Zizi's Adventures - Real Food, Real Stories

Milk Pie Baking With My Grandmother

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Grandmothers are precious gems, aren’t they? They always have a few secret recipes. If we ask them patiently, they tend to share their recipes with us… then we, food bloggers share the recipes with the whole world. 🙂

My only grandmother (who is still alive) celebrated her 89th birthday last week. Unfortunatelly it wasn’t a very happy birthday because she had to spend it in a hospital. She is out now, very slowly getting better but she is still weak, it is difficult for her to walk and she has very strong pain in her waist. Fingers crossed she is getting stronger and better day by day.

Last weekend I went to visit my family and baked my ginger carrot cake (with orange mascarpone frosting) for my grandma. She loved it. I was happy to see a smile on her face.

I baked this milk pie with my grandma during the summer. It was really fun to take photos of her every step. This milk pie is actually a thick pancake baked in the oven. It is not too sweet but moist and soft. You can eat it on its own but we usually spread any kind of homemade jam on top (this time plum jam).

I love this milk pie so much! I bet you will love it too!

Milk Pie

Ingredients

– 1 liter milk
– 2 organic eggs
– 410 g all-purpose flour, sifted
– 3 teaspoon sugar
– 1 teaspoon salt
– sunflower oil
– jam

Method

In a bowl beat the eggs with the sugar and salt. Slowly add the 1/3 part of the milk and 1/3 part of the flour. With a wooden spoon combine the batter until smooth then add the remaining milk and flour. Mix the batter until you get smooth thickish pancake batter. Leave it to rest for 10 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 170C (338F). Spread sunflower oil on a baking sheet (36*36 cm or 14,17*14,17 inch).

Pour batter into the prepared sheet and bake for about 15-20 minutes at 170C (338F) until the top is golden brown. Let it cool for 5-8 minutes then cut slices and spread any kind of homemade jam on top. It is best to eat lukewarm!

Spreading plum jam on top…

Lángos, The Hungarian Street Food

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Thanks for Monthly Mingles hosting I get to know more and more beautiful food blogs around the world. Thank you for those who already sent delicious food recipes with intersting, new-to-me stories I didn’t know about. I’m learning a lot. If you would like to participate, I’m still waiting for your recipes and photos until the end of August.

I chose Street Food as this month’s mingle theme because I love traveling. My Pinterest “Places I’d like to travel to” photo album proves that there are many dream destinations on my wish list (the question is who doesn’t?)… and with all your amazing recipes (the roundup will come in the beginning of September) we can all travel around the world… at least virtually.

Meet a very popular street food speciality of Hungary, the lángos. It is a deep fried flat bread made of a dough with flour, yeast, salt and water (kind of bread dough). Lángos can be made with yoghurt, sour cream or milk instead of water, a dash of sugar along with salt and sometimes with flour and boiled mashed potatoes, which is called potato lángos. It is eaten fresh and warm, topped with sour cream and grated cheese, rubbed with garlic or garlic butter, or doused with garlic water. Lángos may be cooked at home or bought from street vendors around the country. The name comes from láng, the Hungarian word for flame.

Traditionally lángos was baked in the front of the brick oven, close to the flames. It was made from bread dough and was served as breakfast on the days when new bread was baked. Nowadays lángos is always fried in oil.

Lángos is also very popular and known as a fast food at fairs and in amusement parks in Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, in Serbia and in Romania.

To be honest I haven’t made lángos on my own before. This time I asked my wonderful mom to help me make the dough, fry the lángos and do the food styling with me. We had so much fun together, we laughed until we cried during the photo shoot.

Lángos

Ingredients (makes  about 10 lángos, it depends on the size)

– 300 g all-purpose flour
– 7 g dried (instant) yeast
– 250 ml water
– 1/2 teaspoon salt
– sunflower oil for frying
– toppings: sour cream, grated cheese, garlic

Method

In a mug dissolve the salt in the water. In a bowl combine the sifted flour with the yeast. Add salty water to it and stir through (if it’s very sticky, add a little bit more flour). Work the dough with a wooden spoon or with your hands until the dough comes off the bowl  and gets smooth. 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.

Once it is rested, carefully tip out the dough onto a floured surface, stretch out into a square and cut out about 10 cm (3,93 inch) round shapes with a big glass (big cookie cutter also good). Stretch out each piece with your fingers into a rund shape with the centre being thinner than the edges. Let the pieces rest for another 30 minutes on the floured surface.

In a saucepan heat sunflower oil. Place lángos into the hot oil, fry it on one side until golden brown then turn. Repeat with the remaining lángos dough.

Serve while it’s hot. You can eat it simple or sprinkle with chopped garlic or douse with garlic water and top with grated cheese and sour cream.

Enjoy!

The famous Hungarian garlic from MakĂł…

Weekend Crumbs

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Last weekend was about Easter so I traveled home to Szeged. I was lucky to catch the blooming of magnolia trees at Széchenyi Square. This is a spot that everyone knows in town. It is basically the center of the city. Here you will find the Town Hall, a smaller park where you can walk to, sit down and relax (especially spring and summer time).

Szeged is the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain. The town is famous of its paprika, the Pick salami, the fish soup, the university, river Tisza, the Open Air Theatre (they are held every summer) and the Cathedral.

Let’s see the crumbs…

My mom baked her famous kalács (the best one in the world!)… Kalács can be made for any holiday, but it has the most symbolism on Easter.

I took so many photos of the kalács and the eggs…

Would you like a nice cup of cappuccino?

Breakfast in bed. I don’t remember when we had something similar last time but we deserved it. That’s for sure! When did you have breakfast in bed last time?

Of course I baked during the long weekend. Instead of a cake I baked vegan almond, coconut and chocolate cupcakes for I.’s birthday. This was the first time I made vegan frosting and we loved it so much.

We started doing the gardening too in our small parcel in the community garden. We planted squash, zucchini, Swiss chard, carrot, radish, green bean, dill, coriander and garlic seeds. We’ll also have rhubarb, tomato and green pepper seedlings soon. I. and I are so excited to have a tiny space in the city where we can relax and have some time with mother nature.

Every spring I fell in love with the pink blossoming… I stand under a tree like this for 5 minutes and thank for her (yes, her!) for being so beautiful. 🙂