In the 16th century, sugar was considered a medicine in Poland, in the 17th century it was used as a preservative, and only then did it become food. Poles add it to most desserts.
Karpatka
A traditional Polish cake consisting of two layers of wavy dough (so-called scalded) layered with custard cream. Sprinkle the top of the cake with powdered sugar. It was at the forefront of the world ranking of the best cakes
Ingredients:
CAKE
- 125 g of butter
- 1 glass of water
- 1 cup of flour
- 5 small or medium eggs
- 1 teaspoon of baking powder
CREAM
- 2 sugar-free vanilla puddings (40 g each)
- 1/4 cup of sugar
- 750 ml of milk
- 200 g of soft butter
Recipe:
CAKE
Melt the butter in a pot, add water and bring to a boil. Add flour and mix with a wooden spoon for a while until a thick and smooth mass is formed.
Transfer to a bowl and cool. Add eggs, baking powder, mix everything until smooth. Divide the dough into 2 parts.
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C (top and bottom without convection).
Put one part of the dough with a spoon onto the baking sheet, then use a flat spatula (e.g. silicone) to spread the dough over the baking tray. Put the spatula in warm water from time to time so that the dough does not stick too much. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden.
CREAM
Cook the puddings: dissolve the pudding powders and sugar in a glass of milk, boil the rest of the milk well, pour in the milk with the dissolved powder and mix until the pudding has a smooth consistency. Then cook the pudding for about 1 – 2 minutes until it starts bubbling.
Beat the soft butter with a mixer for about 2 minutes, until it is more fluffy, then add the cooled pudding one tablespoon at a time and beat until fluffy and light.
Spread the resulting cream on one part of the cake (on the wavy side), cover with the second cake. Leave uncovered in a cool place for 1 hour. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving. The cake is now ready to be served.
Poppy seed cake
Cake layered with a mass of ground poppy seeds, sugar or honey and nuts and dried fruit. This is a typical Christmas dessert.
Ingredients:
- yeast dough on buttermilk with 1 kg of flour,
- poppy seed 1 kg
- sugar 1 1/2 c
- butter 15 gr
- honey 2 tbsp
- breadcrumbs 2 tbsp
- 3/4 cup chopped walnuts
- raisins 3/4 c
- milk 2 pcs
- almond oil
- eggs 3 pcs
Recipe:
1. boil the milk, pour in the rinsed poppy seeds, boil over low heat, leave it best for the whole night,
2. grind the poppy seeds 2 times in a food processor with a fine-mesh sieve,
3. melt the butter, add sugar, honey and ground poppy seeds, heat for a while, add the roll and eggs, nuts and dried fruit and oil, mix thoroughly,
4. Divide the dough into 6 pieces, roll out one, spread with egg white, put 1/6 of poppy seeds, spread, roll up,
5. cut a piece of baking paper, make a 1-centimeter fold in the middle, wrap the ready-made poppy seed cake in paper (the fold is so that the rising dough has room), leave to rise,
6. bake 30-35 minutes at 170-180 degrees,
7. after baking, pour chocolate glaze and decorate
Other Polish desserts
Among the most popular cakes in Poland, we can certainly find cheesecakes and ciders (more often called apple pies, but this name is not so Polish anymore ;)). In addition to cakes, cookies are also popular – we know many simple recipes for Polish desserts, eaten by children and adults for hundreds of years.
