Punch Cake (Punčové Rezy)
It’s been almost three months since my last recipe (the baked trout posted on January 18th). No worries, I did not forget about this site! As some of you may know, over the past four years I’ve been working on my Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Well, the time has come for me to graduate. The deadline to defend and submit my dissertation was April 1st and it was definitely a huge push to get everything done in time (just ask my gf, I think she was more excited about me finishing than me). But finally, it’s done! I am still waiting on my status to officially change to “degree awarded” but once that happens, I’ll be done with school, for ever (I hope).
To celebrate being done, I decided to bake one of my favorite Slovak pastry-shop cakes called punčové rezy. This translates to punch slices. Now, I don’t claim to be a great cook, but I am definitely a better cook than a baker. One of my goals for this this year is to get better at baking so you will see a lot of cakes coming up. Sometimes they will turn out better than other times. This one is in the so-so category. I blame too many eggs. The recipe I followed did not specify the size of the eggs, and I, without even thinking about it, used large eggs. The resulting cake has bit of a consistency of a quiche, not the crumbly, melt-in-your-mouth texture I anticipated. Hence, when you do this cake, either use small eggs, fewer eggs, or more flour. I weighed all my ingredients on a kitchen scale but also included volumetric measurements. These come from online convertors, so I don’t guarantee their accuracy. Also, you may want to divided the dough ingredients into two groups: one containing 2/3 of the total amount, and the other containing the remaining 1/3. This is because you will be baking 3 layers, one of which is red. I did this “by eye”.
Dough: 15 small/medium eggs, 300g (1.5 cups) crystal sugar, 300g (2.4 cups) all purpose flour, 1 tablespoon baking powder, jam, red food coloring
Syrup: 400g (2 cups) crystal sugar, 1.5 cups water, rum
Icing: 200g (1.8 cups) powdered sugar, 4 tbsp hot water, red food coloring, lemon juice
Prep Time: 2 hours, plus overnight in the fridge, and another few hours for the icing to set
Layers
Start by separating the yolks from the whites. Add 200g (1 cup) sugar to the yolks.
Whisk the yolks (this is delicious!) and gradually mix in the flour mixed with the baking powder. You will end up with a “Nilla wafer” dough, piškótové cesto.
Next, separate (approximately) one third of the dough into a separate container. Mix in few drops of red food coloring. You can also alternatively separate the yolks prior to adding flour and mix in the color. Whisk the remaining sugar with the egg whites until you get stiff peaks.
Gradually mix in two-thirds into the yellow dough and the other one-third into the red dough. You will end up with a liquid dough.
Next line a deep baking pan with parchment paper or grease well with oil. Use a pan bigger than 11x7x2 which is unfortunately all I had available. This gave me a cake that was too tall. Bake the yellow dough first. The recipe I followed did not specify the time or temperature so I baked at 350F for about 30 minutes, until the inside was done. Cut the yellow dough into two halves. Next bake the red dough. I constructed a “half-pan” that matched in size one of the yellow layers.
Punch
While the dough is cooling, prepare the punch syrup. Mix the sugar with water and cook until the mixture becomes liquid. Let cool (be careful this liquid is very hot even when not bubbling!) and mix in enough rum to make it tasty and liquid. I used about one cup. Then soak the red layer in this punch.
Assemble the Cake
Join the individual layers with a jam of your choice. I used a mixture of raspberry and black currant. Drip the remaining syrup over the top yellow layer. Cover, weigh down, and let sit for at least 12 hours in a cool place.
Icing
Prepare the icing once the cake sets (the next day). Blend the icing sugar with the hot water, few drops of red food coloring, and one half of a squeezed lemon. Spread the icing on top and again let set. Finally cut with a wet knife. Enjoy!
My cake ended up quite dry and thick, sort of like Nilla wafers. I suspect this was due to not enough flour / too much egg. Hopefully you’ll have more luck with yours. Have fun!
Luboš, k úspešnému ukončeniu štúdia Vám srdečne blahoželám. Punčové rezy sú na oslavu veľmi vhodné a “dôstojné”. Na webe je niekoľko spôsobov prípravy punčákov. Stredný korpus sa zvyčajne farbí až po upečení malinovým sirupom alebo rozvareným džemom. Tie Vaše vyzerajú lákavo.
The recipe in The Czechoslovak Cookbook by Joza Brizova uses 6 eggs. Anyway, thanks for posting and congratulations on finishing your degree. Vesetko najlepsie!
great post. it is very helpful for people. i will tell my other friend to visit that site for there help. thanks for the nice recipe.
This looks so cool i am looking forward to trying it and it is going to help me with my school project too 🙂
I have wandered into many a Slovak pastry shop and seen this little cake. I always wondered what it was, and unfortunately my Slovak is good enough to ask, but likely not good enough to understand the answer. Now I’ve been educated!
Lubos, you saved the day again.
an interesting pound Cake would like to try it
Seems a good pound cake to try. I think I can experiment with different colors to make it colorful and enticing for the kids 🙂 Thanks for sharing
Hi, I am Slovak and very confused why you dont say exactly in recipes what type of flour we should use. Type of flour is very very important. Most Slovak cakes use POLOHRUBA MUKA so I was wondering if I can get this in UK and how is it called. If you use in your recipes all purpose flour, then people will use just any flour and result wont be good, I think///
Cau Petra, I know exactly what you mean. But here in the USA, flour doesn’t come in different grinds the way it is sold in Slovakia. I actually did a little experiment on flour types a while back exactly for this reason. Flour in the US is differentiated mainly by the type of grain (i.e. whole wheat flour, rye, “white” wheat flour). There are also few types for specific purposes, there is bread flour which has a higher protein content. There is also something called cake flour, which I am suspecting may be similar to the Slovak “fine grind”. But I have never used that one. I use all-purpose flour in all my baking, except for breads, where I use a mix of whole wheat and rye. This particular cake was made with the Pillsbury Gold Medal All Purpose.
Flours in the USA are defined by their protein content (not by the coarseness or fineness of the grind), and can be blend of hard and soft wheats, which determines the amount of gluten structure that will developed in the recipe. All-purpose flour (10-12% protein) is the general flour that is appropriate for all baking needs. Bread flour (more protein) is preferred for baking many types of bread loaves. Cake flour (less protein) gives a light tender crumb for cakes and similar pastries. Wondra brand flour is NOT the same as European fine flour. Wondra is a special, processed blend of all-purpose flour and other ingredients especially developed for make smooth and lump-free sauces and gravies. It is NOT a general substitute for regular all-purpose flour.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzHG4rpXpOg&feature=related
Dolu klobuk Lubos.
Hi Lubos,
your site is great. I love to see the varieties of traditional food and it is also helpful to have it translated. Puncove rezy (or tea-rum cake, as I call it) is one of the favorite desserts in my family. Since I am often asked to bring it to the parties, I had to come with the faster solution (Lazy tea-rum cake) and I wanted to share it. I buy frozen Sarah Lee pound cake (fresh is too sweet and sticky and frozen part is important). Let it defrost only partially, just to be able to slice it across 2 times in order to obtain 3 layers. While is defrosting make a strong black tea with rum and some blackcurrant or raspberry syrup. Cut the middle layer into 1-1.5 cm cubes, cover with slightly warm tea and add little bit of raspberry jam, mix lightly with a fork. Spread the jam also on one side of the two other layers. I like to see the cubes in the sliced cake, that’s why partially frozen is important. If higher cake is desired, Nilla wafers could be dipped into the rum tea and put on the first layer on the top of jam, then add the filling and last layer with the jam side down (touching the filling). Make the icing, let harden and enjoy. Thanks again for your site.
Thanks Kika!
Hi Petra
In Uk I use for all cakes recipes where u use baking powder as well self raising flour and cakes bakes to perfection , try it 🙂
Good day! I could have sworn I’ve visited this web site before but after looking
at a few of the posts I realized it’s new to me. Anyways,
I’m certainly pleased I discovered it and I’ll be bookmarking it and checking back often!
Ahoj Lubos,
ja mam v plane urobit cupcakes na styl puncovych rezov. Dalo by sa to? Ak by som pridala ten rumovy mix do upecenych cupcakeov neostane mi tekutina na spodku vo forme? dik
I have been asked to make one of these cakes for someone’s birthday so I tried this recipe and it came out perfect 🙂
In my opinion there is too much sugar and eggs, we usually match the tablespoons of sugar with number of eggs used, in this case I would use 6 eggs and 6 tablespoons of sugar, so around 80 grams of sugar instead of 300 otherwise the cake will be too sweet.