Polkas

These are old-fashioned French pastries. The typical polka has a pastry cream filling, but it makes a versatile container for many types of fillings; see the Variations at the end of the recipe for other ideas. They are especially pretty when made into baskets, as in Strawberry Baskets, below.

My guess is that the name derives from that period in the mid-nineteenth century when there were many émigrés from eastern Europe in Paris, since there is also a small pastry called a mazurka—