Eastern European desserts

Eastern European dessert — Polish, Hungarian, Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Balkan — is a deep tradition built on butter, sour cream, quark (twaróg, túró), poppyseed, walnut, honey, cherry, plum, apple, and a real seriousness about cake.

The repertoire includes the layered honey cake medovik of Russia, the Polish szarlotka apple cake, the Hungarian dobos torte and somlói galuska, the Czech buchty, the Slovenian kremna rezina cream slice, the Polish sernik cheesecake and faworki carnival ribbons, the Ukrainian pampushky filled buns, and the great poppyseed rolls (makowiec, makos guba) of the Christmas table.

Many of the classics travel across borders under different names — the Slovenian kremna rezina is essentially the Polish kremówka and the Austrian Cremeschnitte — reflecting centuries of empire, migration, and the deep shared larder of the central European plain.