Karpatka Cream Pie

Karpatka is a Polish type of cream pie, that is in fact a big eclair. I've loved eclairs with a passion ever since I was a tiny little girl, so consider me sold on anything eclair in advance.

As I try to minimize the use of processed sugar and butter in our sweet treats, I made a budget version with reduced sugar and sunflower oil, which was a big success at home.

First I made the cream - in my version it is simple custard cream:

Ingredients for the cream:

• 2 eggs
• 50 g flour
• 50 g sugar
• 500 g milk
• vanilla
• 1 tbsp butter 

After the cream was cooked, I covered it with cling foil and set it aside. Then I made the eclair dough.

Ingredients for the eclairs:

• 100 g milk
• 100 g water
• 100 g sunflower oil
• 125 g flour
• 1 tbsp sugar 
• pinch of salt
• 4 medium size eggs  

Preparation of the eclair dough:

Bring the milk, water and oil mixture with added salt and sugar to boil, reduce the heat, add the flour and stir, until the flour is absorbed and the dough is smooth and doesn't stick to the walls of the pot. Take the pot off the plate and leave it to cool a bit. Beat lightly the 4 eggs together and start adding them gradually to the dough. A lot of energetic and strenuous stirring is required to incorporate all the 4 eggs into the dough, so in this case I used the available helper - my husband :)

Once the dough was ready, I divided it into two fairly equal round cakes and baked them free form in the oven for 20 min at 200C. However, I wouldn't recommend it, as the eclairs puff up a lot and came out pretty shapeless. Next time I would bake each cake separately in a ring cake form.

In order to make a descent looking cake, I cut my eclairs to fit the ring cake form. Of course, I preserved the cuttings, cooked some pudding and I made three additional bowls of pudding with eclair cuttings. Thus we had our dessert in the evening and the cake could peacefully stay in the fridge overnight.

I decorated the cake with fresh mint, frozen blueberries and a dusting of powdered sugar and in the morning I also added some melted dark chocolate (not pictured here), which was heartily approved by son and husband. 

All in all, an easy and affordable holiday dessert, I would unreservedly recommend it.

Blueberry Cream Cake

The idea for this cake was inspired by the traditional German Kirsch-Schmand-Blechkuchen - layer cake with a cream filling, made with pudding and sour cream. I don't think I had ever met such a combination and I was very curious to try it. In the original recipe the fruit is cherries, usually from cans, but I used the blueberries that i picked on Mechit specifically with this cake in mind.

Instead of a butter cake layer, I chose to make a biscuit cheesecake base out of cracker biscuits and butter. My cream layer is custard, mixed with sour cream and the last layer is blueberries (no idea how much, all that I had managed to collect) and one packet of tortenguss - German fruit glaze, which I ordered from amazon.de.

Ingredients: 

Biscuit layer:

• 200 g cracker biscuits
• 100 g melted butter 

Cream layer:

• 2 eggs
• 100 g sugar
• 50 g flour
• 400 g milk
• 150 g sour cream  

Berry layer:

• blueberries
• 1 pack red tortenguss 
• 50 g sugar
• 220 g water 

Preparation:

This cake is made without baking, but you still have to cook the custard and the tortenguss. First prepare the biscuit layer - grind the biscuits, mix them with the butter, spread the buttery crumbs on the bottom of a cake form and press. Leave in the fridge for at least half an hour to cool and harden a little.

Meanwhile cook the custard - beat the eggs with the sugar, add the flour, stir, add the milk gradually, while stirring with a whisk. Bring to boil on a hot plate, while stirring constantly, until the custard is cooked. Leave to cool completely, covering the top with a stretch foil to avoid the formation of a crust.

Once the custard has cooled to room temperature, stir in the sour cream until smooth and homogeneous.

Spread the cream on top of the biscuit layer and leave in the fridge for at least half an hour.

Place the berries on top of the cream layer. Cook the red glaze according to the instructions. Cover the berries with the glaze and leave the cake in the fridge overnight.

The resulting cake is very light, creamy, with a fresh fruity taste, ideal with the morning coffee.

Homemade Eclairs

My first homemade eclairs. I'm a big fan of all varieties of pastry with custard filling, but I always thought eclairs were too time consuming and difficult to make at home. Well, it turns out they are pretty easy to make. Really.

For the pastry:

• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup sunflower oil
• 1 cup flour
• 4 eggs

Bring the water and oil mixture to a boil. Add the flour and stir vigorously, until the dough is smooth and comes away from the sides of the pan. Take the pan off the hot plate and let it cool. Then add the eggs one by one, stirring in each egg until the mixture is smooth.
Cover the baking tin with baking paper, take small heaps of dough with a spoon and place them on the baking tin, leaving enough distance between the dough spoons. Preheat the oven at 200C and bake the eclairs for 30 min. To my surprise they tripled their size:

For the custard filling:

• 500 ml milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 5 tbsp flour
• 8 tbsp sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 vanillas

Beat the eggs with the sugar until you get thick froth. Add 1/2 cup of water to the flour and stir. Boil the milk and add the flour and the beaten eggs. Stir energetically until the custard is ready. Take off the plate and add the two vanillas. Let the custard cool.

After the eclairs have cooled, cut them in half, fill in with the custard, spread some melted chocolate over and voila - homemade eclairs. Best served cooled with coffee or milk.
I made two plates in the morning and now they are all gone ...