Zizi's Adventures - Real Food, Real Stories

Butternut Squash-Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

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I love butternut squash, one of my favourite winter fruits. I like trying out new recipes with it.  This is one of them…

Ingredients

– half of a smaller butternut squash, without seeds, roasted, peeled and mashed
– 80 g butter
– 1/4 cup cane sugar
– 1/4 cup oatmeal
– 1 cup white spelt flour
– 1/4 cup whole grain spelt flour
– 1 organic egg
– 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
– 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
– 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
– 1/4 teaspoon salt
– 1 vanilla bean, split and seeded
– 1 handful of chocolate chips

Method

Preheat oven to 180C (350F). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, set aside. Beat the butter (with hand beater or an electric mixer) until creamy. Add sugar and stir/mix another 2 minutes. Add pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, baking soda, egg and mix until everything combined. Add flours, followed by the oats and choc chips. Mix again until just combined. Drop dough by tablespoons onto the baking sheets. Bake for 15 minutes until golden brown around the edges and puffed in the center.

Cheese Biscuits with Poppy Seeds

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I baked this cheese biscuits on Saturday afternoon just to have some snacks for our evening wine tasting. During the baking the whole flat smelt like cheese, I had to open the windows. 🙂 But when we tasted it… we couldn’t stop eating it. Just some left for the wine tasting…
The recipe is adapted from Anne’s blog, I only did a bit of chaning.

Ingredients

– 100 g unsalted cold butter, cut into cubes
– 100 g parmesan or pecorino, grated
– 100 g white spelt flour
– 100 g whole grain spelt flour
– 1 organic egg, yolk divided from egg white
– water
– pinch of salt and pepper
– poppy seeds

Method

In a bowl mix together flour (both of them) with butter. Rub together until they resemble breadcrumbs. Add the cheese, salt, pepper, egg yolk and water (0,5-1 dl). Work together everything into a dough. If it’s too moist, add more flour. If it still crumbles, add more water to it.

Divide the dough in two pieces and roll into two logs (about 12-15 cm long, diameter 3-4 cm). Brush both logs with the egg white and roll them in poppy seeds. Wrap the logs in cling film and place the logs in the freezer for about 15 minutes. The dough should be hard but not very frozen.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 180C (350 F). After 15 minutes take out the logs from the freezer, unwrap them and cut into slices of 5-7 mm wide. Place the biscuits on a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake them for about 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

So crunchy, so delicous but when you bake it the flat will smell like cheese! 🙂

Kalács, the Hungarian Sweet Braided Bread

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This is a traditional family recipe. Mothers passed the recipe to their daughters. I don’t remember when I ate it for the first time but I remember where… at my grandmother’s place (my mom’s mother). That time I didn’t know that she owns a special recipe. Special because she baked her heart and soul in it, that is why this sweet braided bread is so tender. Whenever I eat kalács (pronounced [ˈkɒlaːtʃ]) I always look for this texture but I never find it. 

My grandmother had taught my mom how to make and bake kalács and she taught me too. It is my job to take over the baton… one day I will teach my children how to bake my heart and soul into this sweet braided bread. 
It can be made for any holiday, but it has the most symbolism on Easter (often it is consecrated together with ham in Catholic churches). Traditionally kalács is made with milk and butter to create its brioche-like texture and is braided with three or four strands. The kalács dough needs special care. Prewarm the oven, shut it off, and use it as the place to let the dough rise. Use the stovetop as a warm spot to let the yeast proof. Also depending on the weather, the dough may require more or less flour. This recipe can make one medium-size loaf and eight pieces of brioche.

Kalács, the Hungarian Sweet Braided Bread

Ingredients (makes 1 loaf and 8 pieces of brioche)

– 400 ml lukewarm milk
– 1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar (to rise the yeast)
– 25 g fresh yeast
– 60 g butter, melted
– 650 g all-purpose wheat flour, sifted
– 1 organic egg +1 for the egg wash
– 11 teaspoon granulated sugar
– 1/4 teaspoon salt

Method

One hour before starting, place everything on the table and keep them on room temperature.

In a small bowl crumble the yeast with 100 ml lukewarm milk and 1/2 teaspoon sugar. Allow yeast to proof.

In another bowl whisk the egg with the remaining sugar (11 teaspoon) and salt. Add the proofed yeast mixture, the reamining milk (300 ml) and about 430 g flour. Mix everything with a wooden spoon until just combined. Start adding the melted butter step by step and work it in the dough with the wooden spoon until the dough comes off (pull away) the bowl and gets very shiny (about 10 minutes). It is not easy to work with your hands instead of a standing mixer but you will appreciate the end result. 🙂

Now change the wooden spoon into your hands. Start adding the remaining flour (220 g) step by step while kneading the dough until it gets moist, shiny but not sticky (about 10-15 minutes). Leave the dough in the bowl, cover with a clean cloth and let it rise for 30-40 minutes or until it has doubled in bulk.

Punch down the risen dough and turn out onto floured board. Divide in half and knead each half for 5 minutes, then divide one half into thirds and roll into long snake (set the other half aside). Pinch the ends of the three snakes together firmly and start breading with the pinched end across from you, work from left to righ, moving the left outermost strand over the second strand, under the third strand. Then start from the left again (the second strand in the previous braid is now the first strand). Repeat until the braided bread is complete (how to braid kalács). Press braided ends tightly and tuck them under the dough. Grease a baking tray with butter and carefully place finished braid on it. Set aside.

Divide the other half dough into 8 equal pieces. Divide each piece into thirds and roll into snakes again. Form braid into a round braided loaf by bringing ends together, curving braid into a circle, pinch ends together. (Here is another technique to form brioche.) Repeat with the 7 remaining pieces then place them onto the baking tray next to the kalács. Cover with the cloth and let rise about 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 180-190C (360-375F).

Beat the egg and brush a generous amount over the kalács and brioche. Bake at 180-190C (360-375F) for about 30-40 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool before slicing.

Ribboned carnival doughnuts

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Doughnuts are the most popular dessert – or trade mark – of the merry carnival season in Hungary which bids farewell to winter and stretches from the Epiphany to Ash Wednesday. Ribboned doughnuts, thus named for the white stripe around the golden brown sweet, are the best known.

Ingredients (makes about 50)

– 500 g flour, sifted
– 25 g fresh yeast
– 2 egg yolks
– 50 g powder sugar
– 50 g butter, melted
– 500 ml milk
– pinch of salt
– 2 tablespoons of rum

Method

Before you start making the doughnuts keep all the ingredients on room temperature for an hour. Dissolve the yeast with a pinch of powder sugar in 300 ml lukewarm milk and leave to work. In a bowl mix together the egg yolks with the remaining powder sugar. Add the yeast mixture to the yolks, then the melted butter, the flour, the remaining milk, the rum and the pinch of salt to have a medium soft dough. Knead thoroughly, then cover it with a dish cloth and in a moderately warm place let it rise until it is about one and a half times in volume. Remove the dough from the bowl and place on a floured surface. Roll out to a thickness of half an inch, cut with a large (about 7 cm long in diameter) pastry cutter and leave to prove under the dish cloth again for a further 30 minutes.

Before you start frying them press a small hollow with your thumb on each doughnut. Fry them in plenty of medium hot oil. Cover with a lid a fry one side until golden brown. Turn over and fry the other side without the lid. That’s how you get the “ribbon” running along the sides. Serve with apricot jam (spoon it in the middle of the hollow). Sprinkle them with powder sugar. Yum!