in May 2003.

By then, Czechs had learned to love honey cake, and according to Avetisyan, "Czechs accepted Marlenka very well." Miko's nearly 100 employees make more than 1,000 whole cakes daily, he says, all by hand. The company has difficulty meeting the growing demand for it, and has been seeking bigger production facilities.

The irony that the wildly popular cakes hail from countries of the former Soviet Union is lost on few, and perhaps their acceptance is a sign of how political attitudes have relaxed over time. In the immediate post-revolutionary period, it would have been almost unthinkable that a cake from Russia or Armenia could become such a smashing success. Medovník is marketed as being made from an "Old Slavonic" recipe, deftly de-emphasizing its Russian origins.

Like Medovník's erstwhile imitator Medvídek, Marlenka has its own copycat in Mařenka, which approximates the look, taste and even packaging of Marlenka. Avetisyan says that his company — which registered the name in 2004 — is currently pursuing a court case against the maker of Mařenka, a Havířov-based company named Semag.

The name Medovník was likewise registered in 2004. However, many bakeries sell similar honey cake using the medovník name generically.

The producers of both Medovník and Marlenka agree on one thing: They don't regard each other as competition. "Marlenka isn't a competitor," says Kchibovskaya. "It is a completely different cake."

Avetisyan agrees with this point, but goes further in claiming that there are substantive differences between the honey cakes. "Medovník is a completely different product with a short shelf life," he says. "Marlenka contains absolutely natural ingredients and has a longer durability."

For retailers, the honey-cake craze presents a win-win situation. Even if sales of this higher-priced cake weren't brisk, it has a long shelf life due to the high amount of honey in the recipe, known as a preservative since ancient times. Avetisyan's claims Marlenka lasts without spoiling for up to 28 days refrigerated, or 10 days at room temperature. Beekeepers are also pleased about honey cake's popularity. The honey in Medovník is from Moravia, while Miko purchases its honey from beekeepers in the Beskydy mountains.

Echoing its commercial success, honey cake has become a holy grail of home baking in this country. The proper method for re-creating the delicious but complicated cake in a home kitchen is a hot topic on a number of Czech Internet chat forums. Recipes have also appeared in recent issues of Czech cooking magazines.

Apetit editor Šárka Hamanová, who wrote an article about baking medovník at home (the magazine's version was based on the family recipe of a Georgian baker living in Prague), sums up the cake's phenomenal popularity, and consumers' willingness to shell out extra crowns for it (up to 250 Kč [$11.30] for a whole cake), succinctly: "Very few pastries from a sweet shop taste very good, while Medovník tastes absolutely perfect."