Cake "Pani Valevskaya": ingredients, recipe, cooking tips

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Among real gourmets with a sweet tooth, as well as true culinary specialists, the recipe for the most popular Polish dessert, the Pani Walewska cake, has long been known. It is one of the favorite delicacies not only among the inhabitants of Poland. Its taste qualities were highly appreciated in other countries of the world. What kind of cake is this, why does it have such a name and how to cook it?

Name

Cake "Pani Walewska" got its name in honor of one of the most famous and revered Polish women - Maria Walewska. She was famous not only for being an incredible beauty and having a noble origin, but also for the fact that it was she who became the “Polish wife” and lover of Napoleon Bonaparte, as well as the mother of his child.

And more than one emperor was fascinated by this luxurious woman, since treats were even created in honor of her!

Maria Valevskaya: a tour of history

As already mentioned, Mrs. Walewska was loved and respected in Poland for many years. At one time, even perfumes with the same name and a portrait of a beauty on the box came out in this country. Mary's popularity was great - and it wasit is clear even in adolescence: it was then, at the age of sixteen, that the girl had her first fans - and in quite a large number. Among the contenders for the hand and heart of a young beauty was even a young man from Russia. Despite his we alth and attractive appearance, as well as the fact that, in general, Mary liked him, marriage with him was impossible precisely because of his origin: after all, Russia in those years was only engaged in dividing Poland.

Ultimately, Maria married a fairly elderly, but very, very we althy Count Anastasy Valevsky (on the family estate of Valevitsy), to whom she gave birth to a son, Anthony. At one time, the couple lived on their husband's estate, but when French troops led by Napoleon entered Poland, the Walewski castle was taken as headquarters, and the couple moved to their housekeeper's house. It was at that time at one of the balls that the first meeting of the Polish beauty with the French emperor took place. Napoleon fell in love with the twenty-year-old Maria immediately, wrote her numerous letters, but he had to try for quite some time before the girl's harsh heart melted, and she succumbed to his perseverance.

Napoleon was famous for his frequent relationships with various women, all this was nothing more than a hobby. However, everything turned out quite differently with Maria - what was supposed to be a short affair turned first into a stormy romance, and then into a fairly strong relationship, which resulted in a child - the son of Alexander, whothe surname of Mary's legal husband was given.

Subsequently, after the fall of Napoleon, Maria repented of her relationship with him, suffered remorse and tried to give everything that happened a political and patriotic coloring: she claimed (and wrote in her memoirs exactly like that) that only in the name of freedom and Poland's independence, she made such a connection. Be that as it may, no one can now find out her exact and real motives. Pani Valevskaya died very young - she was only thirty-one years old.

Cake ingredients

So, knowing now who Mrs. Valevskaya is and what she is famous for, we can talk about the cake named after her. Of course, now the original, classic recipe is varied in every possible way by different chefs - some ingredients are replaced by others, something is removed altogether, something is added of their own. However, the initial composition of the Pani Valevskaya cake is as follows: sand cakes, meringue (egg whites whipped in a special way) and cream. In modern recipes, they like to add more jam - currant or plum (most often the first one).

Pani Valevskaya cake: ingredients

The ingredients that Polish confectioners of the nineteenth century added to the cake, and those that modern ones put, are somewhat different. Below are two different options - you can choose at your own discretion.

Original Polish version of Pani Walewska meringue cake includes:

1. Dough (a glass of sugar, one egg, no more than one hundred grams of butter or margarine, two large spoons of flour, honey and sour cream, one smalla spoonful of soda and grated lemon peel).
2. Meringue (ten pieces of proteins and four hundred grams of sugar).
3. Cream (ten yolks, two hundred grams of milk, sugar, walnuts, butter (not margarine!) and a bag of vanilla sugar).

Another version of the cake "Pani Valevskaya" is as follows:

1. Dough - four yolks, butter (whole block), three hundred grams of flour, sugar - a quarter cup, a pinch of vanilla sugar and baking powder - just a little bit.
2. Meringue - four proteins, a glass of powdered sugar, four hundred grams of currant jam, one hundred grams of walnuts, a little starch.
3. Cream - two glasses of milk, two eggs, a block of butter, fifty grams of starch and sugar, a pinch of vanilla sugar.

There are many other options, each chef has his own "chips" and secrets, many "modernize" old recipes. By and large, the number of components is not so important, the main thing is that the basic cooking technology is observed.

How to make Pani Valevskaya cake: original recipe

In total, there should be three cakes in the delicacy, so from the above components it is necessary to get exactly this amount. Egg, sugar and butter (or margarine) are ground, honey, sour cream, lemon zest and soda are added to them. This whole mixture must be well mixed before flour is added to it (after that everything must be mixed again). The dough should be thick and stretchy. A third of it must be poured onto a greased form(or a baking sheet; you can also cover it with paper) and bake the cake for twenty minutes at a temperature of one hundred and eighty degrees. Do the same two more times.

In ten eggs, separate the yolks from the whites, add sugar to the latter and beat. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 150 for about fifteen minutes. After that, everything needs to be dried: the fire must be reduced to a hundred, the oven door should be slightly opened and everything should be left like this for about an hour and a half.

During this time, the cream is being prepared: milk with sugar is heated (but it should not be brought to a boil!). The remaining yolks are whipped, after which they must be added to the milk. Heat the mass again so that it thickens (again, make sure that it does not boil!). Allow to cool, then pour in the butter and vanilla sugar - and then beat again. At the end, add nuts to the mixture and mix well. It is important not to forget to fill in not all the nuts, but leave a little to sprinkle the cake.

Dried meringue should be crumbled into pieces and also left a little to decorate the delicacy. Now you can put the composition together: first the cake, then the cream, then the meringue. After that, the manipulation is repeated twice more in the same order. Sprinkle the resulting delicacy on top with the remnants of nuts and meringue, and then put it in the refrigerator for several hours so that it is soaked with high quality.

Other recipes

You can use a different recipe for the Pani Valevskaya cake. For example, the one whose ingredients are listed above. It's just as easy to prepare as the original.

Mix the flour with the baking powder, and then add the chopped butter to the mass. Rub the mixture. The yolks should be mixed with two types of sugar, and then added to the flour-oil composition, rubbed well. The dough will be thick and dense. Pour it (whole!) On a baking sheet covered with paper or oiled. Bake for ten minutes at one hundred and eighty degrees. While the dough is in the oven, make the meringue: beat the whites with powder. Add starch, stir.

Remove the baking sheet, but do not remove the cake: spread it with currant jam, place squirrels and nuts on top. Put it back in the oven - this time for half an hour at the same temperature. During this time, you need to make a cream: mix two types of sugar, starch and eggs. Bring the milk to a boil, pour into the mixture, mix thoroughly. Let it thicken over the fire, stirring constantly so that a crust does not turn out. Cool the finished cream. When it cools, add softened butter to it, remembering to beat the mixture.

Take out the cake, let it cool. After that, divide in half, spread the first part with cream and close the second. Place in the refrigerator to soak.

Varieties

As mentioned above, plum jam is often used instead of currant jam, but, of course, you can take any other that you like. Someone adds chocolate to the cake - in cream, for example, or simply sprinkles a treat on top. Some people use almonds instead of walnuts. Also decorate the cake with coconutshavings or glaze, cognac is added to the composition. The recipe for the cake "Pani Valevskaya" is simple, and no matter what ingredients you include in it, it will still turn out very tasty.

How to cook meringue properly

It often happens that many people have difficulties with meringue. However, the classic meringue recipe is quite simple - the main thing is to follow all the instructions exactly. It is important to prepare the required amount of ingredients: you should know that there are approximately fifty grams of sugar per protein.

The oven must be preheated in advance - a temperature of about one hundred and ten degrees is enough. Then you can begin to separate the "grains from the chaff" - that is, the proteins from the yolks. Dishes for this must certainly be clean, dry, without streaks. There are several options for separating the yolk from the protein - you can, for example, break an egg with a knife and “isolate” the protein, simply pouring the yolk from one half of the shell into another. You can use a special kitchen appliance, you can take a bottle - there are a lot of ways, everyone chooses at their discretion. The main thing is to place the proteins immediately in the container in which they will be whipped (it should be deep enough). Add sugar and start beating the mixture. This is best done with a mixer, because a blender grinds food more than it whips it, and it takes a lot of effort to work with a hand whisk. You need to beat until “stable peaks” - this expression means that the consistency of proteins with sugar is such that they keep their shape well when creating any shapes from them. It will takeat least ten minutes to bring them to this state.

When the mass is ready, it can be laid out on a baking sheet (greased or covered). The process of "drying" takes quite a long time - more than an hour. That's the whole classic meringue recipe!

Important Tips

There are some tips for making Pani Walevskaya cake. Firstly, when baking one cake, without meringue and cream, you should not leave it in the oven for more than fifteen minutes. Secondly, if the cake is baked with jam and meringue, the time spent in the oven should automatically double at least. Thirdly, it is best to take not too large baking sheets and forms in order to get a normal size of the cake. Forty by thirty centimeters would be ideal.

Pani Walevskaya cake, despite the abundance of ingredients, is quite easy to prepare, and the taste is so incredible that no one will regret the time spent on it.