Cwibak: a buttery Polish loaf cake with walnuts and dried fruit
Cwibak is a close relative of the Polish fruit cake keks: the same loaf tin, similar dried fruit, and a name borrowed from the German Zwieback. The line between the two is blurry and every family draws it differently; this version has a pale, buttery crumb and plenty of walnuts. Rum, lemon zest, an hour in the oven and two days of waiting for it to mellow. It keeps a week, so it is baked in December in advance.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Fruit soaking 30 min
- Batter 20 min
- Baking 60 min
- Cooling 20 min
Step by step
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Soak the fruit
Quarter the prunes, dice the candied peel finely, chop half the walnuts coarsely (keep the rest in halves for the top). Mix with the raisins and rum and leave 30 minutes. Heat the oven to 170 °C and line the loaf tin with paper.
Ingredients: 150 g walnuts · 100 g prunes · 80 g raisins · 60 g candied orange peel · 3 tbsp rum or spirit
TipSoaked fruit doesn't draw moisture out of the batter in the oven, which is why the cake isn't dry. Without alcohol use orange juice; the effect is the same.
Prunes, raisins, peel, walnuts, rum
Cream the butter, sugar and eggs
Beat the soft butter with the sugar, vanilla sugar, lemon zest and salt 4 minutes, until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating half a minute after each.
Ingredients: 200 g butter · 150 g sugar · 1 tbsp vanilla sugar · 4 pcs eggs · 250 g plain flour · 1½ tsp baking powder · 1 pcs lemon, zest · 1 pinch salt · 1 tbsp icing sugar
TipCold eggs curdle the mixture into lumps. If that happens, add a spoon of the measured flour and keep beating: it rescues the emulsion.
Pale, fluffy, eggs one at a time
Add the flour
Sift the flour with the baking powder into the mixture and fold in with a spatula only until combined. The batter is thick; it has to hold heavy fruit, which is why no milk is added.
A thick batter, briefly folded
Dust the fruit with flour
Drain the soaked fruit of any leftover rum and toss with a spoon of flour until coated. Dusted fruit slips less in the batter. Fold into the batter.
TipFruit at the bottom and plain cake on top is the commonest fault of fruit loaves. A thick batter matters most; flour on the fruit helps as well.
A spoon of flour over the wet fruit
Into the tin
Spoon the batter into the tin, level it and press the reserved walnut halves into the top in two rows. Tap the tin on the counter a few times.
Walnut halves in rows on top
Bake
Bake 55–60 minutes at 170 °C, until a skewer in the centre comes out dry. If the top darkens after 40 minutes, cover with foil. Leave in the tin 20 minutes, then lift out by the paper onto a rack.
A split golden top, a dry skewerWait, then slice
Wrap the completely cold loaf in paper and foil and wait a day or two: the fruit gives back moisture and the cake becomes dense and full of flavour. Slice thinly, dust with icing sugar. Keeps a week somewhere cool; freezes in slices.
After two days it slices thin and clean
Before you start
Marbled, half cocoa
Mix half the batter (without fruit) with 2 spoons of cocoa and a spoon of milk, the rest with the fruit. Spoon into the tin alternately, one stroke of a knife: a two-tone cwibak, a classic in many homes.
How it differs from keks
The line is blurry: some families call a whisked sponge full of dried fruit cwibak, others a creamed butter cake very close to keks. This version puts the buttery crumb and walnuts first. Both bake in a loaf tin and both are better after two days.
A dry cwibak
Overbaked by a quarter of an hour, or the fruit wasn't soaked. Check the skewer at 50 minutes; wrapped overnight in a cloth sprinkled with rum it regains moisture.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
