A Polish apple cake with streusel, shortcrust and deep Jewish roots
Every Polish family served szarlotka

Szarlotka Courtesy of Chronicle Books
This recipe is from Laurel Kratochvila’s Dobre Dobre: Baking from Poland and Beyond. Reposted with permission. Read more about Kratochvila here.
“In my house we never baked bread,” Łukasz Szlapa, a humble Krakowiak aerospace engineer and hobbyist bread baker, told me. “But we did bake szarlotka. It’s one of my first memories around food, the smell of baking apples, turning deep brown and caramelized in the szabaśnik, the ever-warm baking part of my grandmother’s piec kaflowy, the enormous, old, tiled stove that kept the whole house warm in her Beskidy village just south of Kraków.” There’s almost no Polish family without a szarlotka recipe—a short-crust apple pie with either a crumble or a second layer of pastry and occasionally a meringue topping. After all, the autumnal climate and its wonderful glut of apples suits it. Here we keep things classic with a slightly sour apple filling, the sweetness coming from a thick layer of crumble on top. Bake it and think of a little house with a big, tiled stove in the middle of the forest.
NOTE: Łukasz recommends using the early ripening papierówka apples, also called paper apples or white transparent apples. Cortland, Granny Smith, or any other tart baking apple will work as well.
MAKES one 13 x 9 in [33 x 23 cm] cake (8 to 12 slices)
DOUGH
1 batch Półkruche Dough (page 191)
TOPPING
Double batch Streusel (Kruszonka, page 346)
FILLING
3 lb 5 oz [1.5 kg] apples, peeled, cored, and cut into 1 in [2.5 cm] cubes
¾ cup [150 g] sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
Prepare the półkruche dough and streusel according to the recipes on pages 191 and 346, then chill both for at least 1 hour.
While your dough and streusel chill, prepare the filling. In a large pot, toss together the apples, sugar, and lemon juice. Cover and simmer over low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes, or until the apples have softened and half turned into sauce. Set aside to cool for about 30 minutes.
While the apple filling cools, preheat the oven to 350ºF [180ºC] with the convection setting turned on and line a 13 x 9 in [33 x 23 cm] baking dish with parchment paper.
To prepare the base of the szarlotka, roll out your dough on a lightly floured work surface into a rectangle about the size of the pan. Trim the edges to make a tidy rectangle, then gently lift the dough and place it in the pan. Press the dough to fit all the way to the edges, then prick it all over with a fork. Chill the dough for 20 minutes. Blind-bake for 15 minutes, or until it is no longer shiny, rather matte, and just beginning to turn golden brown.
Once the base is blind-baked, remove it from the oven. Pour in all the apple filling and top with the streusel. Return it to the oven and bake for another 35 to 40 minutes, until the streusel is golden brown and the filling bubbles.
Allow to cool completely, then slice in squares and serve as is or with a dollop of whipped cream. If you like a delicious hot mess, don’t wait until it’s cool, just dig in right away. Store the cooled cake airtight at room temperature for 2 to 3 days or refrigerated for up to 5 days.
NON-TRADITIONAL VARIATION:
Add 1 cup [120 g] slivered almonds in the streusel to give this an extra dimension of crunch and nuttiness.
Risen Shortcrust Dough
Ciasto Półkruche
Półkruche or “half” kruche dough is a lighter short dough than the basic kruche dough thanks to the addition of baking powder. The resulting texture is more crumbly, halfway between a cake and a cookie. Several Polish cakes use this dough as a base or shredded into a streusel-like crumb topping.
MAKES about 2¼ lb [1 kg] of dough
1 Tbsp [15 g] full-fat sour cream
1 egg 1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 cups [500 g] all-purpose flour
2 tsp [6 g] fleur de sel or 1 tsp kosher salt
1½ tsp double-acting baking powder
1 cup plus 5 Tbsp [300 g] cold unsalted butter, cubed
1½ cups [180 g] confectioners’ sugar, sifted
In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the sour cream, egg, egg yolk, and vanilla until smooth and no streaks of sour cream remain. In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the flour, salt, and baking powder on low speed until homogenous. Add the butter and mix until the dough is sandy and no visible chunks remain. Add the sugar and mix until incorporated. Pour in the egg mixture in a slow stream and continue to mix on low speed until the dough comes together into a solid mass, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove the dough from the bowl, form it into a thick disk, and wrap airtight. Chill for 1 hour or up to a week before using. In the freezer, this will last for up to 3 months. To use, simply defrost in the refrigerator overnight.
VARIATION: RISEN CHOCOLATE SHORTCRUST DOUGH
Replace 50 grams of flour with 50 grams of cocoa powder (so in total: 3½ cups plus 1 heaping tablespoon [450 g] all-purpose flour and ½ cup plus 1 heaping tablespoon [50 g] cocoa powder). Mix in the cocoa powder with the flour and salt. This chocolate dough adds a lot of extra chocolate flavor and a nice color contrast. Use this dough anywhere you’d use plain półkruche dough.
Streusel
Kruszonka
Kruszonka is the crumb topping used to sweeten and add crunchy crumble to everything from yeast baking to coffee cakes. Make this up to a week ahead of time and keep airtight in the fridge.
NOTE: Double this recipe for the Szarlotka
MAKES 1 3/4 cups [375 g]
1¼ cups [150 g] all-purpose flour
7 Tbsp [50 g] confectioners’ sugar
¼ cup [50 g] granulated sugar
9 Tbsp [125 g] unsalted butter, at room temperature
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, confectioners’ sugar, and granulated sugar. Use your hands to rub the butter into the dry ingredients until you have a crumbly texture and no visible pockets of butter remain. Chill for at least 20 minutes in the fridge before using in your recipes, or store airtight in the fridge for up to a week.
VARIATION:
Add 1 tsp ground cinnamon or 1 tsp grated lemon zest, or replace the granulated sugar with light brown muscovado sugar.