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Polish Housewife

Polish recipes served up with tidbits of folklore, customs, and history

Tea Party

Cytrynowa Babka (Lemon Babka)

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Cytrynowa Babka (Lemon Babka) is a wonderful accompaniment to tea or a bright lemony treat to serve for Easter. I’ve been wanting to make one ever since our friend, Symon, said Cytrynowa Babka (pronunciation) was his favorite.

Cytrynowa Babka (Lemon Babka)

Many babkas  are a yeast bread sort of cake. This one reminds me of a pound cake. The leavening comes from beaten eggs and baking powder, and it’s made with equal weights of butter, sugar, and flour.

Cytrynowa Babka (Lemon Babka)

I’ve tried a traditionally Polish method for preparing the bundt pan — buttering the pan and then coating with bread crumbs (unseasoned, of course). It adds a wee bit of texture to the crust, but I’ve never had a bundt cake release so well, the finish is perfect.

This wonderful moist cake comes from Ciasto.net, a Polish website for homebaked goods.

Smacznego!

Lois

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Cytrynowa Babka (Lemon Babka)

Cytrynowa Babka (Lemon Babka)

  • Author: Polish Housewife
  • Prep Time: 15 min
  • Cook Time: 50 min
  • Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
  • Yield: 10 - 12 serving
  • Category: Dessert
  • Cuisine: Polish
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Description

A lemony cake for tea or Easter dinner

Ingredients

  • 4 eggs, seperated and at room temp
  • 1 1/4 cups sugar
  • 1 cup plus 1 tablepoon butter, room temp
  • zest of 1 lemon
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • butter and breadcrumbs (or flour) for preparing pan
  • 3/4 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice, approximately, enough to make a thick, but still runny glaze

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F
  2. Beat egg yolks with sugar and butter until fluffy, mix in lemon zest
  3. Beat egg whites and dash of salt until stiff peaks form, fold into butter mixture
  4. Fold in flour and baking powder
  5. Prepare an 8 cup bundt pan by brushing with butter and dusting with breadcrumbs
  6. Spoon the stiff batter into pan, bake for 50 minutes
  7. Cool 10-15 minutes, then flip pan onto serving plate to remove cake
  8. Combine powdered sugar and lemon juice, beat until smooth, and smooth over cooled cake

Notes

The butter and breadcrumbs worked better than anything else I’ve tried for gettig a bundt pan to release the cake unscathed.

 

Pierniczki Polish Gingerbread Cookies

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Toruń, Poland, home of Nicholas Copernicus, is one of many European cities that claims to have invented gingerbread. One story goes that woman had consumed a little too much mead and made the happy mistake of adding honey and spices to bread she was making. The city, which is one of the few in Poland not damaged during World War II, even hosts a Gingerbread Museum. When we spent the night in Toruń on a Thanksgiving road trip, the hotel left individually wrapped gingerbread cookies on our pillows.

After seeing the beautiful gingerbread figures available at most festivals in the Stary Rynek (Old Market Square) in Poznan, I wanted to buy some wooden gingerbread molds to bring home with me. They’re not easy to find. I found my first at a gingerbread shop in Gdansk (they only had two and my friend bought the other for her daughter), subsequent wooden molds were purchased at a wonderful souvenir shop in Toruń (I wish I had the address), and finally, I bought a large reversible mold (man on one side, woman on the other) in an antique store in Amsterdam, so I guess technically this one would be a speculaas mold.

gingerbread houses

I’ve made gingerbread in the past. I used to make three gingerbread houses every Christmas for our daughters to decorate. My American recipe uses molasses. The Polish recipe I used for inspiration, from Moje Wypieki, uses honey and is a little softer than what I’ve worked with in the past. The finished texture is light and lovely. One change that I will make next time is to reduce the baking soda. I hope with less leavening, the details from the mold will be more distinct after baking.

This is the first time I’ve used the gingerbread molds, which I have seasoned previously with mineral oil. It was fun to try them out. After rolling the dough, I patted and pressed it into the molds, which I lightly dusted with powdered sugar to be sure the gingerbread would release. It worked like a charm. I trimmed the pattern before baking, using a combination of a pizza cutter, a little pasta cutter, and the corner of my metal spatula. My royal icing piping isn’t precise enough to accent the lines in the molds, so Ed had the good idea of speading icing on the relief and then wiping it off, almost as if I were antiquing furniture. It highlights the pattern better. I may also leave them plain in the future.

Pierniczki Polish Gingerbread Cookies Pierniczki Polish Gingerbread Cookies

In addition to my wooden molds, I tried out two large Christmas cookie cutters and made a bunch of little hearts. I piped a little royal icing on the larger cookies and the molded gingerbread, but I left my little hearts plain, but you could certainly sprinkle them with coarse sugar or sprinkles before baking, or coat with a thin glaze after baking.  Traditional pierniczki should look rustic, not too perect. It would be a great baking project for kids.

Smacznego!

Lois

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Pierniczki Polish Gingerbread Cookies

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  • Author: Polish Housewife
  • Prep Time: 15 mins
  • Cook Time: 30 mins
  • Total Time: 45 mins
  • Yield: 50 little cookies
  • Category: Dessert
  • Cuisine: Polish
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Description

A light, crisp, spice cookie

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup honey (spray the measuring cup with oil and the honey will pour out easily)
  • 1/3 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 2 1/4 cups flour (you might like to try rye flour)
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1 teaspoon cocoa
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350
  2. In a saucepan, heat the honey, butter, and brown sugar over medium heat until the butter melts and sugar dissolves
  3. Remove from heat
  4. Stir in egg
  5. Add flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cocoa, and salt
  6. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface, about 1/4 inch thick
  7. Cut into sharpes or press into prepared molds
  8. Bake on a parchment lined cookie sheet, about 8 minutes

 

Mazurek (Polish Easter Pastry)

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The word mazurek can be a dance and type of music.  It’s a surname and also one of the traditional Easter cakes in Poland – although it will seem more like a tart to American readers. Let’s take a look at Mazurek (Polish Easter Pastry).

Mazurek (Polish Easter Pastry)

Mazurek starts off with a shortbread-like crust, which may be topped with a layer or combination of layers consisting of fruit jam, dried fruit, a thick caramel, chocolate, or nuts.  Like so many foods in Poland, the tarts are beautifully decorated, in patterns, a pussy willow design (a symbol of spring and used in places of palms on Palm Sunday), or with “Wesolego Alleluja” (Happy Easter) piped in meringue or chocolate ganache.

I got to sample several mazurki when we lived in Poland.  This is the first year, I’m trying my hand making Mazurek (Polish Easter Pastry) for our tradition of hosting an afternoon tea party on Easter Day.

I’m making a rectangular one with a caramel topping, decorated with piped chocolate ganache, sliced almonds, and dried apricots. My second mazurek is egg shaped, topped with Nutella (actually the Jif brand of chocolate hazelnut spread because I find it less runny). The egg shape I’m decorating with pastry cutouts, white ganache piping, and Tic-Tac mints to create a pussy-willow branch.

egg mazurek

The sweet, shortcrust dough is very dry and a little challenging to roll out. If you’re pressed for time, or want to involve children in the process, you might substitute purchased sugar cookie dough (something easy to find in the USA). Slice it, pat it into the pan, and finish according to the recipe instructions. I don’t think anyone will be any the wiser, and you’ll avoid a lot of purist pastry hassle.

Mazurek makes a beautiful centerpiece for your Easter table, and when it’s time to slice into it, you’ll have a delicious dessert!

Smacznego!

Lois

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Mazurek (Polish Easter Pastry)

  • Author: Polish Housewife
  • Category: Dessert
  • Cuisine: Polish
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Description

A decorated tart for Easter

Ingredients

Shortcrust pastry:

  • 2 cups (300g) all-purpose flour
  • 2/3 cup butter (150g) butter
  • 7 tablespoons (80g) sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 – 2 tablespoons milk

Toppings:

  • heaping 1/2 cup (150g) jam, preferably sour, such as plum, marmalade, or black currant
  • 1 can Dulce de leche (400 or 500g), or can sweet condensed milk
  • almonds, chocolate, dried apricots for decoration

Instructions

  1. If using a can of sweet condensed milk, it should be cooked in a pot of water on a low heat for 3 hours. (The can MUST be covered by water the entire time), this will caramelize the sweetened condensed milk
  2. Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C)
  3. Combine the flour, butter, and sugar until uniform
  4. Add in the egg and milk, work the dough until it comes together; it will be crumbly, I used a food processor
  5. Form into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap
  6. Refrigerate for at least one hour
  7. Roll out the dough, directly on parchment paper to a rectangle, slightly larger than a 9 x 13 inch pan (my Polish pottery dish was 10.5 x 12.5 inches or 26 x 32 cm)
  8. Trim the dough to the size of your pan
  9. Place the dough, on the parchment, into the pan
  10. If you’re making a free form shape, such as an egg, roll out the dough on the parchment, use two round shapes, one larger than the other to get the rounded top and bottom of your egg, trim using straight lines between the two arcs to create your egg shape, move dough on the parchment to a baking sheet
  11. Roll the dough you’ve trimmed off into long ropes, use these to create a edge around your pastry, dams to hold in the filling, cut out a rabbit or chick for decoration, small items will brown more quickly
  12. Spread jam on the dough
  13. Bake in a preheated oven until golden brown, approx. 25 min, cool
  14. Spread with dulce de leche or caramelized sweetened condensed milk and decorate as desired

Now that you know what a typical Polish mazurek is like, in my next post, I’ll tell you about a another variation on this pastry.

Easter Tea Party Menu

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I love the idea of afternoon tea.  When I lived in England for a short while, I was fortunate enough to occasionally have neighbors invite me over for tea.  I’ve also enjoyed taking tea at hotel restaurants and tea houses, however, I often find myself thinking, “I can do this better.” (I’m referring to the commercial establishments in this case, not my neighbors’ hospitality.)

One of my favorite times to host tea is Easter.  Over the years, I’ve collected an interesting assortment of recipes for tea parties.  I thought I’d share some with you early, in case you’d also like to plan an Easter Tea. It can be as simple or elaborate as you would like.

tea party menu

Beverages (any combination)

  • Tea – Usually a pot of Earl Grey offered with milk and sugar
  • Sherry – I have to thank the wives of two RAF pilots for teaching me about Harvey’s Bristol Cream on the rocks with a wedge of lime at tea time, or maybe a pitcher of Sherry Cobblers.
  • Champagne Cocktail – this is the most popular beverage I’ve served for tea.  I think we all just love to hold a champagne flute.  Anything bubbly, mimosas, bellinis.

Savory Tea Snacks (I always offer some non-meat options)

  • Scotch Eggs – I began making these because it’s a great way to use up hard boiled Easter eggs.
  • Asparagus Roll-ups – spears with a little Parmesan cheese wrapped in phyllo, always popular.
  • Sausage Rolls – my absolute favorite.  Sausage rolls always remind me of joining the other ladies from my village for a coffee and pastry while waiting for the bus home on market day.
  • Cucumber Sandwiches – the classic, butter the bread, trim the crusts.
  • Hummus Sandwiches – something different, made with your own hummus or purchased, open face sandwiches, with the bread cut into rectangles, then garnish with three olive slices, I love the geometric look.

Sweet Tea Snacks

  • Chocolate Peeps – dipped in chocolate, inspired by Jacques Torres
  • Black currant scones with clotted cream and jam– I’ve found clotted cream in Arizona at international (if not British) stores – an Asian market and an Italian deli of all places.
  • Assorted cookies – I often buy rather than bake (shortbread, fruit fillings, anything covered in powdered sugar).
  • Victoria  Sponge Cake – my husband had this at the train station and we fell in love with it.
  • Strawberries – chocolate dipped or served with sweetened whipped cream.
  • Empty Tombs – for their Easter significance and their taste.

Entertainment

  • Conversation – the best pastime is mingling and catching up with family and friends.
  • Music – soft instrumental background music, classical would be my first choice, jazz second.
  • Board games – depending on the crowd, sometimes we’ll play a game. Last year, I put together a prize for our winner – a cup & saucer filled with cookies, chocolate, tea, and wrapped in cellophane and tied with a ribbon (discount and dollar stores offer very affordable options.)

Miscellaneous

  • Your tea can be served in mugs.  Your only other refreshment might be a wonderful cake that you share with friends.  (I’m meeting some folks online that bake some fantastic cakes!)
  • I’ve found that since I know I’ll be hosting another tea, I watch for things might add to my table during the year; I’m always on the lookout for a bargain.
I found this tea strainer in an interesting antique store located in a small desert town.  The front half of the building was the antique store, the back half was an automotive repair garage.

Ebay – perfect for serving asparagus roll-ups.

 

The Dollar Store – when this tray is filled with sausage rolls, or glasses and a bottle of sherry, you’d never know that I paid a buck for it.

 

Mazurek Kijowski (Kiev, Ukraine) Polish Easter Pastry

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Kiev Mazurek on Polish pottery

Cuisines in this part of the world overlap a lot – people moving and borders changing, I guess.  My favorite filling for pierogi (filled Polish dumplings) – ruski (Russian), of course.  With dozens, upon dozens of sausages in my Polish butcher’s display, my  all time favorite is a frankfurtki (the recipe from Frankfurt).  So it’s really no surprise that the Polish Easter pastry that I can’t stop thinking about is version from Ukraine.

In my last post, I discussed the characteristics of typical Polish mazurek.  I got to sample a variety this year and they were wonderful – dishes that I will try to recreate, but there was something about the Ukranian version that caught my fancy.  Similar in ingredients, plainer appearance, I was taken with the way the flavors and textures melded when they were all combined together.  The heavy use of almonds didn’t hurt either.  Squares of this pastry were included in our goodie box from Elzbieta.  I want to thank her for sharing the recipe.

Rather than layering and decorating, this humble mazurek has everything combined and baked like a fruit and nut shortbread.  Try it; I hope you’ll love it as much as I did.

Ingredients
150 grams of butter, softened (2/3 cup)
10 egg yolks
250 grams of flour (2 1/4 cups)
250 grams of powdered sugar (2 1/4 cups)
100 grams of walnuts or almonds, finely diced, I recommend almonds (1 cup)
150 grams of raisins, soaked in warm water and drained (1 cup)
100 grams of figs, finely diced or plum jam – I recommend the jam (1 cup)
60 grams sesame seeds (1/2 cup)
 
Directions
  • Grease a 9 x 13 inch pan
  • Preheat oven to 200 C (400 F)
  • Cream butter until smooth
  • Stirring constantly, add the egg yolks
  • Sift in flour and sugar, combine
  • Add the nuts, raisins, figs or jam, and sesame seeds
  • Spread or pat the dough into the prepared pan and prick with a fork
  • Bake for one hour
  • Remove from oven and slice into squares immediately while still hot
  • (This wasn’t part of the recipe, but I’m guessing you cool a bit before removing from the pan)

Lemon Tarts

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Massive quantities of lemon curd were produced in our kitchen earlier this year when friends were harvesting citrus.   Taking advantage of this, I added lemon tarts to our Easter Tea menu, even though it did mean diminishing the lemon shrine in the freezer.  I took inspiration from my lemon trifle recipe mixing the curd with whipped cream.   The combination of the two creates a mixture that’s almost addictive.

Ingredients

Double pie crust, homemade or packaged (or substitute sugar cookie dough)
1 c. heavy cream
2 T. sugar
1 t. vanilla
1 1/2 c. lemon curd, (plus or minus)
berries, for garnish

Directions 

Roll out pie crust; cut 3 inch circles.   Press the circles into mini-muffin pans, poke the bottoms with a fork,  and bake at 425 until golden brown.  Cool.

Whip cream, gradually adding sugar and vanilla, until stiff.  Fold in lemon curd.  Using a pastry bag, or quart-size food storage bag with the corner snipped off, pipe the lemon cream into the baked shells.  Garnish with berry.  Chill until serving.

Scotch Eggs

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I originally started making Scotch Eggs years ago to use up the dozens of Easter Eggs our daughters would decorate every year.  Their striking appearance really adds  our annual Easter Tea.  Everyone in my family loves them, and they’re puzzled by the construction – curious about how I made them.

Often served whole with a beer, Scotch Eggs are pub food.  Slice them in half to reveal the contrast of colors; garnish with parsley, and you have substantial fare for tea.

Source:  The Pleasures of Afternoon Tea by Angela Hynes

Ingredients

2 t. flour
salt & pepper
4 hard boiled eggs, shelled
1 t. Worcestershire
1/2 lb bulk pork sausage
1 egg, beaten
1 c. fine dry bread crumbs
vegetable oil for deep frying
parsley sprigs

Directions

Combine flour with salt and pepper in a bowl; dust lightly over the eggs.

Add Worcestershire sauce to sausage and mix well.  (If using extra large eggs, I find that I need a little extra sausage.)  Divide sausage into 4 equal portions.  Pat each portion into a round with your hand.  Place 1 hard boiled egg in the center of each round.  Mold meat evenly around egg, covering completely; make sure there are no cracks or gaps  in the meat.

With a pastry brush, coat the meat with the beaten egg; roll in bread crumbs.  In a deep fryer, heat about 4 inches of oil to 350.  Carefully add eggs and cook 7 to 8 minutes or until outside is crisp and golden.  Drain well and cool before serving.

To serve, cut each egg in half lengthwise and decorate cut side with a sprig of parsley.

Makes 8 halves

Lemon Curd

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How lucky am I, living in Arizona with sunshine and citrus trees?  Everyone is giving away citrus this time of year, especially lemons.  I made a huge batch of lemon curd last Saturday.  I have some in the freezer and gave some away to friends (all were very grateful, some a little curious about what they were supposed to “do” with it).  I expect there might also be grapefruit curd and some candied peel in my future.

If you’re wondering what to do with lemon curd, it makes a great filling for cakes or tarts, lemon trifle,  one of my friends mentioned having lemon curd with raisins (added while the curd is warm) on gingerbread as a child, or you could use it to make lemon ice cream (see the comments on this post for instructions).

Source: Ina Garten

Ingredients

3 lemons
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
4 extra-large eggs
1/2 c. lemon juice (3 – 4 lemons)
1/8 t. kosher salt

Directions

Remove the zest of 3 lemons with a vegetable peeler, taking as little white pith as possible. Process the zest and sugar in a food processor with a steel blade until the zest is very finely minced.  (This smells fantastic.  If I took lemon in my tea, I would keep this around all the time!)

Cream the butter and sugar-lemon mixture.  Add the eggs, one at a time.  (I misread this part of the recipe and used just the yolks, as some recipes suggest; maybe it’s a subconscious desire to make macarons!)  Add lemon juice and salt; mix until combined.

Pour into a 2 quart saucepan and cook over low hear until thickened (about 10 minutes and at 170 degrees), stirring constantly.  (Don’t let the mixture boil, or even simmer.  You don’t want lemon flavored scrambled eggs.)  Cool or refrigerate.  Lemon curd freezes well and will keep in the fridge for 2 – 3 weeks.

On another note,  it’s Rodeo Week in Tucson! I should be rustling up more rustic grub for you. This photo is from a couple of years ago.  Our church entered the parade as one of many events related to their 50th anniversary celebration.   This is really a big deal here. The 2010  parade is tomorrow, the longest non-motorized parade in the US.  Every school in town (except the university) will be closed on Thursday and Friday.