Kalács - Hungarian sweet bread

Kalács (pronounced [ˈkɒlaːtʃ]) is a typical and very popular Hungarian sweet bread that is very similar to brioche. It is usually baked in a braided form, and traditionally considered an Easter food. However, my family can't imagine Christmas without grandma's delicious kalács. The lovely sweet bread is often consecrated together with ham in Catholic churches

Kalács or Challah (plural: challot/challos) is also a special Jewish braided bread which is eaten on Sabbath and holidays.

In the Ukranie 'кaлач' kalach is a symbol of luck, prosperity, and good bounty, and are traditionally prepared for 'Свята вечеря' (Holy Supper). The ritually braid a round loaf and put a candle or Christmas branch in the middle. 

Ingredients:

• 375 g all purpose flour
• 14 g dried yeast
• 240 ml lukewarm milk
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• 70 ml oil
• 2 ek. dark cocoa powder
• 1 package of vanilla sugar
• 1 egg for the egg wash

Directions:

Sift flour into a large bowl. Mix it with sugar and dry yeast. Add lukewarm milk and oil. Mix with a wooden spoon or with your hand until just combined. Divide dough into two. Add vanilla sugar to the one, and cocoa powder to the other one. Mix both well, then coven with wet kitchen cloth and let it rise in a warm place for an hour or until it has doubled in bulk.

Punch down the risen doughs and turn out onto floured board. Divide in half and knead each half for 5 minutes, then divide each dough into another two pieces.  

Roll out each into 0.5 cm thick square form. Stack one atop the other, start with white one, put a brown one onto it, then another white one, and finish with the brown one. Roll it up tightly. Cut the roll lengthwise while keeping one end attached (otherwise it would fall apart) and start twisting the 'snakes'. Attach the end by pinching the snakes.
Grease a baking form with butter and carefully place finished braid in it. Set aside and let it rest for 1 hour. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 180C (360F). Beat the egg and brush a generous amount over the kalács. Bake for about 40-45 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool before slicing.

Idea: If you like it, add rum soaked raisins to the dough. Skilled and experienced ones can try making a braid and form a gorgeous braided wreath of it. 

Cherry clafoutis

Clafoutis (pronounced klafuˈtis) is a classic French pie arranged in a buttered dish and covered with a thick flan-like batter.

A traditional clafoutis contains pits of the cherries. The pits play an important role, it is said, that the pits release a wonderful flavour when the dish is cooked. (despite this fact, I have decided to make it without.) Hmmm slightly crunchy in the outside, soft and creamy in the middle.
When other kinds of fruit are used instead of cherries, the dish is properly called a flaugnarde (pronounced floɲaʁd).

Ingredients: (25 cm diameter spring-form)

• 300 g cherry
• 3 eggs
• 100 g powdered sugar
• 90 g flour
• 200 ml milk
• 100 ml cream
• butter and biscuit crumble for the spring-form 
• 1 Tbsp. honey
• cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat over to 180 Celsius grades and place the rack in the center of the oven.

Wash the cherries, remove the stems and pits. Sprinkle with cinnamon, rum and honey and set aside. 

Coat the bottom and sides of the pan with butter and biscuit crumble.

Divide the eggs. Mix egg yolk with powdered sugar until creamy and whitish colour. Pour milk and cream carefully to it. With soft movements, add flour. Beat egg whites on medium high speed until stiff peaks form. Fold egg whites into batter. 

Pour the batter into the spring-form (or pie form) and sprinkle the fruit over it. 

Bake in pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes or until the clafoutis is puffed, set and golden brown around the edges.  (Do not open the oven door until the end of the baking time or it may collapse.)

Serve hot with dusting sugar. Yoghurt, créme fraiche and/or whipped cream perfectly fit to it. 

Honey glazed yellow- gage flaugnarde

Clafoutis (pronounced klafuˈtis) is a classic French pie arranged in a buttered dish and covered with a thick flan-like batter.

A traditional clafoutis contains pits of the cherries. The pits play an important role, it is said, that the pits release a wonderful flavour when the dish is cooked. (despite this fact, I have decided to make it without.) Hmmm slightly crunchy in the outside, soft and creamy in the middle.
When other kinds of fruit are used instead of cherries, the dish is properly called a flaugnarde (pronounced floɲaʁd).

Ingredients: (25 cm diameter spring-form)

• 200 g yellow- gage
• 3 eggs
• 100 g powdered sugar
• 80- 100 g flour
• 200 ml flour
• 100 ml cream
• butter and biscuit crumble for the spring-form 
• 1 Tbsp. honey
• cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon rum

Directions:

Preheat over to 180 Celsius grades and place the rack in the centre of the oven.

Wash the yellow-gage, remove the stems and pits. Sprinkle with cinnamon, rum and honey and set aside. 

Coat the bottom and sides of the pan with butter and biscuit crumble.

Divide the eggs. Mix egg yolk with powdered sugar until creamy and whitish colour. Pour milk and cream carefully to it. With soft movements, add flour. Beat egg whites on medium high speed until stiff peaks form. Fold egg whites into batter. 

Pour the batter into the spring-form (or pie form) and sprinkle the fruit over it. 

Bake in pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes or until the clafoutis is puffed, set and golden brown around the edges.  (Do not open the oven door until the end of the baking time or it may collapse.)

Serve hot with dusting sugar. Yoghurt, créme fraiche and/or whipped cream perfectly fit to it. 

Witches fingers

Time before Halloween is always busy in our family. I can't sucrifice time enough to prepare good for the big party day. So this year I decided to make something delicious and frightening that can be done quickly. I had a lot of fun to form the fingers. It is just so easy but still yummy and and creepy. Perfect choice for a Halloween party. I was done within 30 minutes including preparation, baking and decoration. Everybody loved it.

Ingredients:

• 125 g flour
• 75 g butter
• 100 g ground almond
• 75 g icing sugar
• 1 egg
• ca. 20-25 pieces of almonds

Directions:

Mix flour, ground almond, icing sugar, butter and egg and with your hands until you get a nice smooth dough. 
Divide it into ca. 20 pieces, roll little balls from them, then form them into a rollers (as long and as thick as your own finger). 
Put the little fingers on baking paper. Press one almond into one end of each cookie to give the appearance of a long fingernail. Form two knuckles (just like on your on hand). 
Take a sharp knife, and cut small rimples into the cookies to get a finger-like appearance. Preheat oven to 180 Celsius digrees (356 F). Bake the cookies for 10 minutes in preheated oven or until the fingers get a slightly golden colour.
Get a pot of red cranberries jam (strawberry might work as well, the point is that the colour of the jam is red). Put the end of the fingers into the jam to have a little bloody outfit to them.

Carrot- walnut cake a'la Ilse

A lovely friend of our family gave this recipe to me after I was lucky to taste it at her home. It was so delicious that I must have asked for the recipe. It's incredible. I seriously couldn't stop myself/ourselves. We almost eat up the whole cake.

Next time I'll try the cupcake version of it. Can't wait to share my experiences.

Ingredients for the cake: (24cm springform pan)

•  3 eggs  
• 200 g sugar  
• 1 pinch of salt  
• 200 ml sunflower oil  
• 250 g flour   
•  2 Tsp. grounded cinnamon   
•  ½ package of baking powder   
•  3 ounces rasped carrots   
•  2 mashed bananas 
•  80-90 g chopped walnuts  
• Butter (for greasing the springform pan)

Ingredients for the glaze:

• 25 g butter (at room temperature)  
• 2 ounces of icing sugar
• 3 Tbsp. cream cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 170 Celsius degrees (340 F). Mix eggs with sugar and pinch salt and beat until soft creamy. Turn the mixer on the lowest setting and slowly pour oil to it.

Sift flour, baking powder and cinnamon powder over the egg mixture and mix gently with a wooden spoon (You can do it with your mixer on the lowest setting, it works perfectly as well.)

Add rasped carrots, smashed banana and crushed walnuts, stir gently and pour the mix into greased springform pan.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean (toothpick test/doneness test).

Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely. Let cake cool off!

For the glaze: Combine all ingredients and beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Frost the cooled cake. 

 

Exotic chicken served in pineapple

Once a waiter asked me whether I am open for a surprise. Seeing my astonished face, he explained his plan to me. He wanted us not to order from the menu card, but let him guess what our hearts wish the most. Well, we said oookaaaaayy. The result was frenetic. I am still wondering how he could figure it out. To cut a long story short: here was the first time I got chicken served in pineapple. Loved it. Fortunately I found the recipe in a magazine, so decided to cook it to my love. 

Ingredients:

• 500 g chicken breast fillet cut in small pieces
• 3 small paprika (if possible colorful)
• 1 whole pineapple (can is also good, in this case you serve your dish on plate)
• 1 medium sized onion 
• salt, pepper
• 2 Tbsp. soy sauce
• 2 chives garlic (pressed)
• peanut oil
• Himalaya basmati rice (Riceland product)

Directions:

Cut pineapple into two pieces and remove the inside. Don't throw away the shell, it can be used as a "plate". Make sure you remove the middle piece of the pineapple (core) as it is pretty hard. Cut pineapple into small piece (according to the size of chicken pieces).
Chop onion into small pieces, preheat oil in a wok, and simmer onion to glassy. Add chicken, flavor with salt, pepper and bake it until meat gets white. 
Wash and cut paprika into small pieces. Add to the wok with pressed garlic and soy sauce.
Cook the rice.
When paprika is done (so not hard any more), add pineapple cubes. Stir carefully. Taste it, if something needed (salt, pepper, soy sauce etc.).

Mix chicken ragout with boiled rice (or you can serve separate as well), and fill it back into the pineapple shell. If you decide not to mix rice with ragout, start filling up the pineapple shell with a layer of rice, and pour ragout over it. Serve hot/warm.

Real Bavarian mood - Brotzeitteller

Oktoberfest in my beloved Munich is over this year. Unfortunately I don't live there anymore and I didn't have to opportunity to go there this year to celebrate Oktoberfest with all my friends I left there. (I hope next year, maybe) Sometimes I miss the good old times so much. I miss Munich, I miss everything from there.

Ingredients: (2 persons)

• 2 db Bavarian bread roll (or Bavarian pretzels)
• few slices of cheese (I used smoked cheese because I simply love that)
• meatloaf (Leberkäse) 
• any kind of German sausage
• radish (or as Bavarians call it, Radieserl) 
• pepper cut into thin strips
• 1 Tbsp. egg cream with chieves (if you have the possibility, use Obazda)
• sweet and Dijon mustard (for serving) 

Directions:

It's not a recipe, so you actually don't need any directions or hints. It's culinary adventure mixed with nostalgia. 
So long story short: Take a place. Much better if you take a wooden board or a wooden cutting board. (Unfortunately I don't have such a thing home, so I sticked with ceramic boards.) 
The key: Serve all the ingredients nicely on the board. Don't forget mustard and a lovely glas of real German beer (best choice is a light wheat beer.) Enjoy your meal!

Note: I missed a few things from my plate - which are very important on a traditional German Brotzeitteller plate - because I don't really like them or simply couldn't buy them at the place I live now. BUT to be precise, I can't finish this post without mentioning and offering them to you: Sülze (head cheese), pickles, Obazda (cheese spread).