🍎 Szarlotka
Szarlotka is Poland's best-loved apple cake: a layer of shortcrust pastry filled with plenty of sliced or grated apples spiced with cinnamon, finished with a sweet crumble or a second layer of pastry. The apples bake down into a soft, fragrant filling between crisp, crumbly layers. It is cut into squares and served warm or cold, often dusted with powdered sugar.
Diets
Allergens
Contains (in a typical recipe):
What it is made of
Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 kg tart apples
- 350 g shortcrust pastry
- 80 g sugar
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 120 g crumble topping
Method
- Heat the oven to 180 °C and line a 24 × 24 cm tin with two-thirds of the pastry.
- Peel and grate or slice the apples; mix with sugar, cinnamon and lemon juice and cook for 10 minutes until slightly soft.
- Bake the pastry base for 10–12 minutes.
- Spread the apples over the base and cover with the remaining pastry and the crumble.
- Bake for 40–45 minutes until golden; cool before cutting.
How to make it lighter
- Cut smaller squares — a 120 g piece is a typical serving.
- Reduce the sugar in the filling and rely on sweet apple varieties.
- Skip the powdered sugar dusting and serve with fresh fruit.
History
The name is usually linked to the French charlotte, a dessert that became fashionable across Europe in the 19th century, but the Polish version developed into its own shortcrust apple cake. Today szarlotka is a fixture of Polish home baking and café menus.
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Values are estimates per 100 g for a typical recipe; home and restaurant versions vary. Diets and allergens are worked out from the ingredients of a typical recipe — always check with whoever cooked the dish. Not medical advice. Nutrition data: Me Nutrition dish database v13. How we count →