Waffle cake tutorial + vanilla filling

Wafer cake (torcik waflowy, sometimes called pishinger) is very popular in Poland, but also in Russia and probably other east-european countries. Simply wafer sheets filled with differrent kind of creams. Thanks to Feedjit I know that many internauts visit my blog in search of filled wafer cake recipe, and I know that some of you make this cake in a wrong way. That is why I decided to give you a kind of tutorial, to explain you step by step how to prepare this delicious, simply no-bake cake.

First of all, you need big wafer sheets (outside Poland, available in Polish or Russian groceries) -> like these or these. There are even heart-shaped waffles :) Don't you believe me? Go and see what a Polish blogger made with her waffles in a free time :)

Secondly, you have to choose the filling. There are plenty of differrent fillings, for example:
- toffee filling (or more extravagant: toffee with cookies)
- fruity filling
- helva filling
- peanut cream filling*
- eggnog cream filling
- honey cream filling
- lekvar-choco filling
- cacao cream filling
- vanilla cream filling
The most popular fillings in Poland are toffee filling (cook a can of condensed milk for 3 hours in a pot with water, open the can, beat the toffee that you just obtained with some soft butter) or powdered milk-based cacao cream. I promise to show you in the future more differrent filling recipes.
*this filling is delicious but you need to double or triple this recipe to be able to fill 1 pack of wafer sheets

Third thing is decoration. You can just leave undecorated filled wafers and cut them into diamonds, or spread with chocolate glaze and sprinkle with chopped nuts (other ideas are more than welcome). Torcik waflowy is often made for Easter and decorated just like mazurek, a famous Polish Easter cake. Just decorate waffle cake like mazurek or cut it into a shape of egg and decorate - like here or here.

Ok. If you already have made your plans, let's start!

1. Prepare enough cream (better more than less). At least 2 cups of cream for 1 pack of waffles.

2. Smear cream on waffles, when it is still warm! Don't skimp it, remember to cover the whole waffle with about 5mm of filling! Start from the inside.



Remember, begin with a wafer sheet and end with a wafer sheet - cream should stay inside! Cause...

3. ...cause when you are done with smearing waffles, now you have to wrap your cake into a baking paper or culinary aluminium paper. Leave it in a cool place and load it by putting a heavy big enciclopedia on the top of the wrapped cake! If not, soft (by a warm cream) waffle sheets will probaly deform. By loading our cake, it stays well-shaped and the filling glues wafer sheets (but remember, just like I said before, each sheet needs a lot of filling!) the best would be to leave the cake overnight but if not, than at least 2 hours. After that time, sheets will stay soft and the filling won't run down by cutting the cake!

4. Only now you can cut your cake into diamonds (or any other portions) and put on a plate or... decorate it and serve without cutting.

Now the fifth filling option (after toffe, fruity, helva and peanut filling), the one my mum got from my aunt Basia, who makes the best cakes of the world: sweet and delicious milky vanilla filling

1 cup milk
1 cup sugar
250 gr margarine (important: no butter!)
3 cups powdered milk*
few drops vanilla flavouring
(optionally: 1/2 teaspoon cocoa. If you add 3-4 tablespoons pure cocoa powder, you'll obtain vanilla-cocoa cream)
*If your cream is thick enough, you can add a bit less powdered milk. Or, take 2 cups powdered milk and 1 cup ground walnuts/almods/coconut flakes!

1. In a saucepan, bring to boil milk, margarine and sugar. Pour into a bowl and gradually add small amounts of powdered milk (nuts, cocoa) and flavouring and stir well all the time (make no clumps!). Smear waffles... well... and follow the tutorial instructions above (from point 2) :)

2. Optionally, melt 100 gr milk chocolate with 25 gr copha (coconut fat), decorate the cake, sprinkle with chopped nuts, decorate with nut halves, candies, coconut flakes or anything you like! It's really delicious!