St. JPII, We Love You!

Happy Feast of St. John Paul II!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's late, and I don't have time to ramble on about how much I love this saint, BUT, I knew I couldn't let the awesome feast pass without acknowledging it. St. John Paul II is incredibly awesome for many reasons, but one of the huge gifts we have are his writings. Not only did he write such amazing things as Love and Responsibility (it's amazing, I highly recommend it. I know it's tough to read, so grab a buddy and discuss it together), but he also wrote artistic stuff, like poetry and theatrical works (like The Jeweler's Shop. Also amazing). I love Wadowice, the place where he grew up. I was so blessed to travel there with a ton of FUS students, at the conclusion of a pilgrimage to Poland in Spring 2012.

Before I destroyed it with a knife.
Also in typical AnneMarie fashion,
I somehow managed to make the top piece
awkwardly smaller than the bottom piece : P

One of the cool things that you discover in Wadowice is pope cake. There are these cute little pastry shops in the town, and JPII would sit at the square and eat this delicious cream cake from the shops. He loved it, so it's been dubbed "pope cake," and is a very popular item. Jacob and I ate lots of it during that stop in Wadowice, and it's fantastic! So, in a very sanguine moment, earlier today I decided to make it. Problem is, everyone and his cousin has a different recipe, all claiming to be the "best" recipe out there for "authentic pope cake." So I found this recipe, since it's from a cafe in Wadowice. I used only the ingredients I had on hand, so I didn't do the whipped cream addition that's mentioned on the bottom of the page. I also didn't do the intense dough-making process, looking off other recipes, I just whipped all the ingredients together and chilled them. In my typical style, I don't think I got all the
conversions right, and then the cream wasn't thickening
properly because I omitted the pudding mix because I didn't have any, and sugar and flour are fine substitutes, right? : )
Overall, even if our pope cake wasn't the finest or fanciest you'd find in Poland, it was delicious and a great way to celebrate the feast of such an epic man.

So, the cream filling also had a tendency to spill out the sides, and
they weren't as tall as the ones we had in Poland
but they were good!