The name of this cake I learned from my Mum has to do with the way most of it is prepared, the dough is pinched in a way and distributed all over the base, rather than rolled out or cut.

It’s simple; 1,5 tall glass of plain flour, half of a melted cooking margarine, 2 egg yolks, 2 tbsp of sugar and a bit of baking powder get all mixed into a soft dough, then divided in 3 equal parts. One goes into the freezer, second gets mixed with a tsp of cocoa and the third makes the cake’s base- rolled out on the bottom of a round tin.

The crucial ingredient of skubaniec is plum preserve, I use my Mum’s home made one, the good, good stuff that gets fried for hours until its thick and stuffed with lovely flavour. Can’t think of any better preserve to substitute it with, but don’t really have to, we’re going home in a month, will stock up!

Anyway, the base, the plum preserve, then the cocoa part of pastry gets pinched off all over the preserve, quite a lot of it, but you must be able to tell the layers apart. The next layer are walnuts, roughly chopped, onto the brown pastry. Then 2 egg whites whipped with some sugar, onto the walnuts,no need to make it very smooth, just plonk it onto the nuts roughly. And the last layer is the one from the freezer, pinched off the same way, all over the white layer.

Bake in 180 degrees for about 30-40 minutes. I’m eating it just as I’m writing and have to say, there could have been a thicker layer of the preserve, I used the remaining half of the jar I had, in future will be more generous. It is pretty though- is it not?….