Welcome back to the Polish Pastry Experience—a behind-the-counter look into the traditional pastries that you can find in Greenpoint’s Polish bakeries.
Looking to try something new? Curious about what’s best? Every week, we ask the bakers themselves to tell you.
This week, Rzeszowska Bakery recommends…their Jagodzianka (s.) at $1.25 per piece.
Jagodzianki (pl.) are soft, fluffy, blueberry-filled pastries, and are familiar to every Pole. In fact, Poland is a veritable berry powerhouse—the world leader in raspberry, currant, and chokeberry production, and third in the production of blueberries (behind the US and Canada). Last year, Poland produced 2.6 million metric tons of blueberries, and was the main supplier of blueberries to Germany, the UK, and Scandinavia.
The blueberry, however, is indigenous to North America and legend has it that Native Americans gave blueberries to the pilgrims to help them make it through their first winter. Until the early 1900s, Americans thought that blueberries could not be domesticated. It wasn’t until Elizabeth White, the daughter of a New Jersey farmer, teamed up with Dr. Frederick Coville to crossbreed the highbush blueberry that the first commercial crop of blueberries emerged in 1916. It then took another 15 years to introduce the blueberry to Europe!
Thus, unlike other pastries, there is no long history of the jagodzianka in Poland. However, jagodzianka recipes are similar to the drożdżówka pastry, and some even suggest using the slightly sweet dough of the drożdżówka as a base (yeast, sugar, water, milk, eggs, flour), and just replacing the cheese filling with blueberries mixed with powdered sugar. Like the drożdżówka, the top of the jagodzianka is sprinkled with a crumbly butter, sugar, and flour mixture. Double yum.
Rzeszowska Bakery makes their jagodzianki on location each morning, and will sell out of most of their baked goods by 6pm so don’t hesitate to call in before heading to work! The bakery is cash only.
Rzeszowska Bakery is located at 948 Manhattan Avenue, between India & Java Streets.