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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Potato flour is used in many Polish recipes for a variety of cakes.
This recipe is for ababka (click here for earlier post) using a mixture of wheatflour and potato flour and is adapted from a recipe in my old Polish cookery book.
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.
Potato Flour
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
Weighing eggs
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 3tablespoons 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).
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.
The official end of the Christmas & Epiphany season is February 2nd which is 40days(inclusive) after Christmas and is the feast of the Presentation of Christ in TheTemple also known as Candlemas Day. In Poland it is called Święto Matki BoskiejGromnicznej – 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 ofLent 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.
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.
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 together the yeast and sugar.
Add this to the milk and flour.
Leave in to bubble and rise to around double its size.
Grease and flour a babka tin
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.)
Weak Black Tea
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 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 babkacan 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!
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.
Weighing Eggs
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.
Cakes cooling awaiting being sandwiched together
This cake is very versatile and here I have sandwiched it together with blackcurrantjam (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.
Plates are Burleigh Ware – Burges & Leigh Ltd —– Blue Mist around 1930s
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.
Pour some milk into a jug or bowl and tip the roasted poppy seeds into the milk.
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.
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.
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.
Wigilia means vigil and in Poland this word is used for the meal that is eaten on the evening(vigil) before Christmas Day – so that is the evening meal on Christmas Eve.
In Poland Christmas is celebrated from Wigilia and parties and visiting relatives and family happens from then on. It seems very strange to the Poles to have all the Christmas parties before Christmas which is still Advent.
This Christmas Eve meal is very important to people and most will try to go to family to share this meal.
It is a meal that has many traditions, many more than Christmas Day itself.
It is a meal which is filled with memories, many from childhood, and you will find that every family has developed its own traditions. Many years ago when I spoke with my cousins in Poland – my mother’s family – I discovered that the meal they had at Wigilia though based on the same principles was very different that the one we had at home.
Advent
Advent is the time leading up to Christmas is observed from the 4th Sunday before Christmas (this will be from the 27th November to the 3 December) so that there will be 4 Sundays in Advent. It is a time of reflection, prayer and preparation.
24th December is the last day of Advent and used to be a day of Fasting & Abstinence.
no meat was eaten on that day (abstinence) and
there was only 1 main/large meal (fasting).
Many people, myself included, keep to this custom.
The Christmas days are called Gody – days of Harmony and Goodwill.
The official end of the Christmas celebrations in church is the 2nd of February the feast of Candlemas or The Presentation of Christ in The Temple when karniwal – carnival starts in the lead up to Lent.
Traditions Around The Wigilia Meal
12 dishes to represent the 12 apostles
Meat is not served.
Some people have 3 soups, 3 fish dishes, 3 vegetable dishes and 3 cakes or dried fruit dishes.
The meal starts after the first star is seen in the sky as a reminder of the Star of Bethlehem used by the 3 Kings to find the Infant Jesus. (This is much later than the usual main meal of the day in Poland).
The food should be from: the fields, the orchard, the garden, the forest and from water.
I try to use only foods that would be found in winter in Poland such as seasonal vegetables & preserved foods which have been dried, bottled, fermented, smoked etc.
You should try to taste every dish to ensure that there will be nothing lacking in the house & harvest in the coming year.
The main dish is the fish – and in olden times some people had up to 12 fish dishes and counted these as ONE!
Fish is the symbol of harmony, freedom and liberation – from the Greek ICHTHYS – for fish & the initials of Jesus Christ Son of God and Redeemer
The table should be covered with a white table cloth over straw or hay to remind us of the manger. (People in towns often have a token bunch of hay).
Sheaves of wheat are placed in the 4 corners of the room.
An extra place is always set so that there will be a place for Jesus as the stranger who may knock at the door. The Poles think that on this night no one should be hungry or alone. (The Poles are very hospitable and I think there will always be a place no matter what time of year.)
Opłatek
At the start of the meal is the sharing of opłatek which was originally bread but now is a wafer (like the communion host) and is a symbol of forgiveness, unity and love.
Each person has a piece and shares it with everyone else offering each other best wishes for the coming year.
People often send a piece of opłatek to family and friends who live far away.
Dishes for Wigilia
The following is a short list of some of the dishes that are often served at Wigilia:
Some of these recipes I have already covered & the links have been inserted – others will be appearing throughout the coming year.
Fish – often Carp which is a fresh water fish and therefore available but it can be Trout , Salmon, Pike or Sea fish such as Haddock baked in the oven with butter
The Christmas tree tradition came from Germany in the late 18th Century and early 19th Century into the towns and into richer villages in the 1920s and took over from an earlier Polish Tradition of hanging from the ceiling just the tip of a spruce/fir tree (tip side down) decorated with apples, nuts which were either wrapped in silver or gold paper or painted and ribbons. Old Polish village houses are made of wood so it is easy to attach the tree tip to the ceiling.
Doorways and walls were often decorated with separate boughs of the remainder of the tree.
People in small apartments and in towns or with limited funds often still just decorate a branch of a fir tree.
This custom originated in pre-Christian times and texts dating back to the 15th and 16th centuries referred to this use of the tree as a pagan rite. Unable to halt the growing trend, the church then reinterpreted the tree to be the Tree of Knowledge – the tree of good and evil.
The tree is put up on Christmas Eve (or maybe a day or 2 before) – the whole family helps – though the candles or lights are not usually lit until Wigilia.
Decorations for the Christmas Tree
Apples symbolise health and beauty.
Nuts wrapped in Silver or Gold guarantee prosperity and vitality.
When I was young we tied wrapped sweets and chocolates on the tree.
Bombki – Glass baubles – in the past these were often blown eggs decorated with glitter. There are also many straw decorations – angels or stars.
Glass baubles originated in Germany in the 19th century but they were soon being made in Poland with their large glass blowing industry. Many are made in small family run workshops, some making around 150,000 per day! Some now specialise in individual and unusual designs.
Mama’s Old Nut Shaped Baubles
Candles in clip on holders with real candles – though now more likely to be artificial lights.
My mother’s candle holders
Candles and baubles guard the house from malevolent deeds.
Paper chains guarantee love within the family.
The star on the top of the tree helps guide back home absent family and friends.
Bells symbolise good news.
Angels are the guardians of the house.
Presents
If there are presents they are placed under the tree and opened at the end of the meal.
It used to be that presents were given on December 6th, St Nicholas Day and Christmas Eve was more about the meal and carols and Church.
Nowadays likely to get presents on both days. In some parts of Poland these gifts are said to be from aniołek – little angel.
Before the Second World War the presents were small tokens such as mandarin oranges (a luxury – as they were imported), chocolate, and an item of new clothes or a small toy.
Pasterka – The Shepherds’ Mass – Midnight Mass
After the meal people go to Mass in memory of the long wait for the Messiah and the Shepherds coming to pay homage to the Infant Jesus.
Kolędy – Carols are sung from midnight mass till the 2nd of February in Church.
Carols are rich and varied with examples from many different centuries with ones originating from church music, to many with music from the Royal Court such as the Polonaise and to folk & dance music.
The oldest carol in the Polish Language is Bogurodzica (Mother of God) and has been known from the beginning of the 13th Century.
gether the yeast and sugar.
Journey From A Polish Kitchen 