Kremna rezina

Kremna rezina is a Slovenian sweet in which yellow vanilla cream and white whipped cream are stacked high between thin layers of puff pastry. Those made on the shores of Lake Bled are especially well known. In a square piece with uncovered sides, the two layers of cream, each containing a different kind of foam, are visible from the outside. Sandwiched between two flat sheets of pastry, the cream wobbles softly while remaining firm enough to be cut.

Vanilla cream with egg whites, and whipped cream

The lower vanilla cream is made by cooking milk, eggs, sugar and other ingredients and adjusting it to a thickness that holds its layer even when cut. Rather than simply being filled with a dense custard, this yellow part also contains foam. A 2010 report on the Park Hotel kitchen by the local newspaper Gorenjski glas records the step of adding stiffly beaten egg whites while the egg cream is still hot.

The cream containing egg whites is poured onto the bottom pastry, and once it has cooled completely, whipped cream is placed on top. The egg-white foam of the yellow layer and the milk-fat foam above it are made in separate steps. The lower cream is cooked until thick enough to be cut before the egg whites are mixed in, and the upper cream is whipped before use. As a result, both layers hold their shape yet melt lightly in the mouth.

The upper and lower layers of butter puff pastry are baked as large, flat sheets. Baking separates the thin layers of flour and fat, which become the base and the lid, and they shatter into fine flakes when eaten. The powdered sugar dusted on top stays in the uneven, browned surface and makes the yellow and white layers visible on the sides stand out all the more.

A cream cake served on the shores of Lake Bled. Layers of pale cream are stacked with pastry above and below. Photo: Petar Milošević, 2017-05-28, Lake Bled, Slovenia. Original image / CC BY-SA 4.0. Downscaled version from the source; no further processing.

The Park Hotel’s cake, 7 centimeters on each side

The Park Hotel’s cake measures 7 centimeters in length, width and height. In interviews with people involved, the cream portion was explained as two-thirds vanilla cream and one-third whipped cream. This is the composition at one hotel, not a standard that governs every shop in Slovenia.

When cutting it, the blade must pass through the two firm sheets of pastry without crushing the soft filling, so that the cube keeps its shape. A 2019 report also notes that the cutting, which used to be handled by three people, was switched to a machine. Passing down the recipe and cutting and serving many cakes neatly every day each call for their own kind of ingenuity.

Created at the Park Hotel in Bled in 1953

The hotel’s operator states that in 1953 the pastry chef István Lukačević created this cake, which now represents Bled. Today, at Kavarna Park on the lakeshore, it is still made every day based on the original, using eggs, milk, cream, butter, wheat flour and sugar. Unlike baked goods meant to be transported and kept for long periods, this cake centers on the lightness of fresh cream.

The cake grew from an item served at the hotel’s café after meals or during breaks into one of Bled’s symbols. At the town’s running events, there have also been cases where prizewinners received forks instead of medals. The link to the lakeside specialty shows even in a utensil for celebrating with the cake after the finish.

Cream cakes handed down in Domžale and Samobor

The hotel links this cake’s predecessor to the cream cakes of Vojvodina. Since 1938, the Lenček shop in Domžale has carried on by hand the recipe (ingredient proportions and method) handed down in Janko Lenček’s shop. 1953 is the year this cake was created at the Park Hotel in Bled.

In Samobor, in neighboring Croatia, there is kremšnita, with yellow cream sandwiched thickly between thin pastry. The town’s tourism information explains that although eggs, milk and flour are shared, a fresh, warm piece is preferred there, unlike versions that are cold and firm like pudding, versions with whipped cream added on top, or versions covered in chocolate. Both the way it is finished and the temperature at which it is eaten differ from Bled’s cake, which adds white whipped cream as a separate layer and is eaten chilled.

The person Samobor associates with its representative recipe is Đuro Lukačić, who trained in Zagreb in the 1920s, returned home and made it at his elder brother Marko’s shop. He is a different person from Bled’s Lukačević. Samobor’s cake eaten warm, Domžale’s cake made since 1938, and Bled’s cake with two layers of cream, created in 1953, each have characteristics handed down in their own towns.

Glossary