Yeast Cake

Level of Difficulty: Medium 

Ingredients 

Batter

• 2.5 cups of flour
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1.5 sticks of butter (188 g)
• 2 eggs + 2 egg yolks
• 2/3 of a cup of milk (room temp)
• 1.7 oz (50 g) of wet yeast or 0.8 oz (25 g) of dry yeast

Topping

• 2 sticks of butter (250 g)
• 2.5 cups of flour
• 1 cup of sugar
• Optional: fruit of your choice (best fruit are plums, strawberries, peaches, cherries, rhubarb)

Directions 

Pour the milk into a bowl. Add the yeast, 1 tbsp of sugar, and 1 tbsp of flour. Set it aside for the yeast to activate. Once it doubles in quantity and foam forms on the top, it is ready.

In a large bowl, place flour, sugar, eggs and egg yolks, butter, and the activated yeast mixture. Mix everything well until the batter is no longer sticky. Set it aside for the batter to rise.

While it’s rising, make the topping by combining the butter, flour, and sugar with your hands.

Once it rises, mix it once more just a couple of times.

Pour it into a 9 in x 13 in (23 cm x 33 cm) pan.

Add fruit.

Crumble the topping on top of the fruit.

Bake at 350 F (180 C) for about 25 min.

Thoughts

Yeast cakes are a traditional polish dessert. In polish this cake is called ciasto drozdzowe. Every household has it’s own recipe for it and they differ in flavor in texture from once that are very bread like to fluffy moist once some with fruit, some without. The topping is one thing that is common among all of them. A yeast cake without the crumbled topping is just not a yeast cake.

This one is soft and moist. It is not overly sweet, and it is best with some fruit. It rises very nicely and it tastes amazing!

This recipe I got from my grandpa. We made it together for the first time recently when I spent the summer with my grandparents in Poland. We had a blast baking it together. At the ripe age of 83, my grandpa is giving baking a try. It’s never too late to try something new. Baking it together is a memory that both him and I will hold in our hearts for every and next summer we’ll baking something different.

 

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Other posts you may like from the Polish cuisine:

Honey Bread- https://thesweetworldsite.wordpress.com/2018/01/10/honey-bread/

Cooked Cheesecake- https://thesweetworldsite.wordpress.com/2018/04/29/pascha-cooked-cheesecake/

Polish Donuts- https://thesweetworldsite.wordpress.com/2018/02/13/paczki-polish-donuts/

Pierogi- https://thesweetworldsite.wordpress.com/2018/01/19/polish-meat-dumplings-pierogi/