Better Than an Eclair: Meet the Majestic Polish Cream Cake with a Mountain-Like Crust

With a variety of cakes and pastries in local cafes and bakeries, we tend to forget there’s a plenty of other delicious sweets out there, sometimes even coming from different countries.

If you’ve recently wanted to explore the pastry world of another culture, here’s a great recipe for Karpatka, a traditional Polish cake filled with the most delicate vanilla cream. The dessert is easy to make and won’t do much harm to your figure, so consider making a surprise sweet treat for your family tonight.

Ingredients:

For the dough: 140 g of flour, 200 ml of water, 80 g of butter, ½ teaspoon of salt, ½ teaspoon of sugar, 4 eggs.

For the cream: 500 ml of milk, 2 eggs, 50 g of starch, 150 g of sugar, 150 g of butter, a pinch of salt, vanilla.

First, prepare the cream. Mix the eggs with sugar, salt, and starch until smooth. Bring the milk to a boil, pour a third of the hot milk into the egg mixture, and stir with a whisk. Then pour everything back into the pot with the remaining milk, add vanilla, and cook, stirring constantly, until thickened. Let the cream cool, then whip the softened butter and gradually stir in the cooled custard base.

For the dough, bring the water, salt, sugar, and butter to a boil. Then add the sifted flour and mix thoroughly until smooth. After cooling slightly, add the eggs one at a time. The finished dough should slide off the spatula.

Line a baking sheet measuring approximately 30×42 centimeters with parchment paper, spread the dough evenly; if you wish, you can sprinkle almond flakes on top. Bake the cake for 25–30 minutes at 200 °C until golden brown.

Let the finished cake cool, turn it over onto a new sheet of parchment paper, spread with cream, and carefully roll it up. Then wrap the dessert in parchment and put it in the fridge for at least 2–3 hours, or better overnight. Before serving, unwrap the roll, even out the edges, and sprinkle with powdered sugar.