Polish Princess cake

To my knowledge, my only connection with Poland is my fellow Alpha Baker Lois, who blogs from her home in Phoenix, Arizona. Her blog is a charming collection of recipes, travel notes and memories of living in Poland and Spain, and tips for Americans who live abroad.  Please visit Lois' blog--you will enjoy it!  www.polishhousewife.com  


This has been a great week!  My good friend Paula came to visit from Tucson, Arizona.  She was my mother's best friend, and when my mom passed away several years ago, Paula and I inherited each other!  I have known her for about 40 years, and we have become very close.  I am so lucky to have such good friends in my life!  

Here's a picture of Paula and my mom.  

My kitchen draped in drop cloths and plastic sheeting while being painted!  It wasn't an easy time to bake, or take photos.  Fortunately, this cake was a simple project, despite the multiple pages of instructions.

The simple golden sponge cake was a single layer baked in the bottom of a springform pan.  The cake  was brushed with a sugar syrup laced with tea and vodka.  
The two layers of buttercream are both based on a delicious cooked vanilla custard.  I particularly loved the way they were layered on the cake.  I DO have photos of this!

My husband Smitty doesn't like raisins, so I omitted them from the recipe and increased the amount of chopped chocolate in the top buttercream layer.  He also prefers sweet chocolate, so I used a mixture of mixture of milk and semisweet chocolates.

The side of the pan is clipped back on once the cake is cooled and brushed with syrup.  Here you can glimpse the second layer of buttercream--vanilla with chopped chocolate--being spread in the pan on top of the first layer.  The first layer is flavored with cocoa and sliced, toasted walnuts.  No one except Rose Levy Beranbaum could persuade me to slice walnut halves!  

At this point, the cake is wrapped and refrigerated for a minimum of eight hours.  Several times during this waiting period I was sorely tempted to cut it short, but it was a good thing I didn't.  Rose knows best!

Any time I get to use this little torch I feel like a real kitchen hot shot (pun intended)! The torch is applied briefly to warm the sides of the pan of the well-chilled cake to make it easy to remove. 

The cake emerges from the pan with its layers of buttercream.  I threw in a generous extra handful of walnuts and the bottom layer isn't as smooth as it should be.  

See that chunky first layer of buttercream?  Untidy, but oh, so delicious!  

The cake is light and the buttercream layers are surprisingly light and fluffy.  I think it would be a great dessert after a heavy meal, because although it looks impressive, it's really not filling.  


My tasters this week included the three painters working in my house, all of whom declared the Polish Princess to be wonderful.  My daughter Jessica and her friend loved it. I thought that was particularly significant because Jessica typically doesn't care for cakes iced with buttercream, preferring instead cakes with a simple glaze or even no icing, like pound cake. 

On the downside, Paula, didn't care for the way all the icing was on top.  She would have preferred layers of cake with the buttercream in between.  

Although the tea and vodka syrup smelled heavenly when I made it, the flavors were all but undetectable in the finished dessert.  

One note, this cake is fragile and perishable.  It only keeps for a couple of days, cannot be frozen, and must be refrigerated. 

I will definitely make this recipe again!  


NEXT UP:  Lemon Jammies  (cookies, not pajamas!)

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