Book review: Sweet Polish Kitchen

These recipes are simple to follow, yet her thoughtful details on the background of each will encourage any baker to look further into Polish cuisine.

Honey, cinnamon, ginger, vanilla, citrus, cherries and sweet whipped cheese – all ingredients welcome in any baker’s kitchen. And especially that of Ren Behan, if her latest book Sweet Polish Kitchen is anything to go by.

This is Behan’s second book, following Wild Honey and Rye, a compilation of modern Polish recipes. In Sweet Polish Kitchen Behan draws upon her Polish heritage and trips to the country to deep-dive into all things sweet, offering 80 recipes, from celebratory cakes and home bakes to nostalgic treats.

Those unfamiliar with Polish baked goods would benefit most from this book, as it provides flavourful ideas for desserts inspired by a country that is often described as a crossroads between East and West Europe.

There are recipes for the traditional bundt and a blueberry and almond babka, as well as many chocolate treats, including a chocolate and honey layer cake (stefanka) and a chocolate, hazelnut and cherry torte (marcello), while traditional gingerbread cookies –katarzynki – take the form of small cakes spiced with cinnamon, cloves and allspice and slathered in melted dark chocolate.

Behan describes how her favourite filling for the traditional Polish folded dumpling (pierogi) is mashed potato and cheese, but offers up instead a sweet cream cheese version, the filling seen again in her recipe for Polish cheesecake, or sernik.

In her recipe for Krakowian-style bagels (obwarzanek Krakowski), she describes how this “bagel-pretzel” hybrid has been sold by street vendors for more than 600 years and even holds PGI status. Its simplicity is mirrored throughout the book – even the Carpathian Mountain Cake (karpatka) is just choux pastry sandwiched with pastry cream, marmalade and dusted with icing sugar and toasted flaked almonds, but the snowy peaks on the choux mounds make for a teatime treat that would also stand up as a celebratory dessert.

Those with a sweet tooth, take note. These recipes are simple to follow, yet her thoughtful details on the background of each will encourage any baker to look further into Polish cuisine.
The Sweet Polish Kitchen by Ren Behan Pavilion Books (£26)