My mother would often make this and I liked to help as it was easy – there was no baking required.
She would use plain biscuits such as: Morning Coffee, Petit Beurre or Rich Tea.
These are called herbatniki – (biscuits to go with a drink of tea) – in Poland.
The biscuits were roughly crushed using a potato masher – they do not want to be too small.
Chocolate, butter and sugar are melted together and the biscuits are added.
My mother would press this into a square or rectangular tin, which was well buttered and lined.
This was then easy top cut up into small cubes or rectangles.
You can make make this in a small (15 cm) circular, loose bottomed tin and pour a chocolate glaze or icing over this.
With the given proportions it is easy to double-up etc to make a large cake or a two tiered cake.
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I had always thought of this as a Polish recipe but have read recently that the Duke & Duchess of Cambridge had a similar one as one of their wedding cakes.
Also I have read that Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II enjoys this cake too.
Ingredients
180g biscuits
90g butter
180g dark and milk chocolate
2 tablespoons of cold water.
Method
Butter and line a small rectangle 27 x 18 cm tin.
Crush half of the biscuits finely.
Roughly crush the other half of the biscuits.
Melt the chocolate in a bowl over some boiling water.
Add the butter and mix.
Add the water and mix
Mix in the biscuits till they are all coated.
Press into the prepared and flatten the top with a wooden spoon.
Leave in a cool place or refrigerator for at least 1 hour.
Caraway is such a popular herb/spice in Poland and is used in breads, meat & vegetable dishes. So it is quite surprising that it is not used in cakes or biscuits there.
Drawing from Wikipeadia
I decided to try out some biscuits with caraway seeds. I found that the biscuts were better if not too sweet.
These are the results – they are semi-sweet and are really delicious with cheese.
Caraway Seeds
Ingredients
225g self-raising flour
100g butter
50g caster sugar
1 egg – beaten
6 teaspoons of caraway seeds
Grated rind of a lemon
1 – 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
Method
Pre-heat the oven to GM 4 – 180°C
Grease 2 or 3 baking sheets.
Rub the fat into the flour until it is like fine breadcrumbs.
Stir in the sugar, caraway and lemon rind.
Mix in the egg and lemon juice to form a soft dough.
Roll out the dough on a floured board.
Cut out circle using a 7.5cm diameter, fluted cutter.
Bake for 15 – 20 minutes till lightly browned (take care not to burn them).
Leave them to cool on the tray and then move them off on to a cooling rack.
Served on Las Palmas by Aynsley, from the 1960s, with some soft Brie.
Variation
Use 75g of caster sugar instead of the 50g to make a slighly sweeter biscuit which is delicious just nibbled on its own with tea or coffee.
These biscuits are not at all Polish in origin – I like to think of them as a Scottish & Polish Alliance!
Cranberries & Lingonberries
Cranberries and lingonberries grow wild in acidic bogs around many forests in Poland and especially in the countryside where my father lived, in what was North East Poland before the war.
Cranberries & Lingonberries belong to the genus Vaccinium and the plants are small, low growing, evergreen shrubs.
Cranberries in central and northern Europe are Vaccinium oxycoccos , whilst Vaccinium microcarpum or Vaccinium macrocarpon are to be found in the USA.
Lingonberries are Vaccinium vitis-idaea .
The berries of the cranberry are larger and oval.
The berries of the lingonberry are round and much smaller than the cranberry, about a third or quarter of the size.
Image of lingonberries taken from Wikipedia
The Polish for cranberry is żurawina, the word comes from żuraw which means a crane – so the same as the English word, as parts of the plant reminded people of the bird.
The Polish for lingonberry is borówka or borowina, both these names contain the part bor which means (from) the forest.
Notes
1 -There are dozens of different names in English for lingonberry which in fact comes from the Swedish name.
2- The commercially grown dried cranberries used in this recipe were grown in the USA.
Oats
Oats (Avena sativa) – owies in Polish, are grown in Poland but for this recipe I have considered them Scottish!
Rolled Oats
Royal Scottish – Polish Alliance!
The mother of Bonnie Prince Charlie(1720-1788) was – Maria Klementyna Sobieska(1702-1735) – she was the granddaughter of the Polish King Jan III Sobieski(1629-1696) and she married James Stuart(1688-1766), The Pretender.
In March 2016, The Scotsman printed an article titled
Scotland and Poland a 500 year relationship.
Some of the facts & figures below are taken from this.
More Polish nationals now live in Scotland than any other group from outside the UK and the two countries share a rich history.
The links were forged back in the late 1400s when trade agreements were established between Aberdeen and the old Baltic seaport of Gdańsk.
Under King Stefan Batory(1533-1586), Scottish merchants became suppliers to the royal court in Kraków and grain and timber from Poland was traded with Scotland.
Many Scots moved to Poland to seize new business opportunities and buried in St John’s Archcathedral in Warsaw is Alexander Chalmers (written as Czamer) , from Dyce near Aberdeen, a judge and four times mayor of Warsaw between 1691 and 1703.
There are many surnames in Poland which are Scottish in origin such as: Machlejd(MacLeod), Makolroys(MacElroy) and Szynklers(Sinclaire).
Around 38,000 Polish soldiers were stationed in Scotland after the fall of Poland in WW2 and many of those who were unable to return to their homeland after the end of the war stayed and it is estimated that around 2,500 Polish-Scottish marriages took place around this period.
There was a wave of immigration in the 1980s with the declaration of Martial Law in Poland and then again after 2004 when Poland joined the European Union.
One of the most popular brands of tea sold in Poland is Yellow label which was created by Sir Thomas Lipton( 1848-1931) who was from Glasgow, Scotland.
Since 1995 Krakòw has been twinned with Edinburgh.
Ingredients
100g butter or block margarine
100g granulated sugar
5ml of golden syrup
5ml of boiling water
100g of self raising flour
100g of rolled oats
50g of dried cranberries
Dried cranberries
Method
Pre-heat the oven to GM 5 – 190°C.
Grease at least 2 baking trays – (you will have to take the biscuits off when they are cooked and re-grease these tins.)
Place the butter or margarine in a pan with the granulated sugar and heat slowly so that the butter is melted.
Add the teaspoon of golden syrup and then the teaspoon of boiling water and mix well together.
Take the pan off the heat, add the flour and oats and mix this together.
Then mix in the cranberries.
Using your hands, make small balls and place them on the trays, leaving space around them as they will spread.
Place in the oven and bake for around 8 – 10 minutes, watch them carefully as they suddenly seem to catch & burn.
I often look at them half way through and flatten them with a spatula.
Take them out of the oven and leave them to cool a little before you use a spatula to take them of the trays and leave them to fully cool on a wire cooling rack.
Plate is by Royal Grafton – no pattern name – made in England
Journey From A Polish Kitchen 