Regional Polish Cuisine - Maloposka - Pischinger

In Poland there was a "night of communism" when I was a child. Sweets in shops were either very expensive or very tasteless. So our mother and grandmother prepared home-made sweets. One of my favourite is Pischinger – wafer cake. It is a traditional Krakow dessert which comes from the nineteenth century. It was invented by a baker from Vienna - Oscar Pischinger, and hence the name of this dessert. This cheap and very tasty dessert has been very popular in Poland since the nineteenth century. Currently every family have their own recipe for this dessert.

The original dessert is a combination of milk, sugar, butter, chocolate but there are many other varieties of this sweet. Somebody can make it as butter cream with raw eggs but in my opinion it is dangerous for health. For the lazy or the ones who don't have time, you can do the Pischinger dessert with the cream Nutella. You just need to spread wafers and cut them.

Below you will find the original recipe for Pischinger.

250 ml of fresh cream

100g unsalted butter

¾ cup golden caster sugar

3 tbs vanilla sugar

pack of wafers (I used 23 cm / 9 inches round wafers)

1 bar of chocolate

200g walnuts

a few tbs cocoa powder (depending on which flavour you choose)

Cook cream, butter and sugar until they start to thicken. Add chocolate and vanilla sugar, and cook until the mixture thickens. Add ingredients for the flavour.

When the cream is ready, cool it down and spread it on the first layer of wafer, cover with another one, repeat the same till you have only one more left to cover the top.

Wrap the wafer cake with a cling film, leave aside for 3 hours covering it with a book or some other heavy item.

After 3 hours you can cut the cake into pieces.

Store in the fridge.

Other options

for Coffee Pischineger (my personal favourite)
Dissolve 2-3 tsp of instant coffee it in a little bit of hot water before adding to the cream.

for Walnut Pischinger

Ground 200g walnuts before adding them to the cream. If the cream is too thick and not fluffy, add a little bit of water and whisk a bit.

for Lemon Pischinger

Just add lemon juice to taste. 

Polish Jeudi Gras - Tłusty Czwartek

The fat Thursday with no doughnut(s) is awful as doughnut with anything else but roship jam is awful. Polish doughnuts are the best in the world! They have  nothing in common with plastic doughnuts sold in the western countries. The perfect doughnut is light and fluffy, the dough itself is not fat nor very sweet. The rim of the doughnut should be as fair as possible which indicates the freshness of the fat used for frying. Roship jam is essential of course but also frying on the real pork lard. That gives a special smell. And don't be afraid - adding vodka or vinegar to the leavened dough will prevent doughnut from soaking up the fat! My favourite finishing touch is icing and candied orange peel but icing sugar is more simple and also delicious way. Today's news were full of senseless comments on fat-free and sugar-free light dougnuts. There is nothing better than the real doughnut. It was proved that the yummy food don't make us fat! Try Gosia's best ever doughnut recipe or come to Poland!

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Polish Shrovetide: from doughnuts to herrings

Paris is sweet.

Paris is sweet. That’s true. On every street you can find some shops with sweets.
Chocolate, macaroons, croissants, cakes, cookies - you must try something every day. How do the French make it that they aren’t fat? I don’t know, but I know why they love sweets.

In every famous part of Paris I saw macaroons in every bakery and confectionery kiosk. Macaroons are small cookies made from egg whites, icing sugar, granulated sugar and almond powder. A macaroon is commonly filled with butter cream or jam filling sandwiched between two cookies. In Paris they were made for the first time by an Italian chef for the wedding of Henry II and Catherine de' Medici in 1533. In Paris the French confectionery Laduree is well-known for making quality macaroons in traditional and new flavours. I didn’t try macaroons from that confectionery but I ate them on Montmartre. They are very delicious and light, but the price of a single macaroon is very high. Maybe I’ll try to bake them.
Currently a box of macaroons is a very fashionable souvenir from Paris.


An éclair is a more common pastry. It is a long thin pastry made from choux dough filled with cream and topped with icing. An Éclair is very popular in Poland. I often bought it in a confectionery near my university in Krakow. I tried éclairs in Paris and the taste was the same as in Krakow. I was so proud of Polish confectioners. The éclair originated in France in the nineteenth century. It is a popular type of cake served all over the world, but only in Paris and Poland its taste is amazing.


Probably nobody knows that a very popular croissant is a Polish idea. In 1683Austria celebrated the Turkish defeat of the Polish forces in the Turkish siege of the city. A Polish diplomat Franciszek Kulczycki convinced a baker Petera Wendela to make buns in the shape of a crescent moon, similar to the moon from Turkish flags. This is only legend. How the croissant was invented is a secret.



The truth is that the croissant origined in Austria. When an Austrian artillery officer, August Zang, founded a Viennese Bakery at 92, rue de Richelieu in Paris. This bakery served Viennese specialties including the kipfel, the Vienna version of croissant. It quickly became popular and inspired French imitators. The French version of the kipferl was named after its crescent (croissant) shape and it has evolved into puff pastries.
Parisian croissants are ones of the best which I have ever eaten.


I always like Opera cakes. I tried the first slice of this cake at my uncle's wedding when I was 6 years old. I first tried to do it when I was 12 years old.
In Paris I tried the French version of an Opera cake, but I still don’t know which version is true. I have several recipes for this cake: my French family, recipes from cookery books and the Internet, but every one is a little different. Maybe you have true recipes of the Opera cake?




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Hawaiian chocolate cake

This is my obsession. Since I have made it, and ate it, I think about this cake at least few times a day. It is so rich, moist, warming, quite and simple. One of the best cakes I have ever tried, better even than Sacher torte, but this may be individual choice. It doesn't matter that it is not quite a dobosh cake. For in Hawaii, the rich chocolate cake, for which there are many recipes, simple and more elaborate ones, is originating from the Hungarian version but the method of cooking has been much simplified. For our pleasure!

The recipe I have used comes from Taste of the Pacific by Susan Parkinson, Peggy Stacy and Adrian Mattinson. I have modified it a bit. Try out the book, it is full of useful hints and really exotic and simple food for every occasion!

Hawaiian chocolate cake

0,5 cup cocoa powder

125 ml water

1,5 tsp baking soda

130 g butter

1,5 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 package of vanilla sugar

2 cups flour

0,5 cup potato starch

dash of salt

1 cup (400 g) kefir

1. Place cocoa powder, water and baking soda in a small pot and heat slowly. Mix until you get a smooth paste and cool down.

2. Sieve flour, starch and salt together.

3. Beat butter and sugars until fluffy. Add eggs, beating, and then the cooled chocolate mixture. 

4. Gradually add flour and kefir, beating well. 

5. Grease well two 23-cm cake tins, divide the batter.

6. Bake at 180 degrees for 35 minutes (no longer - it is meant to be that moist). The cake likes to rise as a dome so I cut out both tops and made the third layer of it, of course on cooling down.

7. Cool down for few minutes, then loose from the tins and cool on wire rack.

Easy chocolate frosting to finish:

2 cups icing sugar

0,5 cup cocoa powder

80 g butter

1 egg (optional)

60 ml milk

few drops of rum essence (optional)

Again, all you have to do, is to mix well all the ingredients in the above order and decorate the cake! And then you can enjoy the silence created by the table when you serve everyone his or her piece of Hawaii.

Next week I am serving this cake in Krakow for free. Drop in!

New Year in the French style

I started New Year in the French style. I savoured La Opera cake and Champagne. It was not accidental because next week I’ll fly to Paris. I’m very excited about this travel. It will be my first time in Paris, I have a lot of plans and ideas what to do in world capital of fashion and cuisine. One of them is to see the building of Paris Opera and try La Opera cake. Today I’m eating my version of this cake. I will write soon about my trip.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!



• 125 g non bleached powdered almonds
• 125 g sugar
• 30 g flour
• 4 egg yolks
• 25 g butter
• 4 egg whites
• 20 g sugar

Chocolate ganache
• 5 g instant coffee
• 200 g bittersweet couverture chocolate
• 150 g 35% cream

Coffee buttercream
• 15 g instant coffee
• 200 g sugar
• 70 g water
• 2 eggs yolks
• 200 g unsalted butter

Glazing
• 80 g bittersweet couverture
• 80 g 35% cream



Almond biscuit: Whip together the almonds, sugar, flour and egg yolks for approximately 15 minutes. Beat the egg whites and sugar until stiff. Gently blend in the egg whites to the rest of the preparation using a spatula. Melt the butter, let cool down and add to the mixture. Spread the preparation on parchment paper. Cook at 220 ºC 10 minutes. Remove the biscuit from the plaque as soon as it comes out of the oven.

Coffee buttercream: Cook the sugar in 70 g of water until rise to a thick syrup. In bowl whipped whole eggs yolks and still whip eggs add the sugar mixture. Whip the mixture until it cools down. Gradually add previously softened butter and continue whipping. The mixture should double in volume and whiten. Add 15 g of coffee dissolved in a small amount of water.
Chocolate ganache: Bring the cream to a boil with the remaining coffee. Blend in the chopped chocolate. Allow to cool.

Combination: Cut biscuit to 3 or 4 squares. Spread the ganache on a first layer of biscuts. Cover with the next layer, garnishing with the coffee buttercream. Cover with the last layer. Cool down in fringe. Chop up the topping chocolate and mix with the cream. Bring to a boil. Glaze the cake. Cool down in fringe.
Serve with champagne.

Enjoy!



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Pumpkin cookies

Coffee cookies are on top position in my party menu. I love these small sweets. I wanted to try them with pumpkin buttercream. It was a very good choice. Below is my new recipe.


Step 1

Cookies
400 gram of flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
200 gram of butter, softened
200 gram of white sugar
2 egg
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1)In a large bowl, stir together flour, baking powder. Add butter, eggs, sugar and vanilla extract and make the dough. Put the dough to refrigerate for about one hour.
2)After one hour preheat oven to 190 degrees C. Take the dough from the refrigerator and roll out the dough to a thickness of 1 cm on a lightly floured surface. Cut out circles shapes using a lightly floured cookie cutter and transfer cookies to the prepared baking sheet.
3)Bake 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden. Let stand on cookie sheet two minutes before removing to cool on racks.

Step 2

Pumpkin buttercream
250 gram of cooked pumpkin
200 gram of butter, softened
3 egg yolk
100 gram of castor sugar
1 teaspoon rum extract

Boil water in pot. Blend pumpkin on creamy consistency. Put metal bowl on pot with boiled water and mix together yolk and sugar on creamy consistency. Remove bowl on table and add soft butter and still mix until mixture will be smooth. Add pumpkin and rum extract and mix well. Mixture must be smooth and shine. If mixture is too soft put it in the fridge for 10 minutes

Step 3

On one cookie put tablespoon of pumpkin buttercream and cover it second cookie. Gently press the cookies until cream to spread abroad, and well glue their. Make the same with rest of cookies. When you finish put cookies on one hour to refrigerate.
If you like, you can serve cookies with chocolate sauce.

Enjoy

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Polish basic yeast dough. Old recipe, new exciting buns

I love the yeast dough as everyone in Poland does. It is not that difficult to make and is so versatile! Some are afraid of the rising time, unnecessarily. That is the pleasure to commune with a living organism. And to shape it into real doughnuts or to sink in some  sour rhubarb, sweet strawberries or succulent berries. Or to bake buns for an afternoon treat.

Marzipan apricot yeast buns

650 g flour

250 ml milk

40 g fresh yeasts*

100 g sugar

2 eggs

few drops of almond essence

100 ml vegetable oil

200 g marzipan, divided into 30 pieces

15 dried apricots, chopped into stripes

* Dry yeasts are also working but don't believe that all you have to do is to mix it with the flour!!! Handle them exactly as you would treat the fresh yeasts.

1. Warm the milk till tepid.  Dissolve yeast. In a bowl with sifted flour make a hole and pour in the milk. Mix with some of the flour until the mixture gets the thickness of a thick youghurt. Sprinkle with some flour, cover with a cloth and leave until frothy. 

2. Beat the eggs, sugar and almond essence well.

3. Using the electric beater (that is the cleanest way, traditionally you would use a hand or a wooden spoon) mix in the dough the egg mixture and oil. Take out onto a  pastry board and knead until smooth and flexible and then a few minutes more. Use some extra flour for kneading if necessary. Leave covered with a cloth in an oiled bowl for proofing. It needs to double the size.

4. Punch the dough and take out onto floured pastry board. Divide into four pieces, form logs of them, and divide each one into 7-8 pieces (about 40 g each). Place a piece of marzipan and a bit of apricot in the middle and close the dough over it. You can also roll it for a few seconds for a more regular shape. Place on an oiled parchment paper, facing the joint downwards. Cover with a cloth and leave until doubled the size.

5. Put to the hot oven, 180 degrees, for 20-25 minutes. Buns should be gorgeous brown, if you are not sure, check the bottom. If the bottom is fair, leave buns for some time more. It cannot be burnt, but can be really brown. 

This yeast recipe can be a base for many other cakes and buns, all you have to change is the shape. The dough itself is not too sweet so it balances well the marzipan, but for a fruit cakes you can use some extra sugar. For the doughnuts, add 1 tablespoon of vinegar when mixing the eggs with the leaven, later place a teaspoon of jam (preferably the rosehip jam) in every dough portion, stick well, leave to rise and deep-fry in a vegetable oil. We love the sweetened cottage cheese buns here. The even easier way is to roll out the dough for 1 cm, cut with a glass or a cutter circles of about 5 cm diameter, place a teaspoons of jam, fruits, or other filling on top and leaving these to rise. I also love to roll the dough thinly (about 0,5), spread it with jam, raisins, sugar and cinnamon, or whatever you have, form a Swiss roll, cut it into slices and spread the slices on a baking tray to rise.
 

I won't write anything else, you have to make it yourself, to play with the soft dough, to watch the proofing, to shape the small jewels, and to hold off yourself from the aroma appealing hot buns. I wait for your thoughts how you've made it.

Muffin rulez!

On the very important day of the presidential elections in Poland, on the 20th June 2010, I celebrate the draw won by Italy in the match with New Zealand. Well, actually I am celebrating New Zealand's success. I only pretended to be nice to the deceitul, simulating azzurri, shame on you!

Caramel Apricot Muffin
(presidential muffins)

1. Caramel:

200 g sugar
2 tablespoons white vinegar
2 tablespoons boiling water

Melt the sugar together with the vinegar on a low heat on the frying pan. When it reaches a nice colour, add delicately water, mix, heat up and place a thick layer of the caramel on the bottom of the all oiled holes in your muffin tin.

2. Place halves of the apricots on the caramel bottoms.
(You can alternatively place them later on the top of the dough).

3. Prepare the dough:

3 eggs
100 g flour
80 g sugar
2 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon of the vanilla aroma

Beat the egg whites, than slowly add sugar and beat until all the sugar dissolves. Lower the mixer rotation, add egg yolks, oil and aroma, mix briefly. Add the flour and mix really carefoully, you can use your mixer also. Divide the dough equally between the separate tin holes.

4. Bake at 175 degrees for 25 minutes.

5. Take out of the oven, leave for 2 minutes and remove the muffins from the tin, placing them upside down on the wire rack.
That WAS yummy.

HAPPY EASTER

So we have the Holy week. It is important time for all. We wait on Spring, sun, Easter feast and meeting with family.
In Poland Easter have two aspects – religious and folks. The second aspect has many traditional plays, ceremony, songs and food. Food is very important in Easter celebrations. People think and speak about Easter food sometimes since Ash Wednesday. But Polish people start cooking since Palm Sunday, this is last time to begin thinking about food on Easter table.
Polish feast start on Easter Sunday breakfast and finish next day. There are many kinds of meals but in every home you find eggs, smoked , cook and baked meats, sausages, salads and pastries. The traditional polish Easter cakes are mazurki and baby wielkanocne (wielkanocne means Easter)



In Poland we have wide selection of “Baba wielkanocna”. Every region has its own recipe on “Baba wielkanocna” but old books and tradition says about yeast and saffron kind of this cake.
One of these books included description about baking “Baba”.

“Women were locking kitchen doors so men were not allowed to enter. Women prepared ingredients very carefully and made dough. Windows, doors were tightly closed when “baba” grew. Once “baba” were baked they were taken out carefully and when the cake cold down everybody whispered, and went carefully in the kitchen because the cakes were fluffy, dainty and so soft. The slightest shake could destroy soft structure of cakes. “

The origin of the word “baba” is diffcullt to explain, probably it means woman because baba is augmentative form for woman.

A few generations of polish women made a good recipes which are not so difficult to prepare.
Below is my recipe on baba.

150 g flour (must be very good quality)
100 g sugar
10 yolks
30 g yeast
150 ml milk
100 g malted butter
1 vanilla or 1 tsp vanila flavor
½ tsp saffron
20 ml spirit or vodka
2 tsp grated skin of lemon

The day before soak saffron in spirit. Dissolve yeast in warm milk and add a little sugar and flour and mix gently. Leave this mixture in warm place. Beat yolks, sugar and vanilla on white fluffy mixture over steam. When yeast grew add to beat yolks, add rest flour and spirit with saffron and skin of lemon and mix gently about 15 minutes. Leave dough in warm place, cover napkins. When the dough grows twice as much in the beginning add butter and mix as long as the dough absorbs all butter. Spread butter and sprinkle baking pan with flour and put there the dough (fill a baking pan only to ½ height of the baking pan). Leave dough to grow. When it grows put it into the oven at 180 Celsius degrees for around 60 minutes.

It is saffron kind of cake but when you can exchange saffron on other additive.



Enjoy and HAPPY EASTER!!!

From doughnuts to herrings - Polish Shrovetide

I like the time in Poland when carnival ends. Winter is still cold but people make hot atmosphere around. This special time starts on Tłusty Czwartek (eng. Fat Thursday ;)) and finishes on Ash Wednesday. This culmination of carnival in Poland called “Ostatki” (eng. Shrovetide). “Ostatki” in Poland has long tradition. Carnival had a lot of traditions in the old Poland but “ Ostatki” had more because in that time rich and poor people needed to enjoy. All social classes had their own traditional plays and meals but everybody wanted to forget about coming Lent. Polish aristocracy organized balls, fancy-dress balls, sleigh rides, feasts. During “Ostatki” all the events piled up in one big event. Everything began on Tłusty Czwartek when people ate a lot fatty meals during feast and ball. The mark of this day was and is doughnut (pol. pączki). On Friday night after the balls all participants kept move sleigh rides to another house and start new plays repeatedly until Ash Wednesday when at midnight a host changed fat meals on Lenten fare, spilt ash and ended carnival.There was always a dish with herring. Of all of these herring and ash are marks of Ash Wednesday. Fatty meals didn't mean only fat food. the old Polish cuisine had wide selection of dishes and pastry, and every host wanted to serve special nad fancy dishes, so that way Polish cuisine became more diverse. At present the feasts aren't so rich but everybody wants to enjoy on party or fancy-dress balls with friends and eat good, a lot and fatty. And on Fat Thursday rich and poor people eat doughnuts, a lot of doughnuts.

This year I made traditional Polish doughnut for my Irish friends , below the recipe.

500 g. flour
30 g. yeast
6 fresh yolk
100 g sugar
100g butter
100 ml. warm milk
1 tbs. vodka
1/3 tsp. Salt
1 tbs grated peel of lemon
lard or cooking oil to fry
jar of rose petal jam or other jam

1.Yeast and 2 tbsp. Sugar dissolve in half portion milk and keep this liquid in warm place for half hour to grow.
2.Yolks and rest of sugar to mix for white mass,add melted butter and rest of milk and mix well.
3.Flauor and salt sift to bowl and add yolks milk mass and mix well.
4.The next add milk with yeast and peel of lemon and vodka and mix very well. Dough must be smooth and shine.
5.Keep it in warm place about half an hour for grow.
6.When dough grew, make on your hand circle and on middle part put small portion rose petal jam and make ball. Put this ball on dishcloth and make next doughnuts. When you made last cover they next dishcloth for 15 minutes after this time turn on doughnuts and keep next 15 minutes for grow.
7.When doughnuts grew, heat up lard or oil in wide pot. When it is hot put few doughnuts and fry for gold colour one side and turn on and fry second side. Ready doughnuts put on plate and sprinkle they with icing sugar and fry next doughnuts.
Serve cold down. Enjoy!!!

PS. Below the movie with famous Polish song about sleigh ride (pol. Kulig), and true Polish winter.

Cookiemonster is me

Oh yes, and I'm soo good in it! Some time ago I was watching a fitness tv (yes, it was me and I am clear) where a beautiful coach was presenting her recipe for ginger cookies, one of my many favourites. And I am still meditating, stimulated by her advice, whether is it really necessary to eat one cookie at a time?! NO WAY!

No way. With the Griffin's ginger cookies? Impossible. Check out the company. My favourite from NZ:-). I am still developing my own recipe for ginger cookies (as I am too stubborn to use the others). Hopefully chocolate cookie was conquered recently and irrefutably. Anyone interested in the recipe?

100 g butter
60 g icing sugar
2 Tbsp milk
130 g flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp candied orange peel
1 Tbsp cocoa powder

1. Cream butter and sugar until soft.
2. Add milk and orange peel.
3. Sieve flour, baking powder and cocoa powder.
4. Combine all the ingredients with mixer until smooth.
5. Place seperate spoons of the dough on the baking sheet keeping much distance. Spread in a round shape but do not make too thin layer.
6. Bake in 180 degrees for not more than 20 minutes (until it starts getting dark).
7. Despite the smell allow to cool down!

Chrunch and chew:-).

Bread with the secret agent

Good day! Did I tell you that I love watching where do you come from on our live traffic map? Yes, I really do! I also enjoy tha fact that Gosia's mother yeast cake is our absolute most popular recipe!

This time I just want to keep you updated on what is going on. So, 2009 new years' commitments' results will be counted soon. Or not. I am still considering what I should focus this year on. I have so many ideas that it looks quite unfeasible to fulfil all of them. For sure I need to lose weight and limit the sweets. It is sad but necessary before the situation goes to far. There is also no more excuses for exercises. Today I did my first workout and I feel something strange in my knee on completing three hundred skips. But I guess this is a good way to release the daily stress. Of course changing the diet is necessary. Uh, tough question for a cookie monster and a meat lover. For now I am drinking up all the milk and cleaning my cupboards of the remains of different products. I have no idea what to do with a gift vodka since I don't drink. With all the jellies it will be the same situation as with miso - we'll be eating jellies and jelly cakes every week... Than this year's spring should arrive and everything will be much more easier than now!

Well, as to strictly culinary development I seriously consider two projects: BREAD A WEEK or challenging my Australian and New Zealand Complete Book of Cookery. I haven't decide yet. Well, I could say that I am going to write a book but then again I get an absorbing job and won't be able to manage it. Or maybe... For now I polish up the paper on the Tuvaluan cuisine which was presented only in broad outline due to lack of time during the latest conference of ANZORA. Cannot complain on the lack of goals.

Finally, small news from the kitchen: I have developed an interesting recipe for a yeast cake.

PINK BREAD

Starter:
400 ml warm water
100 g wheat flour
20 g baker's yeast
80 g red secret ingredient (guess what!!!)

Mix well all the ingredients, rubbing them if needed to a smooth liquid, cover with a wet cloth, set aside in a warm place, wait till it doubles the size. Very important: must be frothy.

Add one by one:
1 slightly beaten egg
30 g vegetable oil (around 6 Tbsps)
2 Tbsps sugar
1 flat tsp salt
540 g wheat flour added gradually, partially used while kneading

1. Form a flat cake with your palms and place in the baking form (of whatever shape, minimum 20 cm in diameter for a round one or 20x30 cm for a rectangle).
2. Cover with a wet cloth and place in a warm place until it doubles the size and become light and delicate under touch.
3. Bake in preaheated oven in 180 Celsius degrees for 35-40 minutes.

It gets the darker coluour due to the secret agent, rises beautifully, great with butter even on the third day. Nice smell because of the secret agent. One bread was eaten immediately, second was offered. No photos this time except the previous straciatella cake, we will talk about that one later. Ci vediamo!

Cheesecake at Christmas

In my family cheesecake is always served during Christmas. I remember the taste of my grandmother's cheesecake. Every ingredient for cheesecake was from her farm and she made delicious Christmas cheesecake. My mother and her sisters make this cake on Christmas but it is not the same. Every cheesecake has a little different taste than taste of my grandmother's cake. There is a problem with cheese because it is the main ingriedent. My grandmother made it with cheese (Quark),it was from fresh milk cows which she bred. It was the real cheese. Organic quark that tastes as grass, forest, soil, mountains, winds. I loved it. Now cheeses are different especially in foreign countries, but all my family make cheesecake at Christmas, so do I. This is a tradition, and keeping memory of my ancestors.
Below is my family recipe of Polish cheescake. I changed some ingredients for those who can't get any ingredients.


6 eggs;
1 glass of powder sugar
0,5 kg Quark or Ricotta Cheese
2 tbsp potatoes flour or corn flour
1 tbsp orange or lemon peel; grated
2 ts baking soda
150 gram butter;
1 1/2 ts vanilla extract
½ glass of raisin

1)Mash Quark very well.
2)Crack the eggs, separate yolks from egg whites.
3)Beat egg whites.
4)Melt butter and a little cool down.
5)Beat yolks with sugar. When mixture is white add carefully mash quark and mix very well.
6)Next add potates flour, butter, baking soda still blending well.
7)Add orange peel, vanilla extract and rasin, mix well.
8)Finally add eggs white and mix carefully with table spoon.
9)When dough is ready put in baking pan.
10) Put it into the oven at 180 Celsius degrees for around 50 minutes. Don't open the oven until the cheese cake is ready. Have a look inside through a glass after 40 minutes of baking and see if the cake is not too brown on its upper side. When ready take cheese cake out of the oven and set it aside to cool off. Serve cool.

Enjoy!

My mothers yeast cake.

My mother is a yeast cakes master, and she makes the best yeast cakes all over the world. My mum worked in factory where yeast was made and she knew everything about yeast, but she says:“The secret of tasty cake is in hands and heart of the baker. Of course, fresh yeast is very important but you must have patience and love for doing yeast cake." It is true because my aunt doesn’t have patience for yeast cake and she has never made a good one but she makes delicious cream cake.
I know the flavor of yeast since childhood. I remember the smell of hot cake and bread at Saturday night. Every Sunday morning my mother was giving me yeast cake and glass of milk. I loved this breakfast! My mother makes many kinds of yeast cakes and buns but my favorite is yeast roll with cocoa.

Yeast cake with cocoa

1 kg sifted high quality flour
1 l. milk,
10 gr. fresh yeast or 2 tsp dry yeast
200 gr. sugar
100 gr. butter
6 yolk
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp cooking oil
1/2 tsp. vanilla essence
5 tbsp cocoa

1) Put 1 glass of lukewarm milk, 1 tbsp sugar and yeast into a bowl and stir well. Add a few tbsp flour, mixture must look like a cream. Cover the bowl with napkin and leave the mixture to rise. Keep the mixture in warm place to double more or less its size.

2) Put into big bowl ¾ portion of flour, the rest of milk and sugar, melt butter, eggs yolks, salt, oil ,vanilla essence and mixture with yeast. Mix with your hands well, slowly and obviously with pleasure. Knead pouring the remaining flour until the dough reaches a firm and flexible consistency. When dough doesn’t stick to your hands it is ready. Keep the dough in warm place to rise by half size.

3) Put the dough on a board and roll out gently. When dough is flat spill it with cocoa and roll up. Put dough into baking pan and leave to rise.

4) When dough rises a little , put it into the oven at 180 Celsius degrees for around 40 minutes.

5) After baking leave the cake to cool down.

Enjoy!

Lovers’ cake

The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach - it is a Polish saying. Is it true? Yes, we love eat, not only men but women too. Food always was considered a good way to start an affair. Long time ago people found that some ingredients are good stimulant to love. The first aphrodisiac was very weird for us. For example: some tribes cooked special food with lizards, testicle of some animals and herbs. This meal was served to newly-weds. In the past there were many weird aphrodisiacs and many methods of preparing food – some women put honey on their skin and sprinkled themselves with seeds of wheat and then they scraped the seeds off their body and next ground and baked bread for their lover. Now it is amusing or disgusting.

People look for aphrodisiacs and love to eat them and sometimes believe in their power. Sometimes aphrodisiacs actually are powerful because they have vitamins and chemicals which stimulate our hormones. When we want to spend a romantic night we don’t need magical substance and special methods. We need nice atmosphere and respect for our lover. Sometimes we need something else for example a good dinner or sweets.

In last Valentine's day I thought up special pastry which combines famous aphrodisiacs: champagne, chocolate, strawberry, eggs and made “cake of lovers”.


Chocolate cake

1 egg
100 g flour
10 g chocolate
60g sugar
50 g butter
50 ml milk
1 tsp baking powder
Preheat oven to180 C degrees.
Put flour, sugar, baking powder in large bowl and mix well.
Melt butter in a saucepan, add a chocolate and melt it. Add milk and eggs and mix quick and well. Pour this liquid into bowl and mix.
Spread dough in prepared small pan (shape like heart) and bake 25 minutes.

Champagne cream

100ml fresh cream 30%
20g sugar
50 ml champagne
100g strawberries
2 tsp. gelatin
Cut strawberries into slices. Put strawberries in a saucepan, add sugar and cook for 10 minutes. Mix frequently.
Dissolve gelatin in small portion of hot water and add into strawberries and mix, don’t cook. Add champagne, mix gently and cool down.
Prepare whipped cream with fresh cream. When strawberries are cool add whipped cream and mix well. Put mixture to the fridge.

Lovers’ cake

2 Chocolate cakes ( heart shape)
Strawberry- champagne cream
50 g marzipan
2 fresh strawberries

Cut each cake into slices. It means you need to cut it as a roll into top and bottom slice. Put cream on bottom slice of cake and put gently on top of second slice and press gently and put the remaining cream on top and the sides. Cut marzipan to half and roll each piece. Spread marzipan on cake and gently press it. Cut excess marzipan, garnish with fresh strawberry.

Serve with glass of champagne in romantic time.

Enjoy!