Fale Dunaju (Danube Waves)

‘Fale Dunaju’ is poetry, a symphony of taste and beauty: for your eyes and mouth… Inspired by the most poetic river, chocolate and white pastries of the cake shape regular waves inside the cake, whereas cherries on the top remind little boats on the river, floating on white and dark chocolate icing. Sweet and chocolate, but with a hint of sour cherries and lemon pudding, is a mouth-watering pudding for any occasion.

Prep time: 30 minutes, moderate

Bake time: 45 minutes

Serves: 20

Ingredients:

Pastry

350g flour

250g butter

250g sugar

6 eggs

Jar of seedless cherries (or frozen cherries)

1 tablespoon baking powder

2 tablespoons black cocoa

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon coconut shavings

Cream

250g butter

100g sugar

1,5 cup of milk

2 tablespoons potato flower

1 tablespoon vanilla sugar

1 teaspoon lemon peels

Juice from 1 squeezed lemon

Icing

100g white chocolate

100g dark chocolate

1 butter

200g fresh cherries

Method:

1.     Cream butter with an electric mixer in a large mixing bowl. Add sugar and eggs, keep creaming.

2.     Sift flour into the bowl and add baking powder. Mix them all together.

3.     Split the pastry into two. Add cocoa to one of the half and mix it into dough.

4.     A baking tin, about 24 cm long, coat with butter and coconut shavings. (I usually use coconut shaving to coat a baking tin with, they bake well and taste nicely).

5.     Put white dough into the baking dish. Put the black on the top of it.

6.     Put seedless cherries in regular distances (about 2cm from each other) on the top of the dark pastry. Press them lightly so they sink in. Cherries will be sinking deeper and deeper while baking, creating the wave-like shapes inside the cake.

7.     Bake it for about 45 min in pre-heated oven.

8.     In meantime, you can start making the cream. In a cup, mix potato flower, sugar and vanilla sugar, mix the powder some milk. (about 5 tablespoons of milk).

9.     Boil the rest of milk, and add the melted in cold milk powder. Mix in a pot (don’t let it to boil), the mixture will be becoming dense. When it has a cream-like consistency, leave it to cool down.

10. In a mixing bowl, cream butter with lemon peel and lemon juice. Add the pudding mixture spoon by spoon, and mix them all together.

11. Spread the cream over baked and cooled down cake. Put them into the fridge so the cream starts becoming solid.

12. Prepare icing: melt dark and white chocolates (separately) in a chocolate baths (crashed chocolates put into bowls, and the bowl into saucepans with boiling water).

13. Pour dark chocolate over cooled down cake. Wait when the chocolate starts becoming solid, then pour white chocolate over it, creating wave-like patterns with a spoon. Leave to cool down.

14. When the icing is resting, decorate with cherries, placing them in regular spaces.

15. Cut into pieces to serve and enjoy:)

Faworki (Angel Wings)

‘Faworki’ /favorki/ are sweet crisp pastries. They are most commonly eaten in the time of Carnival. In Poland, traditionally, some people make them on ‘Fat Thursday’ – the last Thursday before  Lent, and invite their friends and families to celebrate the last days of Carnival, when many try to eat as many sweets as they can. ‘Faworki’ store very well, and the longer they are kept, the better they become. The only problem is they’re so yummy so you can’t keep them for too long...

Prep time: 40 min, moderate

Cook time: 40 min

Serves: a large pile of faworki

Ingredients:

350g flour

1 tablespoon softened butter

3 egg yolks

1 whole egg

7 tablespoons sour cream (ask at a Polish Shop)

1 tablespoon of rectified spirit, clear vodka or white wine vinegar

Icing sugar (powder sugar)

Method:

1.     Mix all the ingredients together on a board into a pastry. The reason for using alcohol or vinegar is to prevent the dough from soaking up excessive fat from deep frying in oil.

2.     Cut off a piece of the dough and roll it so it is thin. It needs to be very thin so faworki get fluffy while frying.

3.     Cut the rolled piece into small rectangles, and make a short slot along their middles, as shown on the photo:

4.     Fold one end of the rectangle through the hole so it gets a ribbon-like shape. Pull the edges so the ribbon is thin.

*Watch the video below to see how to fold a nice ribbon:

 

5.     Deep-fry the ribbons in oil until they are golden, turning occasionally.

6.     Take them out of the pan, drain on kitchen paper and put on a serving plate. Sprinkle icing sugar over them while still warm.

7.     Now cut off another piece of your dough, roll it, form ribbons, fry, and put them on the previous batch of faworki on your serving plate; coat with icing sugar. Keep adding layers of ‘faworki’ to form a big pile of them. Use another plate if the pile gets too big.

8.     These are lovely to be served with afternoon tea. You can also store them for a long time, even several months, they always will be yummy and crispy.

Babeczki z Budyniem i Jagodkami (Cupcakes with Milk Pudding and Berries)

Pretty and summery, the cupcakes with berries are a delicious and light pudding. Polish cupcakes are usually made of short crust pastry. They could be filled in with anything, from sweet to savory stuffing. Milk pudding is not only a popular cake filling in Poland, but also can be a nice pudding on its own. And berries are yummy, healthy and decorative. I took my cupcakes for a picnic on a beach in Bournemouth, everyone loved them!

Prep Time: 70 min

Cook Time: 20 min

Serves: 12

Ingredients:

Pastry

250 g flour

150 g butter

100 g icing sugar

1 egg

Pinch of salt

Optional: pinch of vanilla

Milk pudding

2 eggs

150 g sugar

3 tablespoons of potato flour

1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar

½ liter milk

1 tablespoon of butter

2-3 tablespoons of favourite jam

Raspberries, blackberries or other fruit for decoration

Method:

Pastry

1.     Cream butter with a wooden spoon in a mixing bowl.

2.     Add, step-by-step, sugar, salt, eggs and flour, creaming the ingredients constantly.

3.     Mold a ball of the mixed pastry and put for about an hour into the fridge.

4.     Cupcakes forms coat with butter and breadcrumbs.

5.     Roll the pastry so it’s 0,5 inch thick, and put it into the forms.

6.     Bake cupcakes in pre-heat oven for about 20 min. Keep checking on them so they get nicely golden.

7.     Take them out of the forms, still warm, and let them to cool down.

Milk pudding

1.     Cream all the ingredients (apart from milk and butter) in a pot.

2.     Boil milk in a separate pot.

3.     Slowly pour boiled milk into the cream, and keep stirring.

4.     Boil the cream with milk and keep stirring to get cream-like consistency.

5.     Mix in some butter and leave to cool down.

Cupcakes

1.     Spread some jam inside the cupcakes.

2.     Fill them with milk pudding.

3.     Decorate with berries. You can also use almonds, nuts or fruit chunks.

Enjoy!