Mazurek base calculator
The shortcrust base of a Polish Easter mazurek: flour, cold butter, icing sugar, sour cream and yolks, baked in one flat sheet for the toppings.
Total hydration counts the water inside the eggs, milk and butter.
Mazurek is the flat Easter tart: a single sheet of shortcrust baked blind and covered in kajmak, chocolate, nuts or dried fruit. The base is the part worth measuring. It is a shortcrust with sour cream, a little leaner in butter than the tart pastry on the other page.
How it works
The pastry
AniaGotuje on 400 g of flour, hers half krupczatka and half plain: 200 g of cold butter (50%), 100 g of icing sugar (25%), 50 g of sour cream 18% and two yolks weighed to 40 g. Butter, eggs and cream straight from the fridge. Rubbed together by hand or with the hooks, it looks too dry at first and comes together into a firm ball as the butter warms; then an hour in the fridge, wrapped, which is what makes it roll.
Baking blind
Rolled 5 to 7 mm thick, a little larger than the 24 by 34 cm tin, the trimmings rolled into balls for a rim, the middle pricked with a fork. Twenty minutes at 200 °C top-and-bottom heat, watched so it does not overbake. Kwestia Smaku rolls hers between two sheets of paper, chills the dough 45 minutes first, builds a rim from the trimmings and bakes 20 minutes at 180 °C.
Toppings
AniaGotuje’s: a 460 g can of kajmak melted with 100 g of 70% chocolate and a 350 g jar of hazelnut-chocolate spread, poured over the cooled base and finished with 100 g of roasted hazelnuts. Kwestia Smaku boils a can of condensed milk for two hours into kajmak and decorates with prunes, apricots, cranberries, pecans and almonds. Moje Wypieki’s royal mazurek, from Lemnis and Vitry, is a lattice of the same pastry over jam.
Sources & methodology
Every percentage in this calculator traces to the published sources below — nothing is invented. Where respected sources disagree, the default sits inside the documented range.
- AniaGotuje — Mazurek wielkanocny — The anchor: 400 g of flour (160 g krupczatka), 200 g of cold butter, 100 g of icing sugar, 50 g of sour cream, two yolks weighed to 40 g; an hour in the fridge, a 24×34 cm tin, 20 minutes at 200 °C.
- Kwestia Smaku — Mazurek wielkanocny — The richer end of the band: 150 g of butter and 80 g of icing sugar on 200 g of flour and 50 g of potato starch, an egg and a yolk; 45 minutes chilled, 20 minutes at 180 °C.
- Moje Wypieki — Mazurek staropolski zwany królewskim (after Lemnis & Vitry) — A different pastry, recorded for the article: 350 g of butter and 120 g of almonds on 370 g of flour, with four cooked yolks, a lattice over jam.
FAQ
How is this different from plain shortcrust?
The sour cream, and a little less butter: 50% of the flour here against 62.5% in the tart pastry, with 12.5% sour cream and half the yolk. Kwestia Smaku goes richer, 150 g of butter on 250 g of flour and starch, and uses a whole egg plus a yolk.
Why krupczatka?
The coarse Polish grade makes a sandier, more crumbly base. AniaGotuje uses 160 g of it with 240 g of plain flour; Kwestia Smaku gets a similar effect with 50 g of potato starch in 200 g of flour.
Does the dough need chilling?
Yes. AniaGotuje wraps it for an hour, Kwestia Smaku 45 minutes, Moje Wypieki at least two hours. Cold ingredients going in and a cold rest after are what make a butter-heavy dough roll instead of smear.
What size of tin?
24 by 34 cm at AniaGotuje, 23 by 34 at Kwestia Smaku, 23 by 33 at Moje Wypieki; the default 790 g of dough is AniaGotuje’s batch for hers.
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