The story of Blejska kremšnita / Bled cream cake

0
14488

Bled is one of the most charming destinations in Slovenia that attracts many tourists every year. Bled is not only known for its tiny island in the middle of Lake Bled, but it is also famous for its Blejska Kremšnita or as foreign tourists call it “Bled cream cake”. Bled cream cake is one of the most famous Slovenian traditional dishes. It combines a crisp crust with a blend of heavily lights custard and whipped cream, making it quite difficult to eat it elegantly.

When visiting Bled one must simply treat themselves to this cake! What a unique treat that is!

Origin of Blejska kremšnita

If you ask Slovenians about their traditional dishes, most of them will most likely mention the “sweet queen of Bled”. Blejska kremšnita or Bled cream cake is one of the most recognizable Slovenian desserts besides Prekmurska gibanica and the famous “potica“. No trip to Bled will be completed without tasting the original Bled cream cake or Blejska kremšita.

Blejska kremšnita or Bled cream cake, known for its delicate puff pastry atop layers of light vanilla cream and custard, is a dish that can be dated back to the height of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries. Almost all the countries under Hapsburg’s former reign still have a version of the cake: Bosnians enjoy krempita, Polish love kremówka, and Slovakians dine happily on their krémeš. Preparation of Blejska kremšnita and the lucky number seven

Bled without a doubt looks like a magical place thane out of a fairy tale book. We could say Blejska kremšnita in a way follows the magical (or lucky) numbers in this sense.

This layered cream cake is prepared under a specific guidance of the lucky number seven, according to the Park Hotel restaurant in Bled. The puff pastry is folded seven times and then left to rest overnight before baking and cooling again. The egg custard is cooked for seven minutes. Cooled, coated in a delicately sweetened layer of whipped cream, and dusted with powdered sugar, each cake is then cut into a perfect seven-by-seven centimeter square.

If we continue the lucky number seven in terms of Blejska kremšnita, then we could say Bled cream cake is prepared every day of the week, therefore, seven days per week. Up to 3,500 slices of it are sold on a given day, and the service team has pre-sliced, pre-plated portions constantly waiting to serve it to you once you order it at the Park Hotel restaurant during your next trip to the stunning Lake Bled.

Over 15 million Bled cream cakes sold

The Slovenian version of the cream cake is known as “kremna rezina” and, thanks to a recent granting of protected designation of origin status, it only comes from the patisseries at Lake Bled.

Most restaurants and cafes around Lake Bled offer you Blejska kremšnita. However, you will find the original cream cake at Park Hotel restaurant, where they have been serving Blejska kremšnita sine 1953 when a Serbian pastry chef Ištvan Lukačević started experimenting with puff pastry, butter, egg custard, and vanilla cream until he hit upon something so irresistibly good that by 2009 the hotel’s café, the only place to get an original kremšnita, had sold 10 million of them, or just under 500 every day. And in 2019 they’ll already be serving up slice number 15 million, using over 131 tons of flour, 8,437 million eggs and 1,556,000 litres of milk. If the 15 million cream cakes were stacked in a row, they would reach 1,050 km or all the way from Bled to Naples. If we were to stack them on top of one another around Lake Bled, they would make a wall 8 m high.

Quite an impressive number for such a delicious guilty pleasure, wouldn’t you agree?

Now you might be wondering how do you distinguish the original Bled cream cake from the rest? According to the Park Hotel restaurant the answer lies in the movement of Blejska kremšnita. When you place Bled cream cake on the plate, the entire cream cake must sway back and forth. 

Celebration of Blejska kremšnita

This alpine valley in the heart of Europe takes its famous dessert very seriously. Therefore, Blejska kremšnita or Bled cream cake has its own wondrous festival every year, where both domestic and foreign culinary enthusiasts celebrate it. The celebration of Blejska kremšnita is often sweetened up with many music concerts, dance performances, rich culinary experiences, and workshops that visitors are welcomed to join.

Source: Park Hotel & National Geographic