Bubbly Cake (Bublanina)
Ingredients: 4 eggs, 400g (3 1/3 cups) powdered sugar, 200ml oil (5/6 cups), 300ml milk (1 1/2 cups), 500g (3 1/3 cups) flour, 12g (2 tablespoons) baking powder, vanilla extract, blueberries or cherries, butter and extra flour to coat the baking pan.
Prep Time: 20 minutes to get everything ready, 40 minutes for baking.
Yesterday I baked my first-ever cake. It turned out delicious. The name of this cake is bublanina, which means, roughly, bubbly cake. It is a light and fluffy coffee cake filled with your choice of fruit. I used blueberries, but feel free to substitute whatever you have at hand. The recipe comes from mimibazar.sk. Another variation on this recipe, one found for instance on varecha.sk, calls for the whites and yolks to be separated from each other, and the whites whipped into “snow”. I didn’t do this, and the cake still turned out great.
The recipe I used specified to bake the cake for 25-30 minutes at 350F. I found I had to bake mine little longer, about 40 minutes. Also, I converted the amounts into cups (volume measure). This is generally not a good idea when baking, since 1 cup of sugar will weigh more if the sugar has settled. It’s better to instead use a kitchen scale and weigh the ingredients, at least until you get a feel for the consistency of the batter. Anyway, let’s start baking. This is a really easy cake (koláč) to make.
Besides these ingredients, you will also need 500g (3 1/3 cups) of flour.
Start by cracking the eggs (vajcia) into a large bowl and adding 400g (about 3 1/3 cups) of powdered sugar (práškový cukor). Also add oil (olej) and milk (mlieko). I also gave it a tiny bit (the cap’s worth) of vanilla extract (vanilka).
Whisk the ingredients together until everything gets mixed thoroughly. Then add 500g (about 3 1/3 cups) of flour (múka) and 12g (2 tablespoons) of baking powder (prášok do pečiva). Add a tiny bit of baking soda if you have any (I didn’t). Mix well and pour into a medium-sized deep baking pan which you first greased with butter. Also sprinkle flour into the pan before pouring the cake batter.
Then add your favorite fruit (ovocie). Blueberries (čučoriedky) are really popular, and so are cherries (čerešne). I figured the berries will sink down during baking but they didn’t, at least not enough. So I recommend you push the fruit in slightly, just enough for the dough to cover the tops. Otherwise, your cake may turn out like mine, with the fruit on top, instead of distributed more evenly throughout the cake. Bake until the sides no longer stick to the pan and a toothpick (špáradlo) stuck in the cake comes out clean. Check the cake (koláč) in few spots to make sure it is indeed baked through.
Top with powdered sugar (do this by holding a finely grated strainer above the cake and pouring sugar into it while shaking the strainer). Enjoy with coffee (káva) or hot chocolate (kakao).
Don’t forget to leave a comment if you have made this cake – or if you just had it before.
Lost my receipe. That is how mine looked!! Thanks so much. We use cherries. (Dworak)
I am not much into baking but my mom was.
I remember this but if I remember right, my mom add the fruit into the cake batter and mixed it before pouring it into baking pan. That made fruit to be evenly distributed, not just on a top . Though she used to make other cakes with much more fruits and in that case she poured it over the batter but it was kind of another layer and pretty thick, completely covering the batter. I don’t remember what it was called 🙂
Yeah, I hoped the berries will settle down (never having made this cake before), but they didn’t. So next time, I’ll gently fold the dough over before baking.
I am from the Czech Republic where bublanina got its name and the fruit needs to go on top, just like the pictures show.
My babka used to make this cake- wow, seeing the recipe brought back memories. I’m not a baker, but this summer I might just try to make it. Seems pretty easy.
Babka used to flour the blueberries before mixing them into the dough so they’d not sink to the bottom.
Cau Luci, and thanks for your comment. I am glad I brought back some memories (good ones, I hope). I had the opposite problem from your grandmas – my berries sank just barely. It just comes down to the thickness of the batter. Anyway, give it a shot and let me know how it turns out.
My 1957 cookbook states, that the fruit should be dried and than dipped in ‘hruba muka’ flour or in ‘piskotove drobce’ waffle crumbs, so the fruit won’t sink to the bottom. I would say well frozen fruit does not have much outside juices and could be used without dipping in an flour or crumbs. I would worry about the steadiness of baking temperature of the bublanina though.
Fruit as strawberries or raspberries should sink more to the bottom while they don’t have a thicker skin.
In any case, this is a great tasting bubbly cake, be the fruit more to the bottom or to the top.
Thank you Lubos.
Ja som dala mrazene cucoriedky a to bola chyba …Kolac sa mi vobec neupiekol tam kde bolo ovocie takze druhy krat som rozmrazila vsetko …inac super kolac …aj ten nedopeceny ..
Thanks for the recipe.
I folded fresh blueberries into the batter right before pouring into the pan. They all sank to the bottom before the batter could set.
The flavor is similar to what I remember, but my grandmother made it about half the height as what turned out with the recipe.
I will try it again, with the following changes:
— reduce the amount of ingredients (by as much as 1/2)
— add the blueberries to the top after pouring in the batter
— dust the blueberries with flour so they don’t quickly sink
Overall though, easy and tasty!
not sure (as I said I am not big into baking) but this may be also a problem why blueberries “sink” to the bottom. In the US we tend to keep everything in refrigerator, or even in a freezer. If you mix cold or frozen stuff with freshly made batter, there is no doubt in my mind that “cold stuff” will sink. That’s a basic principle of physics, in addition that cold stuff tend to “sweat water” when put into warmer environment. Back home we used a fresh stuff and fruits, berries, that were never in a refrigerator (never mind that we may not even did not have one.), and of course barriers are heavier than batter and thus they tend to “go down”
I think keeping every ingredient at similar temperature, and maybe use a flour to make berries not so smooth so they would “dive” to the bottom is a good idea.
There are indeed some differences when we cook a traditional slovak food in our new country, and we may not even think about it.
cheers
Miro, máte pravdu v tom, že všetky suroviny majú mať rovnakú teplotu. Aby ovocie nekleslo na dno, používa sa trik. Ovocie sa obalí v múke.
Hey KJH, bummer it didn’t work out the first time. Hmm, let’s see. How thick was your batter? I tried to capture the consistency of mine in that “pouring” photograph. It was almost honey-like. Almost. If yours was the same then perhaps Miro is onto something. Also, I made this recipe again, this time with canned cherries, and I have also folded them into the batter prior to pouring into the pan. The cherries ended up being distributed quite evenly throughout the cake. The height just has to do with the size of your baking pan. Keep me posted!
This is my first time using this recipe and I am not very sure about it. The cake has been in the owen for the past hour and it is still uncooked in the middle. Maybe it’s got something to do with the thickness of the layer.
Oh well I hope it will cook at some point soon. And if not t least the house smells yummy 🙂
Hi Veronika. So it’s not still in the oven, right? Cause it if is, you better take it out! 🙂 Anyway, sorry for getting back to you so late, but I spent today doing some mountain climbing in Idaho. You are right, it has to do with the thickness of the cake, and to some extend (I believe) on the fruit you use. The baking time above is just approximate. You always want to make sure it’s done before taking it out. I am sure you know the old toothpick trick. Just stick a toothpick in and if it comes out clean, it’s done. But make sure to poke it in various places. Because the first time I made it, I thought the cake was done, but there was a section in the center which was not baked through yet, and I missed it during the poking.
Veronika,
the batter poured in pan should be only about 2-3 cm thick (1 inch) and it should be pushed well into the edges to prevent thicker center.
I am going to make this cake for Norwegians. So keep fingers crossed for me, that it will be representative, tasty and will overcome all their extremely chocolate cakes
Excellent choice. Never been a big fan of chocolate cakes. Fluffy cake with fruit on the other hand – much tastier! Good luck, but you won’t really need it. This cake is super easy to make.
Vyborna bublanina! Dnes som ju upiekla s dcerkou a nezostala z nej ani omrvinka.
I made this cake today and substituted whole wheat flour for the regular flour. It came out very well. The batter was a bit thick when I was mixing it, but maybe it had something to do with the powdered sugar? I think with granulated sugar it would have been different. Still, I added more milk, about 1/2 a cup and it was fine.
And I only know these cakes with the fruit on the top, not mixed within. In the years I spent in Vienna, the Czech Rep and Slovakia, fruit is on the top, which serves as a kind of decoration on the cake. I used blueberries and it looks beautiful.
I made this with a bundt pan and added a can of dark sweet cherries to the batter before putting it into the pan. They did not sink to the bottom. This recipe produced more batter than my pan could hold. 500 grams of flour is a lot. Otherwise, it turned out fine. Also I cooked it for about forty minutes.
I forgot to add: it is easy to make and also easy to cleanup afterwards. Lubos: for a rocket scientist, you should be using a digital scale.
I made this again but with 400 grams of flour and about 300 grams of sugar and a can of blueberries (about 400 grams). The batter was enough for a large bundt pan without throwing any away. I put the blueberries in last and they were evenly distributed. Once again it took about 40 minutes at 350 F. It was good. A good recipe for a beginner baker.
This was so easy and good. I made it for a Slovack dinner party and everyone loved it.
We use cherry pie filling in our bublanina and it does not sink inside the batter. The batter comes up and around it while baking. You could use any pie filling for that matter. And this is a “bubble cake”, right? So you want to see the fruit on top, and not in the middle of the cake. Delish!
Miesto váženia surovín do koláča sa osvedčilo meranie na hrnčeky. Myslím tým objem asi 3,5 dcl. Vyhovuje porcelánový hrnček okolo 3 dcl. Nie je doležitý skutočný objem, ide o pomer jednotlivých surovín.
Hrnčekový koláč
2 hrnčeky polohrubej múky,
1 hrnček kryštálového cukru,
4 celé vajíčka,
3/4 hrnčeka oleja,
3/4 hrnčeka mlieka,
1 prášok do pečiva,
1 vanilínový cukor,
kávová lyžička soli,
sezónne ovocie: čerešne, višne, marhule, ríbezle.
Všetky suroviny elektrickým šľahačom vymiešame a vylejeme na vymastený a múkou vysypaný plech. Rozložíme ovocie. Pečieme, pred dopečením pichneme špáradlom uprostred cesta, či je koláč upečený. Keď je špáradlo lepkavé od cesta, ešte pečieme ďalej. Vychladnutý koláč pocukrujeme. Dobrú chuť.
Tu je iný recept na hrnčekový koláč so slivkami z internetu.
http://kucharka-recepty.yw.sk/videorecepty/recepty-sk-rychly-hrncekovy-kolac/
I was living (and cooking) in Slovakia until last 15 years and the real bublanina is made with cherries or black cherries. Other then that is any seasonal soft fruit (strawberries. rasberries, red or black currant….but nothing cant beat the taste of cherries! Blueberries were available mainly in middle Slovakia and even there they were “a luxury”.
Vsetci Slovaci so mnou budu suhlasit.
Lidicky ja vcera upekla bublaninu, ale vypada to blato, ta mouka???? Prozradte mi ndekdo jakou mouku pouzivate, ziju v Kanade a polohrubou mouku tu nemame, vyber mouky je velice spatnej. Nejaka pomoc??????
This is the cake for me, …..I make cup-cakes with nearly the same ingredients ,but dip the blueberries in flour the folded in,,the purple juices stain the cakes and keeps it soft…I am Portiguese and we are fond of our puddings….thank you Querino
……….. I AM FROM MADEIRA ISLAND,BUT WE MADE A CAKE LIKE THIS,,PORT WINE IS SPRINKLED (OR POURED) OVER THE CAKE AS SOON AS THE CAKE IS TAKEN FROM THE OVEN………DO TRY MY VERSION…YOU WILL LOVE IT………..THANKS……..QUERINO
I have been making this cake for years ..I love how you can mix everything in one bowl .I’m Slovak living in US for past 17 years and I always get comments how delicious it is ..Every block party I have to make like 3 large pans and its always gone before the end of it …
Which flour I have to use?
Hi all
I’ve been using the following recipe for bublanina and it’s very yummy.
http://varecha.pravda.sk/recepty/jednoducha-bublanina/5759-recept.html
I do cover the cherries (from a compote – drained) in fine breadcrumbs mixed with cinnamon sugar (škoricovy cukor) to stop them from sinking to the bottom.
In Slovak recipes what does “dl” and “ks” mean in English? These quantities are shown in the recipe link you listed, and I am trying to translate the recipe to English. Thank you!
1 dl = 1 deciliter, 0.1 liter
1 ks /kus/ is a piece
Forgot to say, the “polohruba muka” here in England is strong white bread flour. Not sure what it would be in the US.
My grandmother Kocian made the bublanina with graham cracker or vanilla wafer crumbs, sugar and cinnamon on top along with the fruit mostly blue plums or apples. The fruit did not sink in. She was living in Chicago and had a cherry tree, but I never saw her make it with cherries or blue berries. Maybe I was not there in the right season:)
Grandma Kocian also used yeast in this bublanina instead of baking powder and separated the eggs whipping up the egg whites. I struggle with trying to fold egg whites into yeast dough. This is from the recipe I have and is supposed to be hers, but I never saw her make it so maybe the recipe is not right.
Lubos, this recipe looks delicious! I am an experienced baker, and I would suggest that a 9″X13″ cake pan be used to bake this. That is a standard size here in the U.S. The same amount of batter can also be placed in a standard Bundt pan, as someone else suggested, but the baking time would be different. Always put the toothpick in the center of the cake, at the highest spot, and push the pick in as far as you can; at least mid-way down, to check for doneness. If pick comes out dry (without wet batter on it) the cake is done. Thank you so much for posting these recipes in English. I love my Slovak heritage, but my grandparents insisted that the children only speak English; so thankful immigrants see things differently these days, and children are bi-lingual!!
You didnt put enough blueberries on top. Its called bubbly because at first the cake is comletely covered in fruit, and then during baking the dough bubbles to the top, which sinks loads of fruit to the bottom which makes it evenely distributed 🙂
Made this cake for the first time on at.Nicholas day.my boyfriend was chuffed that I was embracing his traditions.turned out yummy too.