Kluski na Parze/Polish Steamed Dumplings with Berry Sauce and Sour Cream

Though my family regularly ate traditional Polish foods since I was young, we were typically limited to ready-made foods available in the GTA's numerous Central/Eastern European markets. That meant lots of pierogi, borscht from concentrate, potato dumplings with plums, and so on. But the first time that I had the steamed buns that were apparently quite common was at my aunt's home in Poland. She somehow had access to frozen ones, which made me wonder why I never saw them around Mississauga- maybe because I wasn't looking! But in any case, I wanted to try making them myself.

The sweet version I show here is not the only way that they can be served- a sauce made with meat or mushrooms is also an option, though according to my father nobody eats them savoury where he's from in the Southwest. It does bear some similarity to the Germknödel of Austria, so perhaps sweet main courses are typical of the more mountainous parts of Central Europe. 

The best way to serve these, in my opinion, is with a simple berry sauce made from pureed fruit only lightly sweetened, and some sour cream. There are many other ways to make steamed dumplings, such as by frying with butter and sugar and sprinkling with sweetened ground poppyseed or breadcrumbs, but this is ideal for the berry season. You can have them as a main course or dessert, and freeze the finished dumplings to steam again later on. 

Polish Steamed Buns
From Senses in the Kitchen

500 g. Flour
250 ml. Milk
3 TBSP Butter
2 Eggs
21 g. Fresh yeast, or 2 1/4 Tsp. Active dry yeast
2 Tsp. Vanilla sugar (or 1/2 Tsp. plain sugar for savoury buns)
1/2 Tsp. Salt

Berry Sauce
1 C. Raspberries
1 C. Chopped strawberries
1-2 TBSP Sugar
1 TBSP Rum

About 1/2 C. 18% Sour cream

Cook together the raspberries and strawberries. Add the rum and sugar to taste, depending on the sweetness of the berries. Let cook on low until slightly thickened and serve alongside buns, with vanilla sauce or sour cream.


Mix the flour, sugar and salt. Heat the milk until steaming and mix in the butter to dissolve. Let cool until lukewarm and dissolve the yeast. Add the milk mixture and eggs to the flour mixture and knead until smooth and elastic.

Let rise about 1 hour, or until doubled. Divide into 12 pieces on a floured surface and form smooth balls. Let rise covered for 20 minutes.

Heat a pot of water to boiling with a large colander or tearag secured on top. Alternatively, use a bamboo steamer. Place each bun on a square of baking parchment and steam about 3 at a time, covered with a a lid, or better, a lightly dampened tearag. Try and find a lid that minimized the chances of water dripping onto the buns, as this makes them sieze and become wrinkly- the tearag method works well for this reason.

Serve with sauce and sour cream while warm.

Buttermilk Streusel Cake with Fruit

This is one of my recurring favourites, especially when I have a little buttermilk kicking about in the fridge. It's one of those infinitely variable cakes that you can adjust to suit whatever fruit you have on hand. Rhubarb, as the original recipe used, is great, but so are berries, stone fruit and mandarins. You can omit the streusel and use some sliced nuts or a sprinkling of sugar to further simplify the already extremely easy recipe, and change the flavours up a little- I used lemon zest to make it taste bright and fresh, but nutmeg goes very well with peaches, too. You can add a little almond extract for stone fruit, some orange zest with blueberries, cinnamon with apples, and so on. If you don't have any fruit, you can also just make a straight-up streusel cake, substituting a quarter of the flour used with cocoa powder to make a chocolate version. You can even marble the chocolate and vanilla parts- this is a very versatile recipe.

While it's delicious on its own, accompaniments are welcome. Vanilla sauce, whipped cream or sour cream all give a textural counterpart to the spongy cake and crunchy streusel. Which one you use depends of whether the fruit you chose is more sweet or sour- use the former two with more sour fruit, and the latter with sweeter ones.

I used a couple of peaches, some blueberries and raspberries, a nectarine and my leftover 18% sour cream. As always, this cake tastes extremely bright and summery, soft and tender with the right amount of crispy streusel, the fruits adding colour and flavour. Just make sure the fruits are in relatively light pieces so they don't sink into the cake. If you don't have cake flour, substituting 30 grams of the flour called for with cornstarch will let you use all purpose flour. This will make the cake lighter and more tender. Once good trick is to use vanilla pudding powder instead of cornstarch for this in order to add some extra vanilla and colour. 

Don't forget to make some coffee or tea to go with it!


Buttermilk Streusel Cake with Fruit
Adapted from Chefkoch

280 g. Sugar
3 Eggs, room temperature
2 Packets vanilla sugar
Zest of one lemon
Pinch of salt
375 ml. Buttermilk
375 g. Cake flour
2 1/4 Tsp. Baking powder

To Top:
400-500 g. Fruit, in thin slices if large
60 g. Butter, softened but cool
60 g. Sugar
1 Packet vanilla sugar, or 1 Tsp. Vanilla extract
90 g. Cake flour

Grease and line a 8"x8" or 9"x13" baking pan. Preheat the oven to 200℃.

Beat the eggs, zest, salt and sugar until fluffy and pale yellow. Whisk in the buttermilk and sift in the flour and baking powder.

Pour into the prepared baking pan and top with fruit. Mix the butter, flour and sugar with hands and sprinkle the pieces on top of the fruit.

Bake for 20 minutes at 190℃, and 15 minutes at 180℃. Serve with vanilla sauce, whipped cream or sour cream. 

Prinsesstårta

Today was my mum's birthday, and for the third (or fourth? I lose track) year in a row I made one of her new favourites, the Swedish prinsesstårta. I came across the recipe by chance and was instantly taken by the combination of several of my family's favourite ingredients- marzipan, custard, whipped cream and raspberry jam. While it is a bit tricky to assemble, nobody ever complains that my cake is too messy- they're too busy eating it. 

Still, each year's attempt is a bit nicer than the last one. This year I decided to change it up and modify the original recipe a bit. I added some orange extract to the sponge cake, some rum to the jam (to make it more spreadable and aromatic), some fresh raspberries since they're very good this time of year, and some vanilla bean to the custard. I also reduced the amount of marzipan to make it neater and easier to put away into the fridge- yeah, the dome looks cool, but it doesn't fit with any of my cake covers and is very difficult to arrange nicely. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it one day.

I decorated it with a hint of personalization, adding a Moominmamma figure (from the tales of Tove Jansson) to the top of the cake in honour of my mum. I also made a few vines and flowers, and added some toasted almonds around the sides. I think the modifications turned out really well- especially the fresh berries. You can also use strawberry slices very well in here. The only change I'll try next time is adding more custard, since you could always use more of that. 

A previous year's attempt, featuring the full length marzipan coat. Note how I tried to clean up the edges with slivered almonds.

What I find interesting about this cake is its history. It was originally named "green cake" in its late '40s debut, but received a name change in honour of the Swedish crown princesses' fondness for it. They were educated in household management, including cooking, and so would have been making these cakes themselves. There was even a series of cookbooks written by the home economics instructor for the princesses, featuring the royals on its cover, that published this cake for the whole world to make. Neat!

I one day hope to go to Sweden and try out this cake in its nation of origin- until then, I'm happy to make them year after year. 

Prinsesstårta
Adapted from Semiswede
For the Sponge Cake:
60 g. All purpose flour
82 g. Potato starch
1 Tsp. Baking powder
Pinch of salt
225 g. Sugar, including 1 sachet vanilla sugar (or 2 tsp. vanilla extract)
dash of orange extract or a tablespoon of orange zest (optional)
4 Eggs, at room temperature
Butter and breadcrumbs, to line the pan

using butter, breadcrumbs and parchment cut into a 9" circle, line and grease a 9" cake pan.

Sift together the flour, starch, salt and baking powder.

Beat the sugar and eggs together until fluffy and thick, so that lifting the beater leaves a ribbon of batter in the bowl that lasts a few seconds. It should be pale yellow and very light.

Fold in the dry ingredients one third at a time until completely incorporated. Pour into the cake pan and bake for 35-40 minutes at 180℃, or until golden, in the lower half of the oven.

Let cool and use a knife to pry out. Using a sharp serrated knife or a cake cutting wire, cut the cake lengthwise into three thin rounds and set aside.

For the Custard:
4 Egg yolks
2 TBSP Cornstarch
2 TBSP Sugar
1 C. Milk, preferably whole or 2% with a splash of cream
1 Packet vanilla sugar, or 2 Tsp. sugar and 1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 a vanilla bean, cut in half lengthwise, otherwise another teaspoon of vanilla extract

Whisk together the yolks, cornstarch and sugar and a small bowl. Set aside.

In a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat the milk to a rolling boil with the scraped-out vanilla bean inside. Let steep for half an hour covered off heat.

Heat the milk back up until almost but not quite boiling. quickly whisk 1/4 of a cup of the milk into the yolk mixture, then another 1/4 cup. Pour the milk and yolk mixture back into the rest of the milk through a sieve and cook, stirring constantly, until beginning to thicken. Remove from the heat and continue whisking until completely thickened.

Add the vanilla sugar and/or vanilla extract. Let cool and cover with clingfilm until ready to use.

For the Whipped Cream:
2 1/2 C. Cold whipping cream
3 TBSP Powder sugar, or more to taste
2 Tsp. Vanilla extract
2 Packets whipped cream stabilizer, optional but recommended (e.g. Whip It from Dr. Oetker)

Beat all on high until very firm peaks form. Refrigerate until ready to use.

To Assemble:
3/4 C. Raspberry jam, about 2/3 of a jar (get a whole jar just to be sure)
1/4 C. Dark rum, to thin the jam (optional)
1/2 Pint of fresh raspberries, optional
200 g. Decorating marzipan (300-400 g. will be needed if covering the whole cake)
1 C. Toasted sliced almonds (optional, if using the lesser amount of marzipan)
Food colouring in green and any other desired marzipan decoration colours (pink roses are nice)
Powdered sugar

Mix the jam with the rum, if using.

Layer a slice of the sponge cake by covering it in one third of the jam (and raspberries, if using), then one third of the custard, then about a quarter of the whipped cream. Repeat for the second layer. For the third layer, finish up all the jam and custard, but spread one quarter of the whipped cream around the sides of the cake and the other quarter on top.

Colour about 150 g. of the marzipan green with a few drops of food colouring and knead in. Roll out between sheets of parchment until you have a 9" circle and cut it out. Place on top of the cake. (If you want to cover the whole cake, use 300 g. of the marzipan and roll it out into the largest, thinnest circle possible. Drape over the cake carefully and trim to fit.)

Decorate the cake with the toasted around the sides if only the top is covered with marzipan.

Use the remaining marzipan and food colouring to make decorations, such as flowers, leaves, hearts, stars, et cetera. Stick these onto the cake. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, if desired.