Babka piaskowa: buttery Polish sand cake with potato starch
The classic creamed-butter babka in which half the wheat flour is replaced with potato starch. That is what gives the fine, 'sandy' crumb that dissolves on the tongue. Butter creamed long with sugar, eggs one at a time, everything at room temperature. Twenty minutes of work, just under an hour in the oven.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Creaming 20 min
- Baking 55 min
- Cooling 15 min
Step by step
0 / 7 done
Cream the butter and sugar
Heat the oven to 170 °C. Butter the tin and coat with breadcrumbs. Beat the soft butter with the sugar and vanilla sugar for 5 minutes, until pale and fluffy like a cream. Don't cut it short: this aeration is what makes the cake light.
Ingredients: 250 g butter · 200 g sugar · 1 tbsp vanilla sugar · 5 pcs eggs · 150 g plain flour · 150 g potato starch · 2 tsp baking powder · 1 pcs lemon, zest · 1 pinch salt
TipThe butter should be soft but not melted. A finger goes in without resistance, but the block holds its shape.
Pale and fluffy after five minutes
Add the eggs one at a time
Add the eggs one by one, beating half a minute after each until the mass is smooth again. Add the lemon zest and salt.
TipEggs straight from the fridge curdle the mass: the butter seizes into lumps. If that happens, add a spoon of the measured flour and keep beating.
One at a time, until smooth
Sift the flours
Sift the plain flour, potato starch and baking powder together into a bowl. Sifting aerates and mixes; potato starch likes to clump.
Two flours and baking powder, sifted together
Fold together
Add the flours to the butter mass and fold with a spatula or the mixer on its lowest speed, only until combined. The batter is thick and creamy and falls off the spoon in large pieces.
Thick, creamy, briefly mixed
Into the tin
Spoon the batter into the tin, level it and tap the tin on the counter a few times to release large air bubbles.
Levelled, tin tapped on the counter
Bake
170 °C, conventional, lower or middle shelf, 50–55 minutes, until a skewer comes out dry. Don't open the oven for the first 40 minutes: the cake sinks. If the top darkens too fast, cover with foil.
Golden, tall, a dry skewer
Cool and dust
Leave in the tin 15 minutes, then turn out onto a rack. Dust the cold cake with icing sugar. Keeps 4 days in a sealed tin and is even better on the second day.
Ingredients: 15 g butter · 2 tbsp breadcrumbs · 2 tbsp icing sugar
Fine crumb, icing sugar
Before you start
Lemon
The juice of a whole lemon in the batter, and on top an icing of about 150 g of icing sugar mixed with the juice of a second lemon. The Easter classic.
Marbled
Mix a third of the batter with 2 spoons of cocoa and a spoon of milk, layer alternately with the plain, draw a knife through once.
It sank
The oven opened too early, or too much baking powder. A sunken babka is still delicious; next time, don't peek for the first 40 minutes.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
