Krempita – Cream Slice
The Bled Cream Cake is a variation of the cream slice that is exclusively made in the pastry workshop of the Park Hotel in Bled. It is a type of cake, a dessert, a cream pie that is neither just a cream slice nor a cream puff, but rather both at the same time. According to the pastry chefs of the hotel, the original Bled Cream Cake can be recognized by the fact that when placed on a plate, it must wobble. The Bled Cream Cake is the most famous symbol of Bled cuisine.
History of the Cream Slice
The first Bled Cream Slice was made in 1953. It was created by the renowned pastry chef Ištvan Lukačević, who had moved from Senta to this Slovenian town in the 1940s and devised the recipe as the head of the pastry workshop at the Park Hotel.
Lukačević actually used an old recipe from Vojvodina but replaced half of the egg cream with whipped cream. The upper and lower layers are made of puff pastry with butter, and the layers are cut into 60
pieces measuring 7×7 cm. Since 2005, due to smaller ovens and baking trays measuring 35×50 cm, they are cut into 35 pieces, but always with the dimensions of 7×7 cm. His successors were Maruša Zajc, his first apprentice, followed by Angela Zupan from 1967, who worked at the hotel for 24 years and earned the nickname “Mama Cream Slice.”
Apart from being produced at the original Park Hotel, the Bled Cream Cake has been made at many other places around Bled for several decades. It is estimated that over 25 million slices have been consumed so far.
Only natural ingredients are used in the production of the Bled Cream Cake: flour, eggs, butter, sugar, and cream. Lukačević made puff pastry with butter, folding it seven times and allowing it to “rest” until the next morning, when he rolled out the dough, baked the layers, and let them cool. He then prepared the cream with eggs using the finest natural ingredients, cooking it for exactly seven minutes, occasionally stirring. He added stiffly beaten egg whites to the warm cream and poured the cream onto the bottom layer. Once the cream completely cooled, he covered it with a layer of whipped cream and topped it with the upper layer. He generously sprinkled powdered sugar on top. According to some sources, the Bled Cream Slice is precisely 6 cm tall and weighs 125 grams.
Over the past 60 years, more than 12 million cream slices have been produced. There is data indicating that since 1953, over 15 million cream slices have been made, which means that if they were stacked one
on top of the other around Lake Bled, they would form a wall 8 meters high!
All Yugoslavs Love Krempita/Cream Slice
Cream slices are among the favorite desserts in other countries of the former Yugoslavia as well. In Croatia, the two most popular variations are the Samobor cream slice from the town of Samobor and the Zagreb cream slice from Zagreb. The Zagreb cream slice has a characteristic chocolate glaze instead of puff pastry on top, while maintaining the puff pastry base. The classic recipe for the Samobor cream slice
is believed to have been designed by Đuro Lukačić in the early 1950s, based on various earlier variations found in Zagreb’s confectioneries.
In Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the dessert is known as krempita. It is also made with puff pastry, filled with a thick egg cream. If the filling is made with beaten egg whites and sugar, it is called šampita.
In Montenegro, in Kotor, the famous Kotorska pasta or Kotorska krempita even has its own festival held every year in June, just before the start of the tourist season.
