Cracow shortcrust cake

Cracow shortcrust cake is a traditional Polish Easter bake and a real old-fashioned classic. As the original authors put it, “the great advantage of this cake is that it isn’t filled with a rich, heavy buttercream”. It consists of delicate, crisp shortcrust pastry made with cooked egg yolks, layered with a light egg-white cream. It’s very sweet, but absolutely delicious. Although it is said to be at its best on the second or third day, I recommend filling the layers with the cream the day before serving. The pastry becomes increasingly delicate and crumbly with time, making it difficult to slice neatly – the cake in the photographs was cut after 48 hours. It makes a beautiful centrepiece for any festive table!

Next time, I would prepare the egg whites for the filling using the Italian meringue method, as for macarons. I think they would be more stable than egg whites whipped over steam.

Ingredients for the shortcrust pastry (5 layers):

• 250 g butter, chilled
• 250 g plain flour
• 120 g blanched, ground almonds
• 4 cooked egg yolks
• 120 g icing sugar
• seeds from ½ vanilla pod

Boil 4 eggs, remove the yolks and push them through a fine sieve.

Quickly bring all the pastry ingredients together (first chop the butter into the flour with a knife, then knead quickly; you can also use a food processor). Wrap the dough in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

Line the base of a 23 cm springform tin with baking paper. Divide the dough into 5 equal portions. Roll out each portion and cut or trim to fit the tin.

Bake at 180°C for approximately 15 minutes, or until lightly golden. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. Bake the remaining pastry layers in the same way.

Ingredients for the filling:

• 4 egg whites
• 100 g icing sugar
• 200 g apricot preserve, pushed through a fine sieve

All ingredients should be at room temperature.

Place the egg whites and icing sugar in a small bowl. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl must not touch the water) and whisk until thick and stiff. Add the apricot preserve and continue beating until you have a thick, fluffy cream.

Sandwich all the pastry layers together with the cream, stacking them to form a cake (do not spread cream over the top). Cover the assembled cake with the icing. Before it sets, you can decorate the cake with almonds.

Store the cake in the fridge.

Ingredients for the apricot icing:

• 200 g icing sugar
• 120 g apricot preserve, pushed through a fine sieve
• 1 tbsp lemon juice

Combine the ingredients and rub together with the back of a spoon until smooth. If the icing is too thick, add a little lemon or orange juice. If it’s too runny, add more icing sugar and mix again.

Enjoy!