Karpatka

Poland’s karpatka is a pastry whose wavy, undulating crust is likened to the Carpathian Mountains. When the golden peaks and valleys are dusted with powdered sugar, they look like a snow-capped mountain range. Beneath the wavy choux lies a thick layer of cream. Some versions also use choux for the base, while others use a crisp, crumbly short pastry. Even when the mountainous top is the same, the base is not necessarily made from the same dough.

Baking choux pastry to create mountain-like ridges

Choux is made by adding flour to a pan of boiling water and butter and working it over the heat. After it has cooled slightly, eggs are mixed in one at a time, and the stiff lump of flour turns into a sticky, smooth paste. When both the top and the bottom are choux, the paste is divided into two sheets and spread thinly on baking sheets or in pans before baking.

Moisture inside the paste turns to steam and lifts it, forming peaks and valleys of all sizes across the broad surface. Unlike choux piped into small rounds, each sheet keeps its own distinctive rise just as it is. When powdered sugar is dusted over the cooled surface, the white powder and the golden color showing through here and there bring out the mountain shape.

Poland’s kremówka is a pastry in which cream is sandwiched between layers of puff pastry. Puff pastry, with its fine parallel layers, and choux, which is worked in a pan, enriched with eggs and forms small hollows, differ in both cross-section and the way they rise.

Karpatka made with layers of wavy choux pastry and cream. Powdered sugar remains on the mountain-like top. Photo: Michał Sulik, 2010-08-13, location unknown. Original image / CC BY 3.0. Downscaled version from the distributing source; no additional editing.

Sandwiching a thick layer of buttercream between two sheets of pastry

In contrast to the strongly undulating exterior, the inside has a broad, horizontal layer of cream. A custard made with milk, eggs and other ingredients is combined with butter, spread thickly over the bottom sheet, topped with the other sheet, and chilled to set. The smooth white layer joins the two sheets, and the cake is cut into squares.

In the recipe (ingredient proportions and method) by the cook Dorota, which uses choux for both the top and the bottom, the cream is cooked first from milk, whole eggs and egg yolks, potato starch, and wheat flour. It is cooled thoroughly to room temperature, then combined with sugar and whipped butter in several additions. Rather than pouring in the hot custard as it is, the cooked cream and the butter are brought to the same temperature before mixing, giving the cream a firmness that holds its shape when chilled. If the temperature difference is large, they are hard to blend evenly.

A short-pastry base, or choux for both top and bottom

A dictionary examined by the language and culture researcher Katarzyna Smyk describes a crisp, crumbly base layered with cream and wavy choux. On the other hand, versions made with choux for both the top and the bottom are also common in home baking today. While the structure of a thick vanilla-and-butter cream between thin crusts has been passed down, the texture changes depending on the dough used for the base. When the base is made of short pastry, some methods spread a thin layer of marmalade over the baked base before spreading the cream. Wavy choux dusted with powdered sugar, thick cream, marmalade and the base pastry are layered together, with the tartness of fruit added as well.

Creams that vary with eggs and fats

The thick white layer of cream can also be made in several ways. Dorota uses a cream in which a custard cooked from milk, eggs and flour is added, once cooled, to whipped butter. Home methods that pair it with the older short-pastry base also include russel cream, which combines sugar syrup and egg-white foam with butter, and a method that enriches pudding by adding butter. The lightness created by egg foam is not the same as the smoothness obtained from cooked milk, and the difference in mouthfeel shows in the sliced layer of cream as well.

A 1972 attestation and earlier household memories

According to Smyk’s literature research, the pastry’s name appears in a textbook for learning Polish word formation, first published in 1972. Interviews with 220 people conducted in 2015 included recollections of learning the name in the late 1950s or early 1960s. Some generations often baked it at home from the late 1970s into the 1980s, while others remember its popularity in the 1990s.

Pudding-style cream spread by a commercial powder

The methods that spread into homes included both recipes cooked from scratch and commercial mixes. According to a manufacturer’s account published by the Polish Federation of Food Producers, a factory in Włocławek launched a karpatka cream powder for home use in 1986, and it later became Delecta’s flagship product.

In an account marking the product’s 25th anniversary around 2011, the company’s president said that what had previously been a choux pastry filled with whatever cream one liked became, through the spread of the company’s product, a pastry filled with pudding-style cream.

In 1995, a trademark application was also filed for the product label. The name of the pastry as it is called at home and the name of the powdered cream on store shelves overlap, yet each has its own history.

Glossary