Bernasia's Polish Baking Recipes


Hello and welcome!

Well ... if you've come this far, it must mean that you are looking for some GREAT baking recipes.

Over the years I have collected tons of absolutely fabulous Polish recipes and I thought it would be a great idea to translate them into English and post them on the net for everyone to see and use.

For now though ... I am sorry, I'm just getting started and this page is still very much under construction, although I will do my best in adding as much as possible in as little time as possible. Although, to tell the truth it won't be very quick - I just had my first baby (a DARLING baby girl) and she takes up most of my time!!



Poppy Seed Cake with Nectarines
(Polish: "Ciasto makowe z nektarynkami")

Preparation time:
30 minutes
Baking time:
70 minutes
Servings:
10

Ingredients:

  • 3 nectarines
  • 4 eggs
  • 250g cottage cheese
  • 250g poppy seed
  • 2 lemons
  • 100g sugar
  • 250ml sour cream
  • 60g cream of wheat - TIP: Go to a Polish store and buy "kasza manna"
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 2 tbsp. apricot jam
  • butter (for baking form)
  • 1 tbsp. bread crumbs


Instructions:

  1. In a container, submerge poppy seeds in boiling water for a few minutes and place them on a paper towel to dry. In clean boiling water, submerge lemons for a few minutes, grate the peel, and squeeze out the juice into a glass.
  2. Wash and peel 2 nectarines, take out seeds, cut into slices, and sprinkle the slices with 2 tsp. of lemon juice.
  3. In a bowl, combine egg yolks with sugar. Add cream cheese, poppy seeds, sour cream, 3 tbsp. lemon juice, cream of wheat, baking powder and nectarine slices. In a separate bowl, whisk egg whites into a stiff foam (it's ready when you can turn the bowl upside down and the egg whites stay put). Add the egg foam to the batter.
  4. Apply an even, thin coat of butter to all sides of your baking form. Subsequently, add in bread crumbs and shake the form so that the crumbs cover all of the butter. Pour in the batter, and bake at 160ºC. Leave cake in form to chill.
  5. Wash the third nectarine, take out its seed and cut into slices. Boil 125ml of water, add the rest of the lemon juice and drop in nectarine slices. Cover the pot and cook for 2 minutes. Place on a paper towel to dry.
  6. Heat up jam. Take cool cake out of form. Spread hot jam over cake. Decorate with nectarine slices.


Apple Cake
(Polish: "Zapiekanka z jabłek")

Preparation time:
25 minutes
Baking time:
45 minutes
Servings:
6

Ingredients:

  • 700g apples
  • 220g sugar
  • 250g butter (hard - if need be, put in freezer for a while)
  • 60g cream of wheat - TIP: Go to a Polish store and buy "kasza manna"
  • 170g flour
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 100g raisins
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon
  • pinch of salt
  • icing sugar
  • butter (for baking form)


Instructions:

  1. Peel apples, cut into quarters, take out seeds, chop them. In a bowl, combine sugar, cream of wheat, flour, baking powder and salt. Cut the butter into flakes.
  2. Apply an even, thin coat of butter to all sides of your oven-safe form. In a bowl combine sugar, flour and cream of wheat. Take 1 cup of this sugar mixture and pour into the bottom of your form. Then sprinkle the mixture with 1/3 of your butter flakes. Cover that with 1/2 of the apples, sprinkle with cinnamon, and add 1/2 of the raisins.
  3. Sprinkle the apples with the second coating of sugar mixture, sprinkle with 1/2 of remainder of butter flakes, sprinkle with cinnamon and add rest of raisins. Cover with rest of apples and sprinkle with remainder of sugar mixture, and then remainder of butter flakes.
  4. Cover your form with aluminium foil and bake in 220ºC. 15 minutes before the end of baking, remove the foil.
  5. Take the cake out of the oven. Once it has cooled down, sprinkle with icing sugar. You may serve with vanilla sauce.


Pears in French Dough
(Polish: "Gruszki w cieście francuskim")

Preparation time:
30 minutes
Cooking & Baking time:
25 minutes
Servings:
6

Ingredients:

  • 250g french dough (frozen)
  • 6 pears
  • 1/2 glass of sugar
  • 100g ground almonds
  • 1 yolk
  • icing sugar


Instructions:

  1. Wash and peel pears, and cut into pieces. Put into a pot, add sugar, and 4 tbsp. of water. Cook on low heat for 15 minutes. Grate through a strainer.
  2. Thaw the dough and using a rolling pin, roll to make it thin. Cut out 12 circles with a 10 cm diameter and arrange on a baking sheet. Grease the circles with the yolk mixed with a tiny bit of sugar. Bake for 10 minutes in 210ºC.
  3. Mix the almonds with the pear mousse. Put this mixture in between 2 baked dough circles. Sprinkle with icing sugar.


My Tips

*** For the filling you can use pear or apricot jam; and instead of using almonds, you can use raisins.

*** Instead of using french dough, you can use a crisp dough. We make it by using 250g flour, 2 tbsp. sugar, 1 tbsp. butter or margarine, eggs, yolks, 150 ml sour cream, and 1/2 tsp. baking powder. From these ingredients knead the dough and then proceed the same as with the french dough.


Dried Fruit Salad
(Polish: "Sałatka z suszonych owoców")

Preparation time:
20 minutes (without soaking)
Servings:
4

Ingredients:

  • 75g dried apricots
  • 75g dried plums
  • 75g dried figs
  • 75g dried apples
  • 75g dried pears
  • 3 tbsp. raisins
  • 2 tbsp. almonds
  • 2 tbsp. pistachio nuts (unsalted)
  • 2 tbsp. pumpkin seeds
  • dash of cinnamon
  • juice from 1 fresh lemon
  • 4 tbsp. fruit syrup
  • ice cubes (optional)
  • icing sugar


Instructions:

  1. Wash the dried fruit and raisins and put into a salad bowl, immerse in cold water, cover and put in fridge for 24 hours.
  2. Scorch the almonds over hot water, drain, cool and peel of the skin.
  3. Drain the soaked fruit. Add the almonds, pistachio nuts and pumpkin seeds, and sprinkle with cinnamon. Mix the syrup with the lemon juice and if desired, add icing sugar to reach wanted sweetness. Pour the sauce over the salad.
  4. Put the ready salad into the fridge for 24 hours. Serve with ice cubes.


My Tips

*** For the salad to be more refreshing, you can add pieces of citrus fruit: oranges, grapefruit, mandarins.

*** The fruit salad will become more elegant if you sprinkle it with rum or cognac before serving.


Fluffy chocolate cake
(Polish: "Puszyste ciasto czekoladowe")

Preparation time:
60 minutes
Baking time:
15 minutes
Servings:
12

Ingredients:
SPONGE CAKE

  • 6 egg yolks
  • 80g sugar
  • 8 egg whites
  • 1 package of vanilla sugar
  • 100g flour
  • 20g cocoa
  • 40g butter

FILLING
  • 140g dark chocolate icing
  • 140g white chocolate icing
  • 350ml sour cream
  • 220g butter
  • 2 tbsp. brandy

DECORATIONS
  • 3 tbsp. cacao
  • 50g marzipan
  • 1 tbsp. icing sugar


Instructions:

  1. Combine egg yolks with 40g of sugar. Whisk egg whites with the other 40g of sugar into a stiff foam (it's ready when you can turn the bowl upside down and the egg yolks stay put). To the egg yolks mixture add flour, cacao, melted butter and the egg yolks foam. Combine it all together gently . Preheat your oven to 180ºC. Spread the mixture over 2 baking sheets covered with parchment. Bake each for 15 minutes, then remove from the baking sheet and put on a cloth sprinkled with sugar to cool.
  2. Prepare both the icings according to package instructions adding sour cream to them and cool. Grate the butter into a cream, add both icings and brandy and combine.
  3. Cut the sponge cakes in half (horizontally - i.e. so that you have 4 thinner cakes of the same size that you started out with). Spread filling on 2 of the 4 cakes, cover them with the remaining 2 cakes and spread filling on these 2 cakes as well. Sprinkle with cocoa.
  4. Combine the marzipan with the icing sugar and using a rolling pin, roll out the "dough". Using small star cookie cutters, cut out stars and decorate the cake with them. Cut the ready chocolate cake into squares and serve.


Rhubarb Dessert
(Polish: "Deser z rabarbarem")

Preparation time:
15 minutes
Cooking time:
10 minutes
Time to set:
2 hours
Servings:
4

Ingredients:

  • 500g rhubarb
  • raspberry-flavoured jell-o
  • 3 tsp. sugar
  • orange rind
  • small glass of white wine


Instructions:

  1. Wash the rhubarb and if it has gone thick skin - peel it. Cut it into pieces approx. 2cm big.
  2. Boil 2 cups of water with the sugar and the orange rind. Add the cut-up rhubarb and cook covered approx. 3 minutes on low heat, so that the rhubarb becomes very soft, but should not be falling apart).
  3. Remove the rhubarb from the brew. Strain the brew and bring to a boil once again. Add the jell-o to the hot brew, stirring the whole time until the jell-o is fully dissolved. Add wine.
  4. Place the rhubarb into a form, add the cooling jell-o and place in fridge. When the jell-o sets, take out of the form and place upside down on a plate.


My Tips

*** Instead of using raspberry-flavoured jell-o, you can also use a cherry-flavour and then instead of using white wine, you can replace it with cherry liqueur.

*** You can intensify the taste of this dessert by adding whipped cream or a vanilla sauce.

*** In order to remove the dessert undamaged from the form, you will need to wrap the form for a few minutes with a dish towel that had been soaked in hot water and wrung out.





FastCounter by bCentral


Free Webpages at Webspawner.com
Free Storage Space, Counters, and much more
Send E-Mail to: bernasia@rogers.com
This page created using the webpage creation facilities of Webspawner.
Copyright © 2005 Bernasia. All Rights Reserved