Karpatka Cake

Place milk, half of the sugar, and salt into a saucepan and heat over medium heat until simmering.
Meanwhile, combine the second half of the sugar with the cornstarch in a heatproof mixing bowl, then add the egg yolks and vanilla. Whisk until a homogenous consistency is reached without cornstarch lumps.
When the milk start simmering, remove from the heat and slowly add approximately ½ of it to the egg yolk mixture while whisking vigorously to temper the eggs. Then, pour the egg mixture back into a saucepan with the hot milk.
Cook over low heat for 5-9 minutes, whisking consistently until the mixture become pudding-like in consistency, then cook for about 2 minutes. Don’t stop whisking. If lumps appear, whisk vigorously and they will dissolve.
Remove from the heat and pour the mixture into a large, shallow dish. Cover the pastry cream with plastic wrap so they touch each other and let it cool down to room temperature. You can place it into the fridge to speed up the process. However, if you cool it down too much, you need to bring it back to room temperature before the next step.
In a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (or use a hand mixer and a large mixing bowl), beat the butter at room temperature with 15g of sugar until white and fluffy.
Whisk the pastry cream (IMPORTANT! The pastry cream should be at room temperature at this point or it won’t mix well with the butter) until it becomes smooth again.
Then, add the pastry cream a couple of tablespoons at a time to the butter and whisk every time on medium until incorporated. Continue until all pastry cream is combined with the butter. Scrape the sides and the bottom of the bowl, then beat again for 10 seconds.

Onto a serving plate, place the clean ring from the spring form that you used to bake the cake layers. Cover the sides inside the ring with parchment paper, if desired, as it will make it easier to release the cake after chilling.
Place the first layer (the one that is less puffed up) inside. Press slightly to make it flatter.
Place all cream on top and even it out.
Cover with the top layer and press a little bit to attach it. Then, refrigerate for 2-3 hours or until the cream has set. Remove from the ring, peal the parchment paper if used, dust with powdered sugar, and serve.

INGREDIENTS AND SUBSTITUTES

Flour – I use all-purpose flour but you can use pastry flour if you like to make this cream puff cake.

Cornstarch – Cornstarch has no aftertaste and it doesn’t affect the texture or the color of the cream. However, some people prefer to use a blend of flour and starch, while others replace it with potato starch.

Eggs – We need three whole eggs at room temperature to make choux pastry for Polish Carpathian cake and 4 egg yolks to make the cream. If you don’t know where to use egg whites, check my Meringue cookies recipe.

Milk and water – For the choux pastry, we need whole milk and water. However, you can use only water if you like. As for the pastry cream, we need whole milk which you can’t replace with anything else.

Vanilla extract and salt – I add these to the pastry and cream to make the flavors more interesting.

Butter – We need unsalted butter for the dough as well as for the cream. Although the temperature of the butter for the dough doesn’t really matter because you’re going to melt it together with the milk and water, the cream calls for room temperature butter.

Sugar – I use granulated sugar for the dough and cream and powdered sugar to decorate the cake.

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