Mazurek - Polish Easter Tart - Everyday Delicious

5 from 1 vote

Mazurek - Polish Easter Tart

Prep Time15

Cook Time25

Total Time40

Servings: servings

In a stand mixer: Stir the flour with salt and powdered sugar together, add the cold, cut into cubes butter and mix with a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment until the mixture resembles coarse meal with some roughly pea-size lumps. Add cold water and vanilla extract, mix until almost combined. Gather the dough and gently form a smooth ball, do not overwork it.
In a food processor: Add the flour, powdered sugar, and diced cold butter to the food processor bowl (with the S-blade attached). Pulse a couple of times until the butter pieces are the size of large peas (they can be of different sizes). Add cold water and vanilla extract and pulse until the dough begins to come together (be careful not to overmix it). Transfer the dough pieces onto a work surface, and gather them with your hands, forming a dough ball.
By hand: stir the flour with powdered sugar and salt together, add the cold diced butter, rub the butter into the flour mixture with your fingertips (or chop it with a large knife) until it resembles a pea-sized crumble, add cold water and vanilla extract, knead quickly until dough forms a smooth ball (be careful not to over mix it).
Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap in a cling film, and put in the fridge for 1 hour.

Divide the dough into two pieces: roughly 1/3 and 2/3.
Roll out the bigger part of the dough between two pieces of parchment paper into a rectangle (about 10x12 inches or 25x30 cm).
Roll the smaller part of the dough into logs and use them to make a border of the tart (all of this is shown on the photos).
Prick the dough with a fork (about 1-inch or 2-3 cm apart).
Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). While the oven is preheating, put the dough in the fridge.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the dough is golden. Check it a couple of times to see if it´s not puffing up. If it´s puffed, take it out of the oven and prick again a couple of times with a fork, press it flat.
Take the baked tart out of the oven and let cool slightly (it can be warm, just not piping hot) before topping it with dulce de leche cream.
While the crust is baking, prepare the cream and toppings.

Add dulce de leche and soft butter to a mixing bowl and mix with a mixer for 1-2 minutes or until ingredients are well-combined.
Make chocolate ganache: In a small pot, bring the cream almost to a boil. Add chopped chocolate and whisk until it´s melted. Set aside. I like to put it in a zip lock bag in the fridge to thicken and cool down, then it´s easier to pipe lines if that´s what you want to do.

Spread the tart with dulce the leche cream (I like only a thin layer of cream, so I´m using about half of the recipe for the cream, you can add it to your liking).
Decorate with chocolate ganache, chopped nuts, and cranberries in a desired pattern.
Cut into squares and enjoy!

Many Polish recipes call for topping mazurek kajmakowy with pure dulce de leche without butter. I like to add a small amount of butter to reduce the sweetness and improve flavor. If you don´t want to add butter you need to slightly warm up dulce de leche to make it more spreadable or mixed it with a mixer.
Another way to make this mazurek is to top the pastry crust with some kind of sour fruit jam, for example raspberry jam or red/black currant jam, and then top with with dulce de leche, to cut through the sweetness and richness of dulce de leche.
Chocolate ganache can be omitted, it is not usually added to dulce de leche mazurek but I love this addition.
This tart stores very well and tastes also very good the next day.
Don´t cut the tart into large squares - they will crumble. The tart is also rather sweet so the servings should not be big.
My personal favorite mazurek is chocolate orange mazurek (not really traditional). It´s made from the same pastry crust, then it´s top with a thin layer of orange marmalade (about 4 ounces/120g) and then with chocolate ganache (3 1/2 ounces/100g bittersweet chocolate + 2 ounces/60g milk chocolate + 1/4 cup/60ml heavy cream). I decorate it with thin fresh orange slices and flaked almonds. It´s not as sweet as dulce de leche mazurek.