It does not happen all too often that a casual remark can shoot up a tasty but ordinary titbit into stardom. It was during the 1999 visit to his home town of Wadowice that Pope John Paul II summoned the memories of his younger days.
What he said then had a great effect on the whole of the Polish confectionery business. The Pope reminisced about the sweet taste of the cream cake called kremówka which he and his schoolmates used to buy in a pastry shop in the market square. On the very next day, kremówka became the order of the day in all local tea-rooms and confectionery shops! And so, the cake has been known ever since as "Papal kremówka".
Henryk Podsiadły, the confectioner at Warsaw's Europejski Hotel recommends his own kremówka: a thick layer of cream and custard filling sandwiched
between two squares of delicate French puff pastry, with a whiff of brandy to taste.
If you have a sweet tooth, the Małopolska region in the south of Poland is an ideal place to visit. And not only that – another attraction beckoning visitors is a walk in the splendid Tatra mountains. While visiting Małopolska, you cannot miss the royal city of Kraków, Poland's former capital. The city is teeped in history and has a vibrant social life. Its many popular cafés, discos, pubs and restaurants scattered around Europe's biggest medieval market square are open long into the night, always crowded with guests.
Papal Cream Cake
Ingredients:
- rolled out and baked French pastry,
- cream: ½ l of milk,
- 4 egg yolks,
- 1 egg,
- 100 g of sugar,
- 30 g of potato flour,
- powdered sugar,
- vanilla.
Mix egg, yolks, sugar and vanilla together. Prepare the cream: boil ¼ l of milk, add remaining cold milk mixed with potato flour. Add eggs to boiling mixture and mix. Thicken the mixture by heating and mixing. Cool down the mixture in cold water, still mixing. Arrange cold mixture on the French pastry, cover with pastry on the top and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
