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Polish cuisine is known for its meaty and savory dishes in big portions. Nevertheless, a real Pole always have a room for Polish desserts and Polish sweets after having a 2-course meal! Polish candies and cakes are so delicious that it is impossible to say no to them.
Pepe Housing would like to present you with a list of 10 Polish sweets and desserts, which you have to try while your stay in Poland. You can find them in every cake shop and many bakeries.
Pączek is a pastry traditional to Polish cuisine. They are similar to doughnuts. Pączki are deep-fried pieces of dough shaped into flattened spheres and filled with confiture or other sweet filling. Pączki is usually covered with powdered sugar, icing or bits of dried orange. In Poland, pączki are eaten especially on “Fat Thursday”, the last Thursday before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.
Mazurek is a variety of very sweet, flat cakes baked for polish easter desserts. In some regions, it is also prepared at Christmas and the holiday season. A typical Mazurek is a cake that can be made of one or two sheets of short pastry or one sheet of short pastry covered with a sheet of butter sponge cake. The two sheets are “glued” together with the help of a layer of marmalade. The top of the mazurek is covered with a layer of icing (i.e. sugar icing or fudge caramel cream) or jelly. It is also decorated with nut-based icing or almond-based icing and dried fruits and nuts.
The Polish pastry is made from a special dough that combines cream cheese with butter and flour. This ingredient mixture gives it a unique flakey quality similar to a pie crust. For individual servings, the dough is rolled thin and then cut into squares. A thin line of the filling is spread along the diagonal of the square. Then two opposing corners are folded over each other to create the unique shape of the pastry. When made in a large batch or in a roll, servings are sliced off like bread.
“Tree cake” or literally “branchy” is a Polish–Lithuanian traditional spit cake. It is a cake made of butter, eggs, flour, sugar, and cream, cooked on a rotating spit in an oven or over an open fire. It is baked in a time- and labor-intensive process, by painting layers of dough onto a rotating spit in a special open oven or over an open fire.
Kremówka is a type of cream pie made of two layers of puff pastry, filled with whipped cream, creamy buttercream, vanilla pastry cream or sometimes egg white cream, and is usually sprinkled with powdered sugar. It also can be decorated with cream or covered with a layer of icing. Pope John Paul II mentioned that after he had completed his matura exam, he had kremówkas with his colleagues in his hometown of Wadowice. They wagered on who could eat more. The future Pope ate eighteen kremówkas but did not win the bet.
Ptasie mleczko is a soft chocolate-covered candy filled with soft meringue or milk soufflé. The name literally means “bird’s milk” or crop milk, a substance somewhat resembling milk, produced by certain birds to feed their young. However, this is not the origin of the name; rather, “bird’s milk” is an idiom of ancient Greek origin meaning “an unobtainable delicacy”. It is one of the most recognized chocolate confectionery in Poland having exclusive rights for the name. Ptasie Mleczko is often used to refer to similar candies with vanilla, cream, lemon or chocolate taste.
Krówki literally meaning “little cows,” are Polish fudge, semi-soft milk toffee candies. When hand-made, they are hard and crispy on the outside, but the inside is more “fluid” than solid. It is one of the most common Polish confectioneries, sold worldwide. The original recipe usually contains milk, sugar, and sometimes butter, cream and vanilla flavors.
These thin wafers are made of flour, rapeseed oil, a bit of sugar and a bit of water. The prepared dough is poured in small amounts to the smooth surface of the irons. The mass was pressed in specially prepared “irons” and the high temperature turned the dough into a crunchy wafer.
In English “angel wings” are a traditional Polish delicacy made from a sweet crisp cake in a shape of a bow. Oftentimes faworki are eaten on the last Thursday of the carnival and before Ash Wednesday. A lot of yolk is used in the production of the dough. It must be quite well aerated, which requires intensive and long kneading and bumping. Faworki is cut out of a lump and then fried in deep oil.
Traditional Polish candies, produced for many, many years. An entire plum covered with cocoa mass and covered with polished chocolate icing makes up the heart of the candy. Polish chocolate-coated plums in decorative packaging make a great gift.
