Kruche ciasto – Journey From A Polish Kitchen

Grape Meringue Placek

This cake is a cross between my grape meringue cake and placek(flat cake) with rhubarb and meringue.

There are two parts to this cake

Short pastry base – baked and cooled
Grapes & Meringue topping.

Short pastry base

The base of this is made made from the recipe for Ciasto kruche 1 – using raw egg yolks found in a previous post – Pastry – ciasto kruche & półkruche.

However as the topping is sweet, I used less sugar in the pastry – you might be able to omit all the sugar – I have not tried this.

Ingredients – Base

300g plain flour
200g butter – chilled
50g icing sugar
4 egg yokes
pinch of salt

Method – Base

Add a pinch of salt to the flour.
Use a knife to cut the chilled butter into small pieces into the flour and then use your fingers to make the mixture like breadcrumbs.
Add the icing sugar and mix this together.
Add the yolks and gently mix them in
Bring it all together into a dough – try and handle the pastry as little as possible.
Form the dough into a rough rectangle.
Wrap the dough in grease proof paper and chill it in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to GM 6 – 200°C.
Grease and line a 33 x 23 cm baking tin – use one long piece for sides and base – helps to take it out.
Use a rolling pin to flatten the dough a little
Press the dough into the tin – filling it up all the sides.
Prick the surface with a fork.
Bake for 20 – 25 minutes till golden.
Leave to cool.

Ingredients – Meringue

4 egg whites
200g granulated sugar
2 sponge fingers – crushed
*
300g seedless green grapes

Method – Meringue

Preheat the oven to GM 2 -150°C.
Place the whites into a grease free bowl.
Whisk till stiff.
Add granulated sugar and whisk again till stiff.
Fold in the crushed sponge fingers.
*
Place 1/3 of the meringue over the cake base.
Place the grapes over the meringue.
Cover the grapes with the rest of the meringue
Put into the oven for 50 – 60 minutes.
Leave to cool completely in the tin.
Cut the cake into squares when cool to serve.

Served here on Royal Doulton – Sonnet 1971-1998

Placek with Rhubarb & Meringue

This cake was inspired by my placek(flat cake) with sour cherries and meringue.

There are three parts to this cake:

Short pastry base – baked and cooled.
Rhubarb filling – cooked and left to go cold.
Meringue topping.

Three stages all take a bit of time but well worth the effort. It is delicious with a lovely balance of sweetness against the tart rhubarb.

Short pastry base

The base of is made with a smaller amount of the recipe for Ciasto kruche 1 – using raw egg yolks found in a previous post – Pastry – ciasto kruche & półkruche.

I could see out of my kitchen window that the rhubarb was beginning to grow. As I still had one batch left frozen from last summer I to decided to use that up before the new crop and in time for you to try it.

Ingredients – base

200g plain flour
100g butter – chilled
70g icing sugar
2 egg yokes
pinch of salt

Method – base

Add a pinch of salt to the flour.
Use a knife to cut the chilled butter into small pieces into the flour and then use your fingers to make the mixture like breadcrumbs.
Add the icing sugar and mix this together.
Add the yolks and gently mix this in, then and bring it all together into a dough – try and handle the pastry as little as possible.
Form the dough into a rough rectangle.
Wrap the dough in greaseproof paper and chill it in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to GM 6 – 200°C.
Grease and line a 23 x 26 cm baking tin.
Use a rolling pin to flatten the dough a little
Press the dough into the tin – filling it up all the sides.
Prick the surface with a fork.
Bake for 20 – 25 minutes till golden.
Leave to cool.

Ingredients – Rhubarb filling

400g (approx) of rhubarb
150g of granulated sugar (more may be needed)
25g of butter
3 egg yolks
2-3 tablespoons of potato or corn flour

Method – rhubarb filling

This needs to be made ahead of time as it must be cold.
Pre-heat the oven to GM2
Chop the rhubarb into small pieces and place in a baking dish
Add sugar.
Bake in the oven for around 1 hour – till soft.
Check for sweetness and add more sugar if necessary – but not too sweet.
Leave to cool a little.
*
I used cooked rhubarb that I had frozen from last year.
*
Wizz the rhubarb up with a blender or chopper to get a purée.
Place this in a saucepan.
Heat slowly.
Mix the yolks with the potato or cornflour and add this to the rhubarb and heat till it thickens.
Add the butter and mix in.
Leave to go cold before use.

A few thoughts on the origin & history of meringues:

Meringue – a French word.
Swiss village of Meiringen.
Improved by Italian chef Gasparini.
From Polish word – marzynka – a day dream?
Made by the chef for the exiled king of Poland, Stanisław Leszczyński (1677 – 1766), Duke of Lorraine (1737 -1766).
His daughter, Maria, was married to Louis XV of France and she introduced them to the court.
In Polish – beza(sing)) bezy(pl) – link to – buzi – kiss?
French meringue – whisk eggs till stiff – add sugar and whisk again.
Italian meringue – uses sugar syrup.
Swiss meringue – sugar and whites heated over a water bath.
Addition of cornflour – strengthens the egg white.

Meringue

I used 4 egg whites & 200g icing sugar.
Place the whites into a grease free bowl.
Whisk till stiff.
Add icing sugar and whisk again till stiff.

Preheat the oven to GM 1 -140°C.
Cover the base with the rhubarb filling and level it out.
Cover the rhubarb with the meringue and level it out
Put back into the oven for 45 to 60 minutes.
Cut the cake into squares when cool to serve.

Served here on Royal Doulton – Counterpoint tea plates 1973 – 1987.

Placek-with sour cherries & meringue

The base of this placek (flat cake) is made with a recipe similar to Ciasto kruche 2 – with cooked egg yolks found in a previous post – Pastry – ciasto kruche & półkruche.

The base is baked, apricot jam and bottled sour cherries are placed on top, this is topped with meringue and cooked again.

A few stages but well worth the effort. It is delicious with a lovely balance of sweetness against the sour cherries.

Ingredients

300g plain flour
200g butter – chilled
100g & 150g icing sugar
3 eggs separated
pinch or two of salt
Fine grated rind of 1 lemon – optional
250ml of apricot jam – approx
1/2 – 3/4 of a jar of morello/sour cherries

Method

Cook the egg yolks

Separate the raw yolks from the whites.
Place the yolks in a colander and cook over hot water.
Use a fork to break up the yolks into very small pieces.
Leave to go cold.

Make the base

Add a pinch of salt to the flour.
Use a knife to cut the chilled butter into small pieces into the flour and then use your fingers to make the mixture like breadcrumbs.
Add the 100g of icing sugar and mix this together.
Add the broken up yolks and gently mix this in then and bring it all together into a dough – try and handle the pastry as little as possible.
Form the dough into a rough rectangle.
Wrap the dough in greaseproof paper and chill it in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
Pre-heat the oven to GM 7 – 220°C.
Grease and line a 33 x 23 cm baking tin.
Use a rolling pin to flatten the dough a little
Press the dough into the tin – filling it up the all the sides.
Prick the surface with a fork.
Bake for 20 – 25 minutes till golden.
Leave to cool.

Toppings and meringue

Lower the oven to GM 1 -140°C
Place the whites into a grease free bowl.
Whisk till stiff.
Add the 150g of icing sugar and whisk again till stiff.
Spread the jam thickly over the base
Drain the sour cherries and pat them dry.
Arrange the cherries over the jam.
Spread the meringue over the cherries taking it up to the edges.
Put back into the low heat oven for 45 to 60 minutes.

Cut the cake into squares when cool to serve.

Served here on Duchess – Bramble Rose tea plates from the 1960s.

Mazurek

Most people know that a mazurek (mazurka in English) is a Polish folk dance. It is also the word for someone or something from Mazur (the region known as Mazowsze in Polish) in North Central Poland.

A tasty meaning of mazurek, is a flat Polish cake made with different bases and toppings. The varieties are seemingly endless and vary from region to region and family to family. They can be made with yeast doughs, crumbly shortbread-like doughs (ciasto kruche) or flaky, puff-pastry-like doughs.

The mazurek is usually baked in a rectangular or square shape.

The topping varieties include: almond paste, dried fruits, fresh fruits, nuts, meringues, kajmak, jam or poppy seed paste.

There is often an icing of some sort poured over the topping.

A mazurek is rarely over 2.5 cm (1 inch) in height.

It is thought that the mazurek, was inspired by sweet Turkish desserts that came to Poland via the spice trade routes from Turkey in the early 17th century .

Mazurek is traditionally served at Easter when it is considered an Easter treat after 40 days of fasting for Lent and this is maybe why this cake is so sweet.

Another reason is that Holy Week, the period from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, is a busy one in a Polish household as the interior and exterior of the house is cleaned from top to bottom so any baking that could be prepared well in advance of Easter Sunday without getting stale was good and the mazurek, often made with an over-abundance of dried fruits to keep it moist is well suited to this.

When the top of an Easter mazurek is iced , it typically is emblazoned with the words “Alleluja” or “Wesołego Alleluja“ (Happy Alleluja or Happy Easter).

Mazurek made with jam topping

I used ciasto kruche for these, using the versions in pastry-ciasto kruche.

I liked the one using hard boiled eggs the best.

Method

Pre-heat the oven to GM 5 – 190°C

I used a Mermaid shallow tin, 31cm x 21cm, which I greased and lined – to make it easier to get the mazurek out of the tin.

Using around 1/2 to 2/3rds of the pastry dough, roll out a rectangle for the bottom of the tin – if it is too crumbly you might have to piece and press this in.

Using the rest of the dough make stripes about a finger thickness and place these around the edge of the tin.

Use a sharp knife to make a cut pattern in these strips.