You can start small with tiny candies like Krówki, milk-based caramela that come in every flavor from milk to coffee to poppy seed, walnut and Advocat.

Poppy seed is a very common flavor or filling, and comes up again and again. We had really good poppy seed ice cream and an even better thin pastry stuffed with poppy seed in Budapest.

Poppy seed ice cream

The ice cream shop!

Eva’s maiden name is Jagodzinska, roughly translated to “she of the blue berries.” She even gets her own sweet in Poland, the Jagodzianka.

Seasonal fruits play a major role, and being invited to a family home often includes a nice slice of fruit-filled cake.

But ahh, the cheesecakes, especially the ones we found in Poland! America does not allow the kinds of cheese it takes to make one of these and that is a serious loss. These cheesecakes are both light and rich, with more of a true cheese flavor than you would expect. No, I don’t mean cheese like cheddar but a light, farmers whipped cheese, similar to quark. They taste like something made by the hands of a mother, not a machine, because most often they are.

Incredibly fun to watch and more fun to eat are Kürtös Kalács. Though they’re a Hungarian treat, these are quite easy to find around tourist destinations in most of Eastern Europe, especially in the Balkans.

To really round out the sweets experience, you have to try the King of Sweets: Wedel. The Willy Wonka of Poland, this classic chocolate company also offers a variety of other sweets. Jeremy loves the ptasie mleczko (bird’s milk), little squares of marshmallow-like cream dipped in chocolate and almost always presented at the table of a Polish family entertaining guests.

Drinkable Chocolate at Wedel in Warsaw.

But this is not the greatest gift this company has given the world. No, it is their drinkable chocolate; thick, rich and so utterly satisfying to any sweets or chocolate lover as to bring on a form of nirvana. This is not hot chocolate like we have in the states and is so much more than the chocolate for dipping churros in Spain. Somewhere lighter than pudding and thicker than maple syrup, the experience warms your body and heart even if its snowing outside.

Eastern cake shops offer all the decadence and delight of France. Window shopping rarely stops there; it’s too hard to walk away empty handed!