Wuzetka, the Warsaw W-Z cake: cocoa sponge, a thick layer of whipped cream, chocolate glaze and a rosette
The cake from Warsaw's pastry shops, named — according to the most popular version — after the W-Z thoroughfare opened in 1949, that has looked the same for decades: two sheets of cocoa sponge, a tall layer of whipped cream between them, a thin layer of plum butter for tartness, a chocolate glaze on top and a cream rosette on every square. The cream is set with gelatin, so the cake holds its shape when cut and keeps two days in the fridge.
Your own work in that: 55 min.
- Sponge 20 min
- Baking 30 min
- Cooling 60 min
- Cream 20 min
- Assembling 15 min
- Setting in the fridge 180 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneWhip the cocoa sponge
Heat the oven to 170 °C, line the tin with paper. Whip the eggs with the sugar and salt 8 minutes, until pale, thick and tripled in volume. Sift the flour, potato starch, cocoa and baking powder together and fold in gently with a spatula in two batches. Finally pour the oil down the side of the bowl and fold in with a few strokes.
Ingredients: 5 pcs eggs · 150 g sugar · 100 g plain flour · 30 g potato starch · 3 tbsp cocoa powder · 1 tsp baking powder · 3 tbsp oil · 1 pinch salt
TipEight minutes of whipping is no exaggeration: a sponge rises mainly on the air beaten into the eggs, the baking powder only helps. The oil gives moisture, so the sponge needs no soaking.
Pale, thick foam; flour and cocoa folded in gentlyBake
Pour the batter into the tin, level it and bake 28–30 minutes, until a skewer comes out dry. Don't open the oven for the first 20 minutes. Take it out, drop the tin once onto the counter from 20 cm (the sponge then won't sink as it cools) and cool completely, an hour.
Even, risen, a dry skewerSplit and brush with plum butter
Lift the cold sponge out of the tin and cut it horizontally into two layers with a long knife. Put the bottom layer back in the tin (ideally in a frame, or the same tin lined with fresh paper) and brush thinly with the plum butter. The tart plum butter balances the sweet cream: that is where the cake gets its character.
Two layers, a thin coat of plum butter on the bottom oneWhip the cream and set it with gelatin
Sprinkle the gelatin over 5 tablespoons of cold water, after 5 minutes dissolve it over low heat (don't boil) and cool to lukewarm. Whip 800 ml of cold cream with the icing sugar and vanilla sugar until stiff. Stir 2 tablespoons of the whipped cream into the dissolved gelatin, then pour that into the rest of the cream, whipping on the lowest speed for 10 seconds.
Ingredients: 950 ml whipping cream, 30 % or 36 % · 5 tbsp icing sugar · 1 tbsp vanilla sugar · 4 tsp powdered gelatin · 150 g plum butter or blackcurrant jam
TipTempering the gelatin with a spoon of cream prevents lumps: hot gelatin poured straight into cold cream sets into threads. Lukewarm, not hot, and quickly.
Gelatin tempered with cream, then into the restAssemble
Spread the cream over the plum butter in a tall, even layer (about 2 cm) right to the edges. Cover with the second sponge layer and press lightly with your palm. Refrigerate 30 minutes so the cream begins to set before the glaze goes on.
Two centimetres of cream, the second layer on topGlaze with chocolate
Melt the broken chocolate with the butter over a water bath, cool 5 minutes and pour over the top, spreading thinly to the edges with a spatula. Refrigerate 3 hours, ideally overnight.
Ingredients: 100 g dark chocolate · 40 g butter
A thin glaze, then three hours in the fridgeCut and pipe the rosettes
With a knife dipped in hot water and wiped, cut the cake into 16 squares, cutting straight down in one stroke. Whip the remaining 150 ml cream stiff with a teaspoon of icing sugar and pipe a rosette onto each square. Keeps 2 days in the fridge.
Squares, a rosette on each
Before you start
Without gelatin
Whip 36 % cream with cream stabiliser (e.g. 3 sachets) or with 250 g of cold mascarpone: the cream is less stable, so the cake is best eaten the same day.
With sour cherries
Instead of plum butter, a layer of drained compote cherries, 200 g: a Black Forest-style wuzetka, juicier.
The cream oozed out when cutting
Too little gelatin or chilled too briefly. The full 3 hours in the fridge and a hot-water knife, straight down in one stroke, no sawing.
