Pope Cake

I feel like I'm stealing my friends' thunder by posting this. We went over to their house last Saturday for lunch, and the told us a story about the dessert before we even ate it. You know it's gotta be good when that happens.

Here's the story: They were visiting Europe and were eating dinner in Poland. They were told of a dessert that was called locally, 'Pope Cake', because Pope John Paul II had declared it his favorite dessert, from his home country. They had some and loved it. Well, more recently, my friend wanted to make it, and looked all over online for the recipe (in English...). The best she could find was this one which wasn't exactly well-translated from the Polish (It calls for a 'slab' of butter, and has measurements in 'dags'...) My friends are adventurous in the kitchen and tried their best to decipher it and make the 'cake' for us on Saturday. It was delicious!

I was supposed to bring dessert to an event Monday, and wasn't totally happy enough with the oatmeal cookies to share them, so, after work Monday, I tried to whip up this same pie It's really a pie more than a cake. The end result is a pudding-like filling between two shortbread-like round crusts. They posted the recipe they tried, so I used that (rather than trying to make a guess at what a 'dag' or 'slab' was on my own...) An unusual part about the recipe: it involves making 2 crusts and a cream filling, and both parts each call for 3 egg yolks (Yes, that's right, half a dozen egg yolks, total.). I had PLENTY of eggs on hand, so that wasn't a problem, but then was left with 6 egg whites... haven't used all those up yet.

Anyway, the filling was a lot easier to make than I suspected it would be, so I finished faster than I planned, and might have overcooked it a bit (by the end, it was starting to look like tapioca pudding!) The crusts cooked nicely, but puffed up thicker than I expected, and also shrunk in diameter, which surprised me. Even with these unexpected twists, the pie turned out great, and was mostly eaten by our group. And a bonus: a couple pieces were leftover, so I got to have one with my lunch today! And it was still good!