Chocolate Babka

Hungarian Fried Bread { Lángos II }

Over the years I have tried to recreate the nation's favourite street food at home, with so-so but acceptable (to me) results. See https://cookingeasttowest.blogspot.com/2015/11/hungarian-fried-dough-langos.html and https://cookingeasttowest.blogspot.com/2016/05/native-american-fried-bread.html

Am glad I found this following recipe which is easy and comes with video instructions.

Hungarian Fried Bread { Lángos II }
via https://www.nosalty.hu/recept/igazi-strandos-langos
Makes 4 regular-size / 7 mini-size

300gm Bread flour
10ml lukewarm milk
150ml water
25g fresh yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tsp icing sugar

Topping suggestions
3 cloves of garlic, mince
200ml sour cream
200gm cheese

Method :-
1) In a cup, add lukewarm milk, fresh yeast and icing sugar for 10 mins. to activate the yeast.
2) In a bowl, sift in bread flour and salt, make a well, add in the proof yeast and about 150ml of water. Mix it well and let it rest for an hour at a warm place covered with kitchen cloth.
3) Heat up vegetable oil to deep fry. Tear a ball off the dough, stretch it (see video in link given) and fry until golden brown.
4) Serve hot , top with topping of choice.

Native American Fried Bread

This fried-bread looks very much like the Hungarian Lángos. However, the Hungarian version is leaven using yeast. While this Native American version uses baking powder ; which makes the process faster. Of course, there are difference in taste too.

For testing purposes, I have reduced the ingredients to a third of the original.

Native American Fried-Bread
via The Pioneer Woman

1 cup All-Purpose Flour
a pinch of salt
1 tsp Baking powder (slightly rounded tsp)
1/4 cup milk
water as needed
Lard or shortening , for frying (I used vegetable oil, will try lard the next round)

Instructions

Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Stir with a fork as you pour in the milk; keep stirring for a bit to get it to come together as much as possible. Add just enough water to get it to come together. Cover the bowl with a dish towel and let it sit for 35 to 45 minutes to rest.

When you're ready to fry the bread, heat about 1 to 2 inches shortening/lard in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Grab a plum-sized piece of dough (or larger if you want larger fry bread) and press it into a circle with your fingers: place it on a clean surface and begin pressing in the center and work your way out, stretching it as you go.

When the circle is about 4 to 7 inches (however big you want it) carefully drape it into the skillet. Allow it to fry on one side until golden brown, about 1 minute, then carefully flip it to the other side using tongs. Fry it for another 30 to 45 seconds.

Remove the fry bread to a paper towel-lined plate and allow it to drain while you fry the other pieces.

Serve warm!

Holiday Baking : Hungarian poppy seeds / walnuts rolls { Bejgli II }

Two thumbs up for this recipe! which by the way , will replace the one archived here before.  What I like about this version is the fluffy bread texture as you see below.

With the exorbitant price of walnuts, I've opted to only make the poppy seeds fillings. That being said, both fillings are equally good. For us and especially my mother-in-law, she prefers the poppy seeds type.

The recipe linked below makes 6 rolls; but the quantity I stated below have been adjusted to only 2 rolls. In fact, I could have made into 3 shorter rolls instead of 2 long ones.

Bejgli
source : Receptneked

makes 2 rolls

Ingredients
For the dough
130ml sour cream (20% fat)
83g goose fat
1 medium-size egg
2 Tbsp sugar
pinch salt
30gm fresh yeast
400gm flour

For the filling

200gm ground Poppy seeds
100gm Honey
100gm water
vanilla extract
bunch of raisins, soaked and drained
1 zest of lemon
2 Tbsp of apricot jam
sugar, to taste


For glazing
1 egg, seperated

Preparation
For the dough
1) In a bowl, mix together sour cream, goose fat, egg, sugar and salt.
2) In another bowl, put in the flour and crumble in the yeast. Then create a well in the centre, and pour in the sour cream mixture (1). Mix until all ingredients are combine.
3) On a floured surface, pour out the flour mixture and knead until you get a smooth dough.
4) Let the dough rest in covered bowl , in room temperature for 1 hour.

For the filling
1) Heat water until hot. Combine it with honey and mix well.
2) In a bowl, put the ground poppy seeds, lemon zest, apricot jam, vanilla extract , soaked and drain raisins. The pour in the honey-water mixture. Combine well. Check for sweetness, if needed add sugar to taste. I needed to add sugar in consideration of my MIL taste buds.
3) Divide filling into 2 portions. Set aside until assembly.

To finish
1) 30 mins. into proofing the dough, start pre-heating the oven at 180°c
2) Once dough is fully proof, pour out on floured work surface, and punch out the air from the dough.
3) Divide dough into 2 equal size.
4) Take the first dough, roll out into a rectangle shape. Size according to your preference.
5) Spread a portion of the filling onto the dough , leaving some space on the sides to prevent leakage.
6) Roll up the dough just like Swiss roll, but not too tight to leave room for the dough to grow and not burst.
7) Repeat the same for the next roll. Glaze each roll with only egg yolk. Then let it dry for about 15 mins. After 15 mins. glaze with egg white.  Use a knife or fork to prick the roll all the way to let out the steam during baking.
8) Bake in the pre-heated oven for 30-35 mins. until golden brown.

Serving
It is better to let the roll sit for a day or two to enhance the taste even more. Just wrap the rolls in cling film and keep in a cool place.

Hungarian Steamed Buns { Gőzgombóc }

Going forward, I'll switch to this Hungarian steamed buns recipe when making Chinese steamed buns. Unlike my previous chinese recipes, this produced buns which were so light and fluffy! It has to be said that they are best eaten hot out of the steamer. If you do have left over, then re-steam for short few minutes to soften it again.

Gőzgombóc

serves : 6 pcs.

You must go to the source for a detailed pictorial at Aprosef

Ingredients :-

Dumpling

250gm Flour

15gm yeast

20gm sugar

1 gm salt

1/2 egg yolk

1/2 egg (size “m”)

125ml Milk (2.8%)

10gm butter

1 lemon zest

Stuffing

60gm plum jam, thick divided into 6

To serve with

egg custard

ground poppy seeds

Preparation :-

1. Mix all ingredients for dumplings, knead until a smooth round shape. Place shaped dough in a greased bowl. Grease also the top of dough. Coer with cling film. Let it rest at warm place for 60 mins. Or until size doubled.
2. Once dough doubled in size, roll out and divide into 6 smaller balls. Use you hand flatten it a bit and wrapped in the portioned jam. Take note the jam should be stuffed in centre to avoid leakage. Close dough by pinching it. Shape into nice round.
3. Set aside the stuffed dough. Cover with cling film. Meanwhile set the steamer and when water is boiling. Steam dough on high heat for 15 mins.
4. Serve with custard and sprinkle with ground poppy seeds.

Savoury Chinese 5-spice doughnut { Ham chim paeng }

Deep-fried savoury doughnut is typical hawker fare back home; which is usually consumed in the morning or during tea.time. To make this deep-fried savoury doughnuts at home has been on my to-try list for the longest time! I'm so glad that it has been crossed-off from the list.
Please visit My Kitchen Snippets for the recipe.

Hungarian Fried dough { Lángos }

Yes! I finally decided not to be lazy anymore and venture into making lángos at home. It is not difficult at all! Just like making pizza, except it is fried. Don't get me wrong, I'll still be buying ready-made ones from my Sunday market. However, if you need to feed or serve a hugh crowd doing it at home, will be more economical.
Lángos
Via visitbudapest.travel
300 g all-purpose flour, sifted
7 g dried (instant) yeast
250 ml water (*** I used luke warm)
1/2 teaspoon salt
sunflower oil (for frying)
toppings: sour cream, grated cheese, garlic
Method
1) Dissolve instant yeast in luke warm water. Set aside for 10 mins or until yeast has been activated (froth / foaming)
2) In a bowl, sift together flour and salt. Add in the activated yeast water. Mix together by using your hand or wooden spoon. The dough is very sticky! Just mix it until the dough is smooth and not stick to bowl.
3) Let the dough rest , covered, for 30-40 mins. or until the size of dough doubled.
4) Stretch out the dough onto a floured surface, into square shape. Cut rounds by using a round cutter of 10cm or any desired size. Stretch the round doughs a little , thinning the centre. Let it rest for 30 mins.
5) After 30 mins. Heat oil in deep fryer. Fry until golden brown.
6) Serve hot with the suggested toppings.
Updated : Oct 18, 2015
I've come across another easy fried dough recipe  ; which is fluffier and faster http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/county-fair-fried-dough-recipe
2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour*

2 teaspoons baking powde 

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, in 1/2" cubes

3/4 cup lukewarm water

  Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt.

2) Work in the cold butter, using a pastry blender, your fingers, or a mixer.

3) Stir in the warm water to make a soft dough. Cover and let rest for 15 minutes.

4) Divide the dough into eight pieces. Working with one piece at a time, roll into a thin 5" round, about 3/8" thick.

5) Heat about 3/8" vegetable oil to 375°F in an electric frying pan, or in a pan over a burner. If you're using a 10" diameter pan, this is 2 cups of vegetable oil. If you're not using an electric frying pan, use a candy thermometer to take the temperature of the oil; or guesstimate it by seeing if the first piece of dough fries nicely in the time specified.

6) Pick up one dough disk, and carefully lower it into the pan. Let it cook for 60 seconds (it'll puff up on top and become light brown on the bottom), then flip it over and cook until light brown on the other side, about 60 seconds. You don't want to cook these too dark; they'll become overly crisp.

7) Remove from the oil and set on a paper towel-lined baking sheet. Place in a 200°F oven to keep warm while you make the remaining fried doughs.

8) Serve warm, with maple syrup or cider syrup; confectioners' sugar, or cinnamon sugar; or the topping of your choice — some folks enjoy a savory version, with marinara sauce and cheese.

Yield: 8 servings.

Poppy seeds bread pudding

Okay, I know this looks strange..haha. If you like poppy seed desserts you will like this.
After many years living in Hungary, strangely I haven't tried Mákos Guba before this. Perhaps because I am still getting use to poppy seeds. Slowly, I got used to it, but only in poppy seeds pie! Well, I think it is time to  add another dessert which feature this ingredient into my limited experience.
Poppy seeds bread pudding {Mákos Guba}
adapted from I like Baking

Ingredients for 6 servings:

6 pcs stale crescent rolls (you could also use sweet bread, baguette)

450 ml milk

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and seeds scraped (or sub. with vanilla sugar)

40 g unsalted butter

75 g ground poppy seed (I used much more for 3 pax)

75 g castor sugar (or to taste)

4 tbsp honey

1 finely grated lemon rind

1 pinch of ground clove (sub. with ground cinnamon)

Method (for pictorial, check out the link provided!)
1) Pre-heat oven at 180°c. Lightly grease baking pan (26x17cm)
2) Slice up  the rolls/bread and set aside.
3) Add vanilla seeds, honey and butter into milk and bring it to boil.
4) Pour boiled milk over the rolls/bread prep. earlier.
5) Mix together poppy seeds, lemon zest, ground cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle all over rolls/bread. Mix well. Be careful not to mush up the bread.
6) Pour the mixture onto the greased baking dish, prep earlier and let it bake in the pre-heated oven for 15 mins. or until the edges of bread are crispy.
7) Serve warm. To serve, you could sprinkle with icing sugar and drizzle over some custard.

Fried Pizza base

There's no way I'm turning on the oven in summer; so, I thought let's try fried pizza!
My pizza dough recipe was based on http://www.italianrecipesmadeeasy.com/fried-pizza.html . Please visit the link to see different stages of this recipe but I'll still post the recipe below just in case the link doesn't work in the future.
 
Fried Pizza
Italian Recipes Made Easy
serving : For about 8 mini pizzas
300g of strong white flour
1 tea spoon of dry yeast
1 tea spoon of salt
1 tea spoon of sugar
20ml of extra virgin olive oil
190ml of warm water
vegetable oil
1)For the dough put flour, yeast, salt, sugar, olive oil in a bowl.
2)Using your hands and adding slowly the water mix all the ingredients together until you obtain a soft and smooth dough (if too dry add more water, if too sticky add more flour).
3)Cover and let the dough rise for a couple of hours or until has doubled in size.
4) At this point take small pieces of dough, shape them into mini pizzas and fry in hot vegetable oil. Drain them on kitchen paper.  To me this recipe is good not only to top with pizza garnishes but also good with sour cream, cheese or just plain powdered sugar.
To make into pizza :-
5) In the middle of each mini pizza pour one or two table spoons of the tomatoes sauce and grated parmigiano to your taste.
Serve immediately.

Simple milk buns

Snaps of my first successful batch of bread were posted on my flickr but somehow I didn't write about it here. The recipe was through the food blog The cocoanut . Since the link to the blog is inactive currently, I've pasted the recipe below for anyone interested in trying out this lovely loaf (made into buns).

Simple Milk Buns
Source : The cocoanut

Ingredients
500 g plain white flour*
350g milk (I used skim milk)
20 g honey, about a tablespoon-and-a-bit’s worth
25g warm melted butter
1 x 7g sachet instant dried yeast
1 tsp salt

Method
In a large bowl, whisk the yeast with the milk and honey. Add the flour and salt, and combine until you get a soft, sticky dough. Pour over the warm melted butter, and mix this into the dough. Knead the dough for 10 minutes, or if you have an electric mixer like me, you can use that instead. Simply attach a dough hook and let it do all the work for you, around 7-10 minutes.

Leave the dough in the bowl for an hour to proof. After an hour has passed, punch down the dough to release all the carbon dioxide. Transfer the dough to a loaf tin, and let it proof for another hour. The dough will rise again to about twice its size, and this time you want all that gas inside to remain. At this stage, I like to brush the top of the dough with water and sprinkle poppy seeds. This is entirely optional, and I only did it because I happen to have a jar of poppy seeds in the pantry.

Set the oven to 210oC, and when hot enough carefully place the dough into the oven and bake for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 180oC and bake for another 25-30 minutes, or until the top of the loaf is dark brown. Remove from the tin, and leave to cool on a wire rack.

*I used all purpose flour, because that’s what I had at home. However, you might want to try using strong white flour or bread flour, which are more glutinous and will ‘jump’ over the top of the tin much more than normal flour.