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The Pani Walewska cake tastes heavenly delicious, special and varied, as it combines very different layers. This also makes it a sweet eye-catcher to enjoy. You can make the famous Polish dessert yourself at home. You can find a detailed Pani Walewska cake recipe with the exact quantities and step-by-step instructions below.
Where does Pani Walewska cake come from?
Pani Walewska is a popular Polish cake. It is also known as a dessert, similar to the Pavlova cake or the cake “Monastyrskaya izba”. It is not known where the recipe originally came from.
The cake is named after the Polish countess Maria Walewska. She was the mistress of Napoleon I, by whom she had a son.
What does the dessert consist of?
The Pani Walewska cake has many different layers. This is what makes it so versatile and unique in taste. It is similar with the cake “Damskiy kapriz”.
The cake base is made from shortcrust pastry. It tastes incredibly tender and buttery.
The layer of blackcurrant jam gives the dessert a fruity and tart note, just like the Tula pryanik. It also makes for a beautifully colorful cake slice.
The meringue with flaked almonds is placed on top. It tastes crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. The almonds give it a nutty note.
Between the two cake bases made from shortcrust pastry, jam, meringue and almonds comes the vanilla buttercream, which is also used to fill the lemon slices and the frying pan chocolate cake. It tastes heavenly delicious – so creamy and tender.
Alternatives for blackcurrant jam
The original recipe uses blackcurrant jam. I also used it for my cake. Its tart taste perfectly balances out the sweetness of the meringue in the dessert.
Alternatively, you can use another jam made from tart fruits. Sour cherry jam, cherry plum jam and cornelian cherry jam, for example, are perfect for this.
Alternatives for flaked almonds
The Polish cake is traditionally made with flaked almonds. Chopped almonds are also suitable instead. Alternatively, you can use chopped walnuts or hazelnuts for the recipe.
The Pani Walewska cake is
- tender,
- creamy,
- crumbly,
- crispy,
- nutty,
- slightly fruity,
- incredibly delicious,
- versatile and special in taste,
- with shortcrust pastry, meringue, blackcurrant jam, almonds, vanilla buttercream,
- a sweet eye-catcher on the coffee table,
- to make with a certain amount of time,
- perfect for a celebration.
How to make Pani Walewska cake: tips and tricks
- Use cold ingredients for the shortcrust dough and process it as quickly as possible.
- Instead of blackcurrant jam, you can use another tart jam.
- You can replace flaked almonds with chopped almonds, walnuts or hazelnuts.
- The baking time and baking temperature for the meringue specified in the recipe may vary. The meringue should remain light in color after baking and must not become too dark. Also make sure that the flaked almonds do not burn.
- The butter and pudding for the cake cream must be room warm and both at about the same temperature so that they can combine well without the cream curdling.
- The shortcrust pastry base and the vanilla buttercream contain very little sugar and taste slightly sweet. I recommend that you do not increase the amount of sugar, as the meringue is very sweet.
Video recipe for Pani Walewska cake
You can find a short video for the Pani Walewska cake on my Youtube channel. There you can see exactly how to make it at home. If you don’t want to miss any more videos from me, please subscribe to my channel.
Did you make the Pani Walewska cake at home using this recipe? I look forward to your result, your star rating and your comment below on how it turned out and how you liked it.
Try out these other sweet recipes from Polish cuisine:
- Karpatka – Polish Carpathian Mountain cream cake
- Polish Royal cheesecake – with chocolate crumbles
- Piernik Staropolski – traditional Polish gingerbread cake
Pani Walewska cake
Ingredients
for the dough
- 250 g butter very cold
- 4 egg yolks
- 50 g sugar
- approx. 400 g flour
- 6 g baking powder
for the meringue
- 6 egg whites
- 300 g powdered sugar
- 20 g cornstarch
- 1 pinch of salt
- 100 g flaked almonds
for the cream
- 200 g butter room warm
- 400 ml milk
- 2 egg yolks
- 60 g sugar
- 40 g cornstarch
- 1 pinch of ground vanilla bean
for the filling
- 450 g blackcurrant jam
Instructions
Preparation of the dough
- Mix flour with baking powder in a mixing bowl.
- Add cold butter and chop finely.
- Add sugar and egg yolks and knead briefly and quickly to form a barely homogeneous shortcrust dough.
- Roll out the dough thinly on a sheet of baking paper to the size of the baking tray and pull the baking paper with the cake base onto the baking tray.
- Pre-bake the shortcrust pastry base in a preheated oven at 356 °F (180 °C) for 10 minutes.
- Spread blackcurrant jam evenly over the still-warm cake base.
Preparation of the meringue
- Beat egg whites with salt until foamy.
- Gradually add powdered sugar and beat until stiff.
- Fold cornstarch into the meringue.
- Spread the meringue mixture over the shortcrust pastry base spread with the jam and smooth it out.
- Sprinkle the meringue with flaked almonds.
- Bake the meringue shortcrust pastry base in a preheated oven at 302 °F (150 °C) for approx. 40 minutes until the meringue layer is firm on top but remains soft on the inside.
- Leave the meringue shortcrust pastry cake to cool completely.
Preparation of the cream
- In a heatproof bowl, whisk together 200 ml of milk, egg yolks and cornstarch to form a homogeneous mixture.
- Pour the remaining 200 ml milk and sugar into a saucepan with a thick base and heat while stirring.
- Pour the hot sugar milk into the egg yolk milk mixture in a thin stream, stirring constantly.
- Now pour the whole milk mixture back into the saucepan, bring to the boil over a medium heat, stirring constantly, and continue to cook the pudding for approx. 1 minute, stirring.
- Remove the pudding from the heat, stir in vanilla and leave to cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally.
- Beat softened butter for approx. 5 minutes until light and creamy.
- Add the vanilla pudding in batches, beating each time to form a homogeneous cream.
Preparation of the cake
- Carefully cut the meringue shortcrust pastry cake into two equal parts.
- Spread all the cream evenly over one of the two cake bases and smooth it out.
- Carefully place the second cake base on top.
- Chill the Pani Walewska cake for at least 3 hours.
- Leave to stand at room temperature for approx. 20 minutes before serving.
Notes
- Use cold ingredients for the shortcrust dough and process it as quickly as possible.
- Instead of blackcurrant jam, you can use another tart jam.
- You can replace flaked almonds with chopped almonds, walnuts or hazelnuts.
- The baking time and baking temperature for the meringue specified may vary. The meringue should remain light in color after baking and must not become too dark. Also make sure that the flaked almonds do not burn.
- Butter and the pudding for the cake cream must be room warm and both at about the same temperature so that they can combine well without the cream curdling.
- The shortcrust pastry base and the vanilla buttercream contain very little sugar and taste slightly sweet. I recommend that you do not increase the amount of sugar, as the meringue is very sweet.
- Take note of the detailed tips and tricks for making the Pani Walewska cake at the top of the article.
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