Polish Carpathian Cake: Karpatka

Preheat the oven to 390F. Always start the preparation of karpatka by cooking the pudding for the custard cream because it has to cool down completely on its own.

Pour 1.5 cups of milk into a saucepan. Bring the milk with vanilla extract to a boil. Meanwhile, mix half a glass of remaining milk with 2 bags of pudding powder.

Turn down the heat to low and pour in the well-mixed custard powder with milk. Keep mixing until it is smooth and thick.

Transfer into a glass dish, cover so it doesn't dry up, and wait until it cools down.

Now, you start working on the dough. Start preparing the dough by melting the butter with 1 cup of water in a pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.

Add flour to the pot stirring until smooth. Take off the heat and wait for it to cool completely, so set it aside.

When the mixture is cooled down a bit, mix it with eggs until you get a smooth dough with no lumps. You can use a mixer for this step.

Line 2 baking sheets (14''x17'') with parchment paper.

Using a spoon, spread the dough onto the parchment paper. It doesn't have to be smooth so it gets wavy while baking.

Bake for about 30 minutes, one baking pan at a time. Remove the first one from the baking pan to cool down.

Now, get back to finishing the cream. Once your pudding is completely cooled down, use a mixer to mix in the butter until smooth.

Place ready pudding cream on the bottom of the cake and level its surface. Then cover with a second pastry and sprinkle with icing powdered sugar on top.