Polish Cakes – Page 8 – Journey From A Polish Kitchen

Kołaczyki – Little Wheels

Sweet Yeast Buns

Kołaczyki means little wheels from the word koła which means wheels.

In a previous post – Bułeczki – Sweet Yeast Buns– I gave a recipe for basic sweet yeast dough – since then I have tried out a slightly different recipe – nearly the same ingredients but a slightly different method – and I think these turned out to be the best yeast buns I have ever made – so this is – Basic sweet yeast dough version two.

A few reminders when using yeast in baking

Learn to be patient – you cannot control the timings exactly with yeast, it depends on the temperature of the room and the flour used and other variables.
Do yeast baking on a day you are planning to be in & have other things to do, but ones you can break off from when needed.
Heat the milk so it is at body temperature – use the finger test – too hot and you will kill the yeast – too cold is okay – it will just take longer.
An egg glaze often burns too quickly – I have found an egg white or egg white & water glaze gives a better result.

Older Polish recipes use fresh yeast. I have used dried yeast and have had very good results. (I have not tried using easy bake yeast for this recipe).

Basic Sweet Yeast Dough Version 2

Ingredients

Leaven – Starter

100g plain flour
30g fresh yeast or 15-20g dried yeast
125ml milk

Rest of ingredients

3 egg yolks
60g sugar
50g melted butter or block margarine
400g plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
Zest of 1 lemon
2-3 drops of vanilla essence
125ml milk

and

Save 1 egg white for use as a wash on the buns.

Method

Warm the milk slightly – so it is just warm to the touch – and add the yeast and mix together.
Put the flour in to a bowl and add the milk and yeast mix it all together and leave it covered until it is double in size.
*
Melt the butter and leave it to cool.
*
Whisk the yolks and sugar until they are pale and fluffy.
Grease 2 baking sheets – You should get around 15 buns. – invite people round!
Into a large bowl put: the flour and the salt, the yeast starter, the yolk mixture, the zest of a lemon, the vanilla essence and the milk.
Mix it all together so that you get a soft dough that comes away from the side of the bowl – you do not have to knead it.
Then work in the melted butter (this is the hardest part) until it is all incorporated and you have a uniform shiny dough.
Cover the dough with a cloth and leave this to rise until it is double in size.

Onto a floured surface place the dough and form it into a rectangle and then roll this out until it is around 2cm thick.
Using a 8cm diameter cutter cut out circles of dough and place them on the greased baking sheets, leaving room for the dough to rise.
Gather together the left over dough and repeat the process.

Cover the trays and leave the circles to rise and double in size.
Pre heat the oven to GM5 – 190ºC
Use a clean napkin or tea towel and cover the base of a tumbler.
Use the covered tumbler and press down on the centre of each circle to form an indentation into which you will put a filling.

Fillings

These are the ones I tried –
Cheese mixture – similar to ones for baked cheesecake.
Mix together around 250g of cream cheese/twaróg/curd or yoghurt cheese, 70g icing sugar, 1 egg yolk and 2-3 drops of vanilla essence.
Blackcurrant jam (you could use any tart jam such as cherry or gooseberry )
English style sweet mincemeat – I use Delia Smith’s recipe (without the nuts)
Put a large dollop of the filling onto each circle.

Brush the exposed dough with beaten egg white.

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Topping

This is for the jam or mincemeat only – not the cheese mixture.

Kruszonka – Crumble Mixture

Ingredients

50g plain flour
50g butter
50g granulated sugar

Method

Mix together the flour and butter to make fine crumbs then mix in the sugar.
Sprinkle around a tablespoon or so over the jam or mincemeat.
Bake the buns for around 15 minutes.

Tea plate pattern below is called Mayfair.

They were all delicious – the sweet cheese ones were my favourites!

Polish Apple Cake – Jabłecznik

Apple trees (Genus – Malus) originated in Central Asia and then spread to Northern Europe. In the 17th century they were taken to North America.

IMG_20160507_183443894 — Apple Blossom Buds

Worldwide, measured in tonnes, China is the top apple producer, the United States of America coming second.

Poland is the largest apple producer in Europe.

In Poland in the countryside and even in the towns most houses have at least one fruit tree in the garden – often more – with apple, plum and cherry being the favourites.

In my garden there are two Bramley apple trees.

Jabłko is the Polish for apple – jabłecznik is an apple cake.

Some people use the word szarlotka – but my mother used that word for apple crumble.

Apple cake is made with tart cooking apples – Antonówki are very popular in Poland – these are similar to Bramley apples and the apple filling is kept slightly tart so that the sweetness in the cake gives a lovely contrast.

I think there are as many variations of this cake as cooks in Poland.

This is my mother’s version which I think this is the very best.

Apple Filling – Ingredients

5 to 6 Bramley Apples
Granulated Sugar to taste – keep it slightly tart
A little water
1 to 1.5 teaspoons of ground cinnamon

Method

Make the apple filling first, even the day beforehand as it needs to be cold before you use it.
Peel and core the apples and cut them into thick slices.
Stew the apples gently with some sugar and very little water. You can make this in a saucepan on the stove or place the apples and sugar in a dish in the oven.
Do not add a lot of sugar at the beginning as it does not want to be too sweet, you can adjust the sweetness at the end.
Do not make it too much of a purée, cook so that you have some soft apples but with some harder less cooked chunks as well.
Leave the mixture to cool and then add the ground cinnamon. The mixture should look quite brown.

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Note

When I have lots of apples, I cook a large amount and portion this up and keep them in the freezer – better to leave out the cinnamon if freezing and add this fresh when making the cake.

Cake – Ingredients

300g self-raising flour
200g butter
75g caster sugar
1 egg yolk (save the white for the topping)
2 to 3 tablespoons of lemon juice or water
Method

You need a round tin with a loose base or a spring form tin or you will not be able to get the cake out. I always use an anodised aluminium tin, 22cm in diameter and 8 cm deep, which does not rust.
Grease the tin well.
Rub the butter into the flour to make fine crumbs and add the sugar.

Add the egg yolk and the lemon juice to and mix together to make a soft “dough” (try not to add more flour), handle it as little as possible.
Leave it to chill for about ½ an hour as this makes it easier to handle.
Pre heat the oven to GM5 – 190^oC.
Take slightly more than half the dough and press it into the cake tin.

Spoon the apple mixture on top of this.
The rest of the dough will go on top of the apple mixture.
I use a rolling pin to make a circle that is smaller than the tin diameter and then place this on top.
Do not worry if the dough falls apart, just place it on with the breaks nearly touching.

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Topping – Ingredients

1 egg white and caster sugar
Slightly beat the egg white with a fork and brush this over the top of the dough. You will not need it all.

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Liberally sprinkle caster sugar over the egg white.
Bake for around 50 minutes until the top is a golden brown.
I tend to check the cake at 40 minutes and will cover the top with greaseproof if it starts to brown but is not yet cooked through.

Leave to cool before getting the cake out of the tin.
I use a tin can and put the cake tin on this and slide the side of the cake tin down.

Do not put the cake in a air-tight covered container as the apples absorb moisture and you loose the crispness of the cake.

I hardly ever have any left anyway as I seem to get visitors as soon as they know I am baking this cake.

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Tea plates are Stardust by Colclough from the 1950s or early 1960s.

Note – I updated this in March 2020 – I altered the amount of apples in the filling.

Bułeczki – Sweet Yeast Buns

Bułeczki – this word can cause a little confusion as it can mean – little white bread rolls or a more sweet yeast bun.

This recipe has been used to make round buns with a filling – it can be used for a variety of sweet buns – all of which are very popular in Poland.

A few reminders when using yeast in baking

Learn to be patient – you cannot control the timings exactly with yeast, it depends on the temperature of the room and the flour used and other variables.
Do yeast baking on a day you are planning to be in & have other things to do, but ones you can break off from when needed.
Heat the milk so it is at body temperature – use the finger test – too hot and you will kill the yeast – too cold is okay – it will just take longer.
An egg glaze often burns too quickly – I have found an egg white or egg white & water glaze gives a better result.

The older Polish recipes use fresh yeast. I have used dried yeast and had very good results. (I have not tried using easy bake yeast for this recipe).

Basic sweet dough recipe

Ingredients

Yeast starter

25g fresh yeast or 15g dried yeast
1 tablespoon of sugar
250ml milk – warmed
Rest of dough
3 yolks
100g granulated sugar

*******

500g plain flour
2-3 drops of vanilla essence
Zest of 1 lemon
1/4 teaspoon of salt

******

60g of melted butter

******

Egg or egg white to glaze (whole egg tends to brown very quickly).

Fillings

Jam – I used strawberry jam and also blackcurrant jam (made by my friend in Leeds) and I think the more tart blackcurrant jam goes better with the semi-sweet dough.

Mincemeat – I used my own mincemeat which is from the recipe by Delia Smith but without the chopped almonds. This of course in one way is very English, but it would be recognised in Poland if described as bakalie – which is a mixture made of dried fruits (often with figs or dates), nuts and honey.

Method

Mix the yeast, sugar and warmed milk together and leave it till it doubles in size.

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Whisk the yolks and sugar together until the mixture is pale and thick.
Put the flour into a large bowl, add the yeast starter, the yolks & sugar mix, vanilla essence, lemon zest and the salt.
Combine everything together and knead it together until the dough leaves the side of the bowl clean.
Add the melted butter and mix it in and then knead it well until you get a glossy smooth dough.
Place it back in the bowl and cover with a cloth and leave it until it doubles in size.
Grease 1 or 2 baking sheets to hold 16 buns.
Knead the dough again lightly, then cut in to half and half again and so on to give 16 pieces.
Roll each piece into a smooth ball, then flatten it and roll it out into a circle.
Put a small spoonful of filling onto each circle and then draw the edges of the dough circle together and pinch the dough to seal in the filling.

Turn the balls over so the seal is on the underside.

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Place the buns on the baking sheets with room apart for them to double in size.
Cover the buns with a cloth and leave them to rise to double in size.
Pre-heat the oven to GM 5 – 190ºC
When the buns have doubled in size brush them with an egg or egg white wash.

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I used whole egg in this case but since have found that egg white does not burn as quickly.
Bake the buns for around 15 minutes.

Leave to cool before serving.

Tea plates are Las Palmas by Aynsley from the 1960s.

Babka – Polish Cake – Using Potato Flour

Potato flour is used in many Polish recipes for a variety of cakes.

This recipe is for a babka (click here for earlier post) using a mixture of wheat flour and potato flour and is adapted from a recipe in my old Polish cookery book.

Kuchnia Polska - Polish Kitchen or Polish Cookery — Kuchnia Polska – Polish Kitchen – Polish Cookery

In the past potato flour was hard to find in England but now you should be able to find it in most Polish shops.

One of my Polish friends in England said she had tried using cornflour in baking when she could not get potato flour but she did not think it gave as good results.

Recently in a repeated radio programme on BBC Radio 4 Extra I heard the late Marguerite Patten say that cooks in Victorian England used potato flour in cake baking on a regular basis.

Ingredients

150g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

100g potato flour

200g butter or block margarine

4 eggs separated

200g icing sugar

Zest of 1 lemon

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

3 to 4 tablespoons of soured cream or yoghurt – Full Fat-Greek style or home-made Yoghurt – click for earlier post)

(I have made this recipe with soured cream and then with my own yoghurt – both turned our super)

Fine Grater – Microplane Graters are Super For Lemon Zest.

Microplane Professional Series

Method

Grease and flour a large babka tin.

Pre-heat the oven to GM4 – 180°C

Mix the flours together with the baking powder and leave to one side.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and the icing sugar until the mixture is pale and fluffy.

Beat in the egg yolks – one by one.

Then beat in the lemon zest and juice.

In a separate bowl beat the eggs white until they are stiff.

Fold the egg whites into the creamed mixture.

Gently fold the whites in the flour mixture.

Place the mixture into the prepared babka tin.

Place the tin in the centre of the oven and bake for around 30 – 40 minutes.

Check with a cake tester.

Remove from the oven and let the cake cool a little.

When cooled – remove carefully from the tin – this is easiest when the cake is nearly cold.

Dust the cake with icing sugar or pour over it a runny icing glaze.

IMG_20150902_165334611 — Silver Rose – Duchess 1950s & 1960s

Instructions for those who do not have a babka tin

At the moment (February 2016) Marks & Spencer are selling babka tins at a reasonable price – I bought one to add to my collection!

IMG_20151210_071926550 — Tin from Marks & Spencer

However if you do not want to go to the expensive but want to try out the cake I have made the cake using 2 types of loaf tins with good results

First using a long narrow tin

and secondly a 2lb loaf tin.

You need to grease and line the tins or use loaf tin liners – I discovered these recently and think they are a boon. You can get them in 2 loaf sizes. They are available in many stores but also you should also be able to find them in the cheaper discount stores.

The cake takes 40 -45 minutes in a pre-heated oven at GM4 – 180°C

Dust the top with icing sugar

Colclough Longton Bone China ..... Around 1930s — Colclough Longton Bone China …..
Around 1930s

Babka and Babeczki

A babka is a large cake and babeczki are small cakes.

For a general description on what a babka is – read my post – Babka.

The following cakes have been made using a creamed sponge mixture –using my mother’s friend’s basic recipe for a creamed sponge.

In this recipe you weigh the eggs in their shells and then use the same weights of butter (or block margarine), caster sugar and self raising flour.

IMG_20151209_072508772_HDR — Silver Tin at the front was used.

Marbled Babka

Pre-heat the over to GM4 – 180°C

Grease and flour the tin.

For this babka, 4 eggs were used.

After making the cake mixture, half the mixture was placed in the tin and to the rest 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder was added and lightly folded in. This cocoa mixture was then placed on top of the plain mixture and with a metal spoon lightly mix the two to give a marbling effect.

Bake the cake for 35 to 40minutes.

When the cake is ready, leave it to cool completely before turning it out of the tin.

The babka can be dusted with icing sugar or you can use a chocolate glaze and allow this to dribble down the grooves.

Medium babeczki

I bought these tins a few years ago in Lidl.

You might be able to find find smaller babka tins like those in the photograph below. (I bought these many years ago in France – sold there as brioche tins).

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Grease and flour the tins.

I used 3 eggs to make these 6 babeczki with the addition of 75g of currants (25g per egg)

Bake these in a pre-heated oven a GM4 – 180°C for around 25 minutes.

Wait till the cakes are cool before turning them out.

You can dust them with icing sugar or drizzle a thin lemon icing over them.

I think the size of these makes them ideal for sharing!

Small babeczki

I bought these small mini bundt tins from Marks & Spencer in January 2016.

They are a good size for an individual small cake (of course you can always have two!)

Grease and flour the tins.

Bake these in a pre-heated oven at GM4 – 180°C for around 20 minutes.

I used a 2 egg mixture with the addition of one and a half tablespoons of cocoa powder for the marbling.

This mixture made 9 cakes. (If you use a 3 egg mixture and 2 tablespoons of cocoa and fill the moulds a little more you should get 12 cakes – I have yet to try this amount.)

Wait till the cakes are cool before turning them out.

Then dust them with icing sugar before serving.

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Karnawał – Carnival

The official end of the Christmas & Epiphany season is February 2nd which is 40 days(inclusive) after Christmas and is the feast of the Presentation of Christ in The Temple also known as Candlemas Day. In Poland it is called Święto Matki Boskiej Gromnicznej – The feast of Our Lady of the Thunder Candles (as the blessed candles are used during thunder storms)

February 2nd is the start of karnawał – carnival and the festivities leading up to the beginning of Lent which starts on Ash Wednesday.

During karnawał there is lots of dressing up in costumes such as beggars, chimney sweeps, goats, bears, horses or storks and going from farm to farm or house to house and there the revellers would be given food and drink.

The date of Ash Wednesday varies as it is based on the date for Easter which is calculated according to the Paschal full moon.

Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon, after the spring equinox, which is the 21st of March. So the earliest date for Easter is the 22nd of March and the latest date is the 25th of April.

Ash Wednesday is six and a half weeks before Easter – calculated as 40 days but the Sundays are not included so it is in fact 46 days before Easter Sunday.

Therefore the earliest date for Ash Wednesday is the 4th of February and the latest date is the 10th of March.

In a year when Ash Wednesday is very early – I am sure that karnawał festivities would begin a little early!

After Christmas with all the wonderful food it seems like only a few days and it is time to prepare for Lent. All the rich food is used up before Lent, especially on the last day before Ash Wednesday.

In England it is Shrove Tuesday, in France Mardi Gras(Fat Tuesday), in Poland tłusty wtorek (Fat Tuesday) and in some parts of Poland there is also tłusty czwartek (Fat Thursday) and then the last Tuesday can also be be called ostatki (last remnants).

In Poland chrusty and pączki (doughnuts) are made (pancakes are eaten throughout the year and do not feature here.)

My mother always made chrusty, doughnuts we got from other Polish ladies in the neighbourhood.

I was in Kraków once on tłusty czwartek (Fat Thursday) and bought some doughnuts – I found that these were very special ones made for that day made with rose petal jam. I am afraid I did not like these – I am used to Polish plum jam or raspberry jam in Polish doughnuts and found theses too perfumed for me. (I have recently seen many English recipes made with rose petal jam – so maybe it is an acquired taste)

Chrusty

Chrusty are deep fat fried, sugar dusted pastries.

These must be my favourite pastries which my mother would only make once or twice a year before Lent began.

When I was little before I started to help, I could never understand how she made these amazing shapes.

The name chrusty means “dry twigs” which may describe their appearance but not their taste!

You could call them ribbon shaped and in some parts of Poland they are called faworki from the French word faveur which means favour as in the coloured ribbons given by ladies to Medieval knights.

My aunty in The United States told me that nowadays they are popular there for weddings and other big parties not just during carnival and that Americans call them Angel wings.

I remember that my mother always fried these in vegetable oil. During my research I have realised that originally they were fried in lard, and the books say that this makes them very tasty!

They taste best a few minutes after cooking, straight from the pan, when still slightly warm and dusted with icing sugar. So being in the kitchen when they are being made is the best place to be!

Ingredients

300g plain flour

100g self-raising flour

50g butter

50g caster sugar

2 eggs

2 egg yolks

2 tablespoons of rum (or vodka and 2 drops of vanilla essence)

2 – 3 tablespoon of soured cream to mix (use double cream if not available)

Sunflower oil to deep fat fry

Icing sugar to dust

Method

Mix the flours together and rub in the butter to make fine crumbs and then mix in the sugar.

Mix together the eggs, yolks and alcohol together. Make the decision on how much cream to use or not as you start to mix later.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the liquid.

Mix the liquid with the dry ingredients to make a soft dough. You can use a knife at first and then your hands.

If the dough needs some extra liquid then add the soured cream bit by bit.

Take about a third of the dough and roll it out on a floured board as thinly as possible.

Using a sharp knife cut strips which are strips 3 to 4 cm wide and about 15cm long, you can cut the short edges diagonally.

In each one cut a slit down the middle long ways and pull the short edge through to make a twist.

Repeat with the rest of the dough, try to use as much as possible in the first cutting but you can mix and re-roll the off-cuts.

Try not to add too much extra flour when re-rolling.

You can brush of excess flour with a pastry brush.

In a pan or fryer heat up the oil and deep fat fry the chrusty, about 2 or 3 at a time till they are golden. They will rise to the top as they cook, turn them over using bamboo or wooden tongs.

Remove from the hot oil, using the frying basket or bamboo/wooden tongs.

Place onto kitchen roll and dust with icing sugar.

If you have any left put them in an airtight container when they are completely cold and add extra icing sugar when you serve them.

Yeast Babka – Polish Yeast Cake

Babka is the name of a Polish cake. The name means grandmother and it is thought to refer to the the shape of the cake which is round and dumpy or tall and tapered and looks like the full and pleated skirts found in Polish costumes.

A yeast babka is a classic Polish cake. It is usually made with the addition of some dried fruits or peel.

A yeast babka is traditional for Easter Sunday.

My mother never had much success with making yeast cakes and so abandoned the process.

In the past I have tried to make a yeast babka also without much success.

Once I started writing this blog I went back to my old Polish cookery book – “my bible”

Kuchnia Polska – Polish Kitchen or Polish Cookery – 15th edition published in 1971.

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Book title

I used one of the recipes from this book and the result was wonderful!

I have now realised where I was going wrong:

I had been treating this cake as if I was making bread and in fact the technique is quite different.

You have to use ordinary plain flour not strong flour.
The mixture is a batter – you do not knead it.
You have to have lots of patience – the yeast can take hours and hours to rise.
The yeast will rise even in a coldish kitchen – it just takes a long time – even overnight or in the fridge.

Note

I used dried yeast for this recipe as that is easier for me and nearer to using fresh yeast.

I am sure you can adapt this to use the quick action yeast although I have not tried this myself.

Ingredients

Starter

100g plain flour

250 ml of milk

50g of fresh yeast or 25g of dried yeast

25g of granulated sugar

Rest of cake

5 egg yolks

150g of granulated sugar

400g of plain flour

pinch of salt

2 drops of vanilla essence

100g of melted butter or margarine

50g of raisins or sultanas

Method

First make the starter

Mix to IMG_20151210_072305828 gether the yeast and sugar.

Add this to the milk and flour.

Leave in to bubble and rise to around double its size.

IMG_20151210_102402590 IMG_20151210_102407333_HDR

Grease and flour a babka tin

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Pre-heat the oven to GM5

Place the egg yolks and the sugar in a bowl and whisk until they are pale and creamy.

Add the rest of the flour, the risen starter, the pinch of salt and the drops of vanilla essence and mix it all together.

Add the melted butter a little at a time, mixing it in after each addition.

Add the raisins or sultanas and mix them well in so you have a unified mixture.

Place the mixture in the prepared tin – it should fill around a 1/3rd of the tin.

Cover the tin with a clean tea towel and leave the mixture to rise and nearly fill the tin.

This can take several hours.

Bake in the oven for around 40 to 45 minutes.

Leave to cool and then carefully remove out of the tin.

Dust with icing sugar.

The tea plates are Greenway Hostess designed by John Russell 1960 – 1979.

Easter babka

The babka for Easter is normally glazed with a thin icing made with lemon juice & icing sugar or instead of lemon juice you can use vanilla essence and a little water or you can use rum.

Also prior to this glaze you can make a poncz (this word originates from the English word punch) and drizzle this over the babka.

A rum poncz can be made from around 150ml of weak black tea, 45 ml of rum, 1 to 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice. These are mixed together until the sugar has dissolved. (You can use tepid tea to dissolve the sugar but not too hot to evaporate the rum.)

A lemon poncz can be make from the juice of a lemon and around 2 tablespoons of icing sugar.

A yeast cake which is fresh will not absorb as much of the liquid poncz, so if you have time you can made this the day before you want add the poncz or wait for several hours at least.

I am hoping to make a yeast babka for Easter with a glaze and will include photos of this in my post for Easter.

Babka

Babka is the name of a Polish cake.

Babka means grandmother and refers to the round dumpy shape reminiscent of an older lady wearing a long full skirt as is traditional in many Polish folk costumes.

Wooden Dolls in Polish Costumes

There are references to this cake in Poland in the early 18 century.

The early cakes will have been yeast cakes.

Later cakes were creamed sponge cakes and then marbled (usually with cocoa powder) cakes became very popular.

Yeast cakes are glazed with either warmed honey, a sugar and lemon glaze or poncz (derived from the English word – punch) which is a sweetened syrup made with tea and rum.

At Easter a yeast babka is very traditional and it would also be covered in a thin icing glaze.

A creamed sponge babka can be made with wheat flour or a mixture of potato flour and wheat flour.

Dried fruit such as currants, sultanas, raisins or candied peel can be added – just small amounts – this is not a heavy fruit cake!

Many are also iced or glazed with a lemon or vanilla icing

The marbled cakes are often coated with a runny chocolate icing which is allowed to run down from the top.

Assorted Babka Tins

Yeast Babka with Raisins – Dusted with Icing Sugar

Creamed Sponge Babka

Marbled Babka

In other parts of Europe there are similar cakes such as Gugelhopf or Kugelhopf in southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland and Bundkuchen in Northern Germany.

In Italy there is the panetonne – the name for this in Polish is włoska babka which means Italian babka.

In the 1950s Nordic Ware in the USA produced a tin which they trademarked as a Bundt tin.

It is thought the name comes from a Bundkuchen – a cake for a large gathering in Northern Germany.

Babecki – small Babka cakes

Babecki – made in a new tin from Marks & Spencer – which they call a 12 cup mini Bundt tray.

The origin of baba au rhum or rum baba

Legend has it that when Stanisław Leszczyński (1677-1766) the exiled King of Poland was living in Lorraine in France (He was made Duke of Lorraine and Bar for his lifetime) he had acquired some (yeast) babka which turned out to be very dry. His pastry chef revived it by soaking it in a sugary rum liquid (very like the poncz they use in Poland). This became the start of baba au rhum in France. These are usually done as small individual cakes nowadays. note

Dry babka will soak up more liquid than a freshly baked one – so if you are making this it is better to use cake at least a day old.

Savarin

The savarin was invented in Paris in 1844 and was inspired by the baba au rhum but it is large cake made in a circular(ring) tin. In the centre it usually has fruit in syrup and whipped cream (this is not used in Polish cookery).

Recipes to Follow

Future posts are coming up shortly with recipes for the various types of babka – look out for these!

Makowiec – Roasted Poppy Seed Cake

I came across this recipe recently using roasted poppy seeds which give a slightly nutty flavour to the cake.

The cake part is the same as a previous poppy seed cake – makowiec 4 -and uses the simple all in one method using soft tub margarine.

Here roasted poppy seeds are used and lemon rind is not, nor is there a lemon glaze.

Roasting Poppy Seeds

100g of poppy seeds are used in this recipe.

Use a small frying pan without any oil or butter.

Add the poppy seeds to the pan and heat gently for around 5 minutes, stirring the seeds with a wooden spatulas and do not let them burn.

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Pour some milk into a jug or bowl and tip the roasted poppy seeds into the milk.

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When the poppy seeds have cooled, tip then into a sieve and let them drain away until they are dry. You can press them with a spoon to speed up the process.

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The seeds need to be as dry as possible – you could do this part several hours earlier or the night before.

This cake is a modern version as soft tub margarine is used and it is an all-in-one method which is so easy to do with an electric hand whisk.

I use either Flora original or Stork for baking – both of these have given good results.

Ingredients

100g poppy seeds – roasted

175g soft tub margarine for baking

225g self-raising flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

175g caster sugar

3 eggs

3 tablespoon milk (full fat or semi-skimmed)

Method

Pre heat the oven to Gas mark 4 – 180⁰C.

Make this as a tray bake in a tin about 31×22 cm.

I have a selection of Mermaid Hard Anodised rectangular baking tins and they are superb.

Grease the tin and use one piece of greaseproof paper to line the base and the two long sides of the tin.

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Place all the ingredients except the poppy seeds into a large bowl and beat well for about 2 minutes until they are well blended.

Add the poppy seeds and mix them well in.

Put the mixture into the tin and bake for about 30-35 minutes.

Leave to cool on a cooling rack and then take the cake out of the tin.

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Dust with icing sugar before serving.

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Tea Plates – Silver Rose by Duchess

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Miodownik – Piernik – Honey Spice Cake

Miód is the Polish word for honey and so Miodownik is a Honey Cake which usually contains spices. Pierna is an old Polish word for spices and so Piernik is also a Honey Spice Cake.

Some sources say the name is from pieprz – pepper or piorun – thunderbolt or devil – because of its spiciness.

These cakes have been known in Poland since the 12th century and the spices would have come from Turkey (originally brought back by the crusaders) or India.

Honey was the original sweetener, long before sugar and there are many traditional recipes that use honey not only in cakes, but also in meat dishes.

When you travel in Poland you will find many village ladies selling their own honey, the taste varies greatly depending on where the bees have found their flowers and the honey from a forest region is dark and very flavoursome.

Piernik can vary from a soft dense cake to a drier but soft biscuit.

The Polish town of Toruń is famous for its piernik and Chopin was very found of this.

Pierniki(plural) coated with chocolate are called Katarzynki – which means Katherine’s cakes – named after Katarzyna the daughter of one of the bakers.

Similar cakes are found throughout Europe including the French pain d’éspices, the Dutch peperkoek and the German lebkuchen.

Miodownik and piernik are often translated as Gingerbread but ginger is a spice rarely used in Polish cookery.

The main spices used are cinnamon and cloves with the addition according to different recipes of cardamon, black pepper, caraway, nutmeg, dried orange and/or lemon peel and then in later recipes allspice which is from the New World.

My older recipe book gives the proportions for mixing spices and there is one with black pepper which I intend to try out in the future.

Whilst looking through some of my more recent cookery books it would appear that it in Poland you can buy ready mixed spices for piernik so I would presume you can get these in Polish shops in England. I will try these out in the future as well.

I use the mixed spice mixture which is sold by Marks & Spencer which contains: dried orange peel, cassia (a variety of cinnamon), ginger, nutmeg, pimento (allspice) and caraway. I think it is the dried orange peel which makes it much nicer than other mixtures I have used.

Some recipes make a cake mixture and then leave it in a cool place for up to several weeks before baking it. I have tried one of these out many years ago and it was very good – I intend to try this again for a post in the early winter of next year.

Piernik in Poland is associated with the Christmas season and would be made for Christmas Eve and for Christmas Day, it would also be made for Święty Mikołaj – December 6th – St Nicholas Day. This a day for present giving in Poland to children and I would always get a piernik shaped and decorated to look like the bishop that was St Nicholas.

Mama’s Miodownik

This is of my mother’s recipes and it uses sunflower oil which is a more recent addition to recipes in Polish cookery. It is a dense cake which is lovely and moist and improves with keeping.

IMG_20151130_200822771 — Miodownik on Greenway Hostess designed by John Russell 1960 – 1979

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Ingredients

450g Clear honey
250g Icing sugar
4 Eggs separated
250ml Tepid water
4 Teaspoons cocoa
250ml Sunflower oil
450g Plain flour
Pinch of salt
1 Teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
1 Teaspoon mixed spice (M&S is the best)
100g mixed peel

Method

You can use a 25cm square tin or a 31cm x21cm rectangular tray tin.
Grease and line the tin.
Pre-heat the oven to Gas Mark 3 – 160º C.
In a large bowl, mix the honey and the icing sugar.

Add the water, cocoa, egg yolks, oil and then the mixed peel.

In a separate bowl mix the plain flour, salt, bicarbonate of soda and the mixed spice.
Add the dry mixture to the honey mixture and mix together to make a batter.

Whisk the egg whites until they are stiff and fold these into the honey batter.
Pour the mixture into the prepared tin.

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Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for around 1hour 30minutes.
Take care as this has a tendency to burn at the top, you might need to cover it after about 1 hour with a piece of greaseproof paper of aluminium foil.
Test to make sure it is cooked through with a fine cake tester.
Leave to cool in the tin.

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Store in an airtight container or cover in aluminium foil

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Miodownik on Greenway Hostess designed by John Russell 1960 – 1979

Addendum

I recently made this for Wigilia (Christmas Eve) around 3 weeks beforehand – it was lovely and moist by then.

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