Journey From A Polish Kitchen

Pisanki – Polish Easter Eggs

Easter is celebrated on 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.

In English the word Easter comes from the name of the pagan goddess of dawn or spring – Eastre or Eostre and her festival was in spring time and hence this old word has stuck.

In Polish the name is Wielkanoc – which translates as Great Night – as it is the night of The Resurrection.

Eggs at Easter were originally a pagan tradition as symbols of fertility, rebirth and the revival of nature and heralded in the start of spring.

The tradition was absorbed by Christianity and the egg is now the symbol of the tomb and as the chick hatches from the egg with life so it symbolises the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Pisanki are the decorated eggs you find in Poland. The word comes from the Polish verb pisać which nowadays means to write, however in old Polish it also meant to paint.

There are many different ways of decorating eggs and each of these has its own specific name – one method uses beeswax and dyes are used to give wax resist patterns – another scratches away the dye to revel the original shell colour.

In Kraków there is the Museum of Ethnography, founded in 1902, which has superb displays of intricate and beautiful pisanki through the ages – well worth a visit.

Below are photographs of an egg which was decorated using the beeswax and dye method – onion skins in this case. It belongs to the Director of the Leeds Polish Saturday School and was one of many made two years ago with instructions from a visiting tutor at a workshop session for the teachers and pupils at the school.

I make very simple coloured eggs by hard boiling eggs with onion skins.

Boiling eggs with brown onion skins dyes the egg shells a rich brown colour.

Boiling eggs with red onion skins dyes the egg shells a dark red-brown colour.

You can buy sheets of coloured paper dyes which give a range of colours – safe edible dyes of course – I have tried these in the past but now just use onions as they are always in my vegetable basket.

Tip

When hard boiling eggs use eggs that are at least three days old as very fresh eggs are hard to peel.

These hard boiled eggs form part of the basket of food which is taken to church on the Saturday before Easter to be blessed see Palm Sunday & Holy Saturday.

The blessed eggs are peeled and cut into quarters to be shared at the Easter Breakfast with all the people present.

Other non- blessed hard boiled eggs are used in a game of tapping eggs together to see which one cracks first.

A wooden imitation of these lovely decorated eggs is now a very popular item for sale throughout the year in Poland. It is a something that many tourists buy to take home.

Pisanki for sale in Kraków

My Wooden Pisanki

Wooden Eggs belonging to my friend in Leeds

In these the wooden eggs have been painted and carved to expose the pale wood imitating the method of scratching with a fine tool the paint or dye and exposing the egg shell colour of real eggs

Easter Greetings

The photographs are taken from recent Easter cards from Poland.

Wesołych Świąt

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Happy Holy (Holiday) Day

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Wesołych Świąt Wielkanocnych

Happy Holy (Holiday) Day at Easter

Wesołego Alleluja

Happy Alleluia

Because of the egg theme you may also hear

Smacznego jajka

May the eggs be delicious.

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After posting the above I received an Easter card from Poland with the following stamp.

Palm Sunday & Holy Saturday

Palm Sunday is the Sunday before Easter and marks the beginning of Holy Week.

Palms are blessed in church on this day to commemorate Christ’s entry into Jerusalem.

Of course palm trees do not grow in Poland and so other plants are substituted. Often pussy willow is used as the catkins are usually out around this time. My mother always called pussy willow – palma – the Polish for palm.

Twigs For Sale in the Old Square in Kraków

Palms are also made from dried grasses and corn which are often dyed to make them colourful or from coloured paper which is rolled and the edges cut to make a fringe.

In many villages the farmers would make huge palms for the procession completing with each other to see who had the biggest and best.

The Main Square in Kraków – Decorated with Large Palms

It is still Lent in Holy Week so the food eaten is simple and often meat, butter and egg free. Most baking and cooking done now is to make food to eat at Easter.

As well as going to church services it is a time for houses to undergo a massive clean-up especially inside.

Holy Saturday is the last day of Lent – the day before Easter.

This is the only day in the Catholic year on which Mass is not celebrated.

In Poland there is the tradition on this day to have the food for Easter blessed.

This has its roots in the early medieval church in the 12th Century and the food would have originally been just bread and eggs.

In times past in villages the priest would have gone around to people’s houses and blessed the food there. Nowadays people bring a basket of food to the church and the food is blessed with Holy Water and is then taken home and not eaten till the Easter Sunday Breakfast.

Once blessed this basket is called święconka meaning that which has been blessed

The basket is lined with a cloth – often white linen and sometimes embroidered. A white linen cloth is used to cover the basket. These cloths represent the white shroud in which Jesus was wrapped.

What goes into the basket depends on several factors but hard boiled eggs and bread are usually present. Everything in the basket has a symbolic meaning.

Eggs – Christ’s Resurrection – a symbol of life.

Bread – Christ as the Bread of Heaven.

Salt – Preservation & Purification & Zest for Life

Horseradish – The Harsh & Bitter sacrifice of Christ.

Cooked Meat & Sausage – Joy & Abundance of God’s mercy.

Babka – The risen dough – this represents the Risen Christ.

Shaped Lamb (butter/cake/bread) – Christ – The Lamb of God -(see Lamb Bread)

Cheese – Moderation.

Butter – End of Lent.

Getting a basket ready to take to Church

See Babka

People coming & going to church in Kraków with baskets of food.

Food for sale for Easter in Kraków.

The special meal at Easter in Poland is the Easter Breakfast – although it is a lot later than a normal breakfast being usually around 11am

This meal is a cold buffet and includes the food that was blessed in church on Easter Saturday.

The hard boiled eggs are cut up into quarters or eighths and they are shared between everyone present at the start of the meal.

POSTSCRIPT

Since posting I received the following photographs from my friend in Leeds who is The Director of the Polish Saturday School.

Sugar Lambs to go in the basket for blessing.

Salt Dough Lambs – made for the Easter Fair

Polish Easter Lamb

The Lamb is a symbol of Christ Resurrected – The Lamb of God – The Saviour of the World.

In Poland there is a tradition of having a Lamb on the table at Easter. This would be made out of moulded butter or sugar or baked as a cake. There are moulds available for making a lamb-shaped cake into which you pour the cake mixture before you bake it.

My auntie in America sent me the instructions for making a lamb using bread dough. I think the result is super.

I used my basic enriched bread dough (click here for link to the recipe).

You can use this or your favourite bread dough recipe using 500g of flour.

Make the dough until it is ready for shaping.

Shaping the Lamb

Grease a large baking sheet.

Pre-heat the oven to GM 5 – 200°C.

Prepare an egg white wash by whisking an egg white in a bowl or an egg white and 1 tablespoon of water.

Divide the dough into 3 parts.

Use 1 of the pieces and shape it into a large oval – this will be the “body”

Chop 1 of the pieces into 4 parts

Shape 1 part into an oval “head”

Shape 1 part into an oval “tail”

Shape the remaining 2 parts into long oval “legs”

Attach these to the body by pinching them slightly together.

Cut a vertical slit in each leg.

Using the remaining pieces of dough, pinch off small amounts to make around 24 x 2.5 cm balls and 11 x 1cm balls by rolling the pieces in your hand.

Arrange the larger balls over the body leaving a border of around 1cm uncovered.

Arrange the smaller balls between the larger balls and on the top of the head.

Insert a currant or a raisin for the eye.

Brush with egg white wash and bake for 10 minutes.

Quickly brush on more egg white wash and sprinkle sesame seeds over the head and body.

Bake for another 10 to 15 minutes or slightly longer until lightly browned on top.

Bułeczki – Bread Rolls

First let me start by trying to explain a little bit of linguistic confusion around the use of the word bread.

The Polish for bread is chleb and is used for rye bread and any bread which contains at least some rye flour.

The word bułka means a loaf and bułeczka means a little loaf or roll (bułeczki – is the plural) and these words are used for soft wheat loaves or rolls.

So bułeczki are what in England are called bread rolls or bread buns.

However the word is also used for sweet dough yeast buns or sometimes small cakes in general.

The following instructions are for an enriched dough for bread rolls or buns – that is a dough with added milk, butter and eggs.

I will write write about sweet yeast buns in the future

A few pointers – learnt over the past few weeks

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.
Strong flour gave me the best results.
Have the dough as wet & soft as you can handle – do not be tempted to add more and more flour as you form the dough at the beginning.
Knead the dough as much as possible – it can be quite relaxing once you get going.
Use the amount of salt as and when stated in the recipe, it gives the bread taste and controls the yeast.
An egg glaze often burns too quickly – I have found an egg white or egg white & water glaze gives a better result.

The Polish recipes I have looked at make a rozczyn – a leaven in the form of a batter or starter to begin with – I have liked using this method very much.

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 Enriched Bread Dough

Ingredients

Leaven

250ml tepid milk

25g fresh yeast or 15g dried yeast(1 tablespoon)

1 tbs sugar

100g strong flour

Dough

400g strong flour

1 egg

1 tsp salt

50g butter or margarine or 2 tbs vegetable oil

Wash

1 egg white or

1egg white & 1 tbs water

Optional

Poppy seeds

Sesame seeds

Method

Mix the yeast and sugar with the warmed milk – if using dried yeast leave for a few minutes to let the yeast start to work.

Put the 100g of flour into a bowl and add the milk and yeast mixture, mix it all in to form a batter.

Cover the bowl with a tea towel or cling-film and leave it to rise.

Put the 400g of flour in a large bowl.

Whisk the egg with the salt.

Add the leaven and the egg mixture to the flour and bring it together by hand to from a ball. You might have to add extra milk to get a soft ball – try not to add more flour.

In a small pan melt the butter and leave it cool

Turn the dough out onto a firm surface and knead until you have a nice smooth ball – one of my books says do this for 30 minutes! – knead it for at least 10 minutes.

Now this is the hardest part!

Flatten out the dough and pour the butter or oil over it.

Then incorporate the butter or oil into the dough and knead it until once again you have a nice smooth ball.

Place the dough into a clean bowl and with a tea towel or cling-film and leave it to double in size.

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Pre-heat the oven to GM5 – 200°C

Grease a large baking sheet.

Take the dough and on a floured surface roll it out into a rectangle.

The next part is to shape the dough, brush with an egg white wash and sprinkle with seeds as desired and bake for 15 minutes.

Three Traditional Shapes

Bułeczki – Kajzerki – Rogaliki

Bułeczki – Round Buns

This amount of dough will make 12 buns.

Use a sharp knife or a dough cutter to divide the dough.

IMG_20160305_093938050_HDR — Stainless Steel Dough Cutter

Divide the dough into 2, then each half divide into 2 again. Then divide each piece into 3 equal pieces so giving you 12 pieces. Roll each piece of dough in your hands to make a smooth round ball. Place these on the greased baking sheet with space between them for them to rise. Cover loosely with a cloth and leave them to rise.

Pre-heat the oven to GM5 – 200°C

Make an egg white wash by whisking an egg white in a little bowl or an egg white and 1 tablespoon of water.

Use a pastry brush to brush the tops of the buns.

Sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds if desired.

Bake for around 15 minutes until they are golden brown – check a little earlier and move them lower in the oven or lower the temperature if the tops are beginning to burn.

Kajzerki

These are Kaiser rolls and originated in Austria – they are meant to look like a crown for the Kaiser. Cut a cross on the top of the dough using a sharp knife – this expands as the dough rises – or you can make 3 cuts to make a 6 pointed star. However the traditions Kaiser roll does in fact have a 5 point cut at the top.

Make 12 buns as in the instructions above

Cut a cross in the top of each bun – cover them with a cloth and leave them to rise.

Pre-heat the oven to GM5 – 200°C

Make an egg white wash by whisking an egg white in a little bowl or an egg white and 1 tablespoon of water.

Use a pastry brush to brush the tops of the buns.

Sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds if desired.

Bake for around 15 minutes until they are golden brown – check a little earlier and move them lower in the oven or lower the temperature if the tops are beginning to burn.

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IMkaiser

A couple of days after making these rolls I went to Harrogate and saw this crown!

Rogaliki – Crescent Rolls

Rogaliki means little horns and these rolls are made into a crescent shaped which look like horns.

This amount of dough makes 8 rolls and you will need 2 greased baking sheets.

Take the dough and divide it into 2, take each piece separately and roll it out into a rectangle, as thinly as possible, and cut this diagonally across to make 4 triangles.

Starting with the long end roll up each piece ending with the point at the top. Curve the shape around to make a crescent shape.

Place these on the greased baking sheet with space between them. Cover loosely with a cloth and leave them to rise.

Pre-heat the oven to GM5 – 200°C

Brush with the egg white wash and sprinkle with seeds as desired.

Bake for around 15 minutes until they are golden brown – check a little earlier and move them lower in the oven or lower the temperature if the tops are beginning to burn.

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

IMG_20151210_071931092

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!

How Did My Sponge Become Sandy?

In Polish the word for a fat free sponge cake which is made with just eggs, sugar and flour is biszkopt.

A sponge cake which uses butter or margarine which is creamed with the sugar is described as piaskowy – this adjective means sandy – hence the title of this post!

I have not managed to find an explanation as to why it is so described but have found this term in all my Polish cookery books.

Pani Stasia’s Sponge Cake

This is a recipe which I learnt from my mother’s friend who we knew as pani Stasia*.

Pani Stasia made wonderful cakes but unfortunately I did not write many of them down – however I did for this one and it is the basis for many of my other cakes and buns.

This recipe is equivalent to the British cake – Victoria Sponge – named after Queen Victoria in whose reign this became popular & who is said to have liked this cake very much.

Having been looking at recipes in my Polish cookery cooks I realise that pani Stasia adapted this recipe for England as self raising flour and caster sugar are not found in Polish shops.

(*Pani translates as Madam, Lady or Mrs and is a polite form of address – it is like donna in Italian or for example saying Miss Mary in the Southern States of America.

Stasia is the shortened form of the Polish name Stanisława. (The feminine form of Stanisław)

St Stanisław is the patron saint of Kraków & Poland, he was a martyr, murdered by the Polish king Bolesław II the Bold in 1079 – a story which has much in common with St Thomas à Beckett and the English king Henry II in 1170).

Ingredients

Eggs

Butter or Block Baking Margarine

Caster Sugar

Self Raising Flour

I usually use 3 or 4 eggs for this recipe – in the photographs below I have used 4 eggs to make 2 cakes which were then sandwiched together with jam and white chocolate butter cream.

Method

Grease and line the base of 2 x 21.5cm sandwich tins. – I find anodised aluminium tins are the best. (my old tins say 8 1/2 inch on the base – 21cm or 22cm would be OK)

Pre-heat the oven to GM 4 – 180°c

The first thing you have to do is weigh your eggs – complete with their shells.

You then weigh out the same amount of butter or block margarine, caster sugar and self raising flour.

At first I thought this was very strange but now find that it gives a very good way of getting the right proportions no matter what size the eggs are.

I heard the late Marguerite Patten in an earlier recorded programme on the radio a few weeks ago saying that Victorian cooks often used this method.

Cream together the butter and sugar until it is light and fluffy.

Add the eggs, one by one whisking again until the the mixture is light and fluffy again.

Fold in the flour with a metal spoon taking not to over mix the mixture and knock out all the air.

Divide the mixture evenly between the 2 prepared tins.

Bake in the centre of the oven for around 25 to 30 minutes – the cake should be golden brown and be clean when a cake tester is used.

IMG_20150804_180730655 — Cakes cooling awaiting being sandwiched together

This cake is very versatile and here I have sandwiched it together with blackcurrant jam (given to me by my friend who had made it with fruit from her allotment) and white chocolate butter cream.

Sweet whipped cream is not found in Polish cookery – butter creams and similar are the standard fillings for layer cakes.

On the bottom cake first spread on the jam and then top this with the butter cream.

This butter cream is sweet and needs the contrast of a tart jam, damson jam would be another alternative.

White Chocolate Butter Cream

Ingredients

60g White chocolate

40g Butter – unsalted is best

80g Sieved icing sugar

Method

Melt the white chocolate in a glass bowl over a pan of hot water and allow to cool.

Cream the butter and the icing sugar.

Beat in the cooled, melted chocolate.

Note

Take care – if the melted chocolate is too hot then you will end up having to add more icing sugar and the butter cream will be very sweet.

Dust the finished cake with icing sugar.

IMG_20150804_202846103 — Plates are Burleigh Ware – Burges & Leigh Ltd —– Blue Mist around 1930s

My Wooden Pisanki

Wooden Eggs belonging to my friend in Leeds

Easter Greetings

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Getting a basket ready to take to Church

POSTSCRIPT

Sugar Lambs to go in the basket for blessing.

Salt Dough Lambs – made for the Easter Fair

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Basic Enriched Bread Dough

Three Traditional Shapes

Bułeczki – Kajzerki – Rogaliki

Bułeczki – Round Buns

Kajzerki

Rogaliki – Crescent Rolls

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Marbled Babka

Medium babeczki

Small babeczki

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Chrusty

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Pani Stasia’s Sponge Cake

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