Polish Placek – An Enriched Sweet Bread

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This sweet bread is topped with buttery crumb topping for a delicious treat.  Bake it as a loaf or as a round for an extra special treat with your coffee or tea.  It is an Easter time tradition, but is great all year long.

     This sweet treat is part bread and part coffee cake.  It is a perfect addition to your breakfast or brunch menu.  It is fabulous on its own fresh, but with a smear of butter or jam it is great for several days.  It is an Easter tradition in many places, but there is no reason you can’t enjoy a slice any time.  A batch makes two loaves (or cakes) so enjoy one now and freeze one for later!

    With Easter right around the corner, I knew I wanted to do something fun and a little different.  With this year’s Easter Open House being a brunch theme, I had the perfect venue to serve lots of coffee cake!

    Nana’s family is Polish, so I thought it would be fun to try out another fun Polish recipe.  The lemony babka from I made last year around Easter was so fun, I knew there had to be more delicious Polish recipes that would fit the bill.

   There were quite a few fun versions of Polish placek out there.  All started with a rich yeast dough, full of butter and eggs. Then they are topped with a crumb topping called Kruszynki.  Most were baked in loaf pans and they all looked delicious.

    I found a recipe on a Polish parish’s website that was from a newspaper clipping dated March 17, 1966.  This is Mrs. Mary Lipinski’s recipe of 124 Colt Street, city unknown.  It seemed like Mary might know a thing or two about placek, so I knew this would be the recipe I would go with.

    The first time I made it, I followed the recipe to a “T.”  That is always a great place to start, especially when it comes to baking.

      That was a really large recipe, meant to yield 4 loafs.  Which is a lot of placek, even for my big family of eaters.  So this time I decided to make some tweaks and shrink it down a bit.

     Below is the original recipe in case that is what you are looking for.   I baked it in 12″ cast iron skillet and a 9″ one as well.  However it was intended to be baked in either 4 9×5″ loaf pans, 4 9″ round cake pans, or a combination of the two.

Polish Placek Coffee Cake – Big Batch Recipe

Makes 4 loaves or 1 12″ and 1 9″ round (Serves 32)

Part 1 Ingredients

• 2 cups scalded milk, lukewarm
• 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 Tablespoon dry active yeast

Part 2 Ingredients

• 1.5 cups softened butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 6 eggs
• 1 Tablespoon salt
• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Kruszynki (Crumb Topping):

• 1.25 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cups granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup softened butter

1. In a large mixing bowl, mix together all of the ingredients in the part one list.  Cover with a towel and let rise for a half hour.
2. In your mixer, beat the butter until light and fluffy.  Add sugar and beat until completely combined.  Add eggs one at a time, beating between each addition.  Add flour, salt and vanilla and mix until just combined.  
3. Stir together the yeast mixture and the butter mixture until if form a soft (and very sticky) dough.  Place in greased pans and let rise until doubled in size.  Don’t let them rise over 3/4 of the way up the pans, so they don’t go over while baking.
4. In a small bowl, mix sugar and flour for crumb topping.  Use a fork to cut the butter into the sugar, flour mixture.  Sprinkle over dough.
5. Bake at 350 F for 30-40 minutes for loaves and 35-45 for cast iron skillets.  Mary says not to over bake them because the dough will get dark. 

Placek History and Pronunciation

It seems like the word placek just means cake in Polish.  It is pronounced “plah-sek.”

I am not sure how original this is to Poland itself, but it seems a lot of American cities with large Polish population have a history of placek.  It is often served at Easter time.

I suppose that is why almost every recipe you find makes a TON.  I suppose the grandmas doing the baking are expecting a crowd.

Luckily they do freeze well, so I guess if you are baking some you might as well bake a lot. Then you can have an easy treat later.

Most recipes include golden raisins in the dough.  You can add them in while you are mixing it up.

I am not surprised as my Polish babka recipe also included raisins. My family is mixed on being raisin fans, so I opted to leave them out this time.

You can also add nuts to the crumb mixture.  Walnuts seem to be a popular addition, but again I opted to leave them out this time.

Things to Know Before You Start

This bread essentially rises three times.  There is the sponge, the proofing and the final rise.

So it does take a little time, but that equals flavor! If you want to spread it out, you can chill the dough after the proof.

Just cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put the proved dough in the refrigerator for up to three days.  Let it come back to room temperature, then put it in your prepared baking pans.

The dough is more of a thick batter.  It will not come into a ball like regular bread dough.  It should get kind of smooth and elastic as the gluten is worked, but it will remain sticky and loose.

You can mix in all of the flour by hand, but you will thank yourself if you use a mixer.  It makes getting the gluten developed a lot easier!

More crumb topped coffee cake recipes

Great-great-grandma’s dutch apple cake recipe has been in my family for generations.  It is a simple cake topped with apples and plenty of golden topping.  It is great as a coffee cake at breakfast, for an afternoon treat or as a simple dessert.

Use fresh or frozen peaches to make all of your breakfast dreams come true. Peach coffee cake is perfect for tea time too. It’s an old fashioned recipe that will quickly become a an all time favorite.

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