{Mazurek}
I’m going to be honest with you, sweets are not my strong suite. I’ve never made Mazurek before, but its time I explore this new territory. Mazurek is a traditional Easter dessert made of shortbread crust, and a decorative topping of choice. Chocolate, caramel, dried fruit and nuts are often a choice. I wanted to make something fruity and fresh, so I’ve come up with this recipe for a fig-lemon mazurek.
You will need:
For the crust:
2 ½ cups of flour
1 eggs
2 yolks
½ cup of powdered sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
1 tsp of baking powder
14 tbs of cold butter
For the topping:
1 ½ cups of fig jam
Juice of lemon
Zest of 1 lemon
½ - ⅔ cup of chopped almonds
Place all ingredients in a bowl and quickly combine to form a crust. Make sure butter is cold, if you see chunks of butter in the dough, leave it. It will just make the crust flaky. Wrap in plastic and place in the fridge for 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line your bake pan with parchment paper*. I used two oval pans, you can use any shape, it doesn’t matter what size. This recipe makes about a 9x11 size pan worth. Roll out the dough to about ¼ inch thickness. Place in baking pan and with a fork go around the edges to create a decorative edge. Poke the dough with a fork.
*I forgot to line the pan with parchment paper and learned my lesson. It was a lot harder to remove from the pan after baking.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, until golden brown. Take out and cool. Careful when handling the crust. It’s very fragile.
To make the topping, mix jam with lemon juice and lemon zest. Top the crust with a layer of jam mixture and top with almonds.
I know they say it’s best to let it rest of a day or two, so it can be made a day or two ahead of time.
Smacznego!
