Sweet Milk Loaf Fonott Tejes Kalács

As I was toasting the last of the sweet milk loaf I made this Easter, it reminded me how much I wanted to share this recipe. Sweet milk loaves or Kalács you can buy in Hungary all year round, but has a particular significance around Easter. It's perfect with the smoked cured ham for Easter Sunday breakfast but also freezes really well and ready to eat later on with butter and jam, like we did. Braiding the many strands of this loaf can be daunting but I found some excellent video tutorials on YouTube and will include in the recipe below. There are choices of how many strands you want to braid, less is a bit easier, but this one is made with 6 strands and was not too complicated to do at all. Also I think this is a great dough to use for braiding, it keeps its shape and beautiful shiny strands while baking. This is a lovely breakfast bread to make all year round, if you like a brioche, you will love this kalács too! I used refined spelt flour in this recipe as I have been using it for most of my baking recently, but plain white flour is also fine to use.

250ml double cream
50g butter

1 egg

1 egg white

500g refined spelt flour (or plain flour)

pinch of salt

3 tbsp caster sugar

1 packet of dried yeast (7g)

1 egg yolk for glazing

Warm the cream and butter until completely melted and allow to cool to room temperature.

Sift the flour, sugar, salt, yeast into a bowl. Add the beaten egg and the egg white and mix well. 

Add the warm milk and butter mix and knead for about 10 minutes or until you get a smooth, elastic dough that comes away from the sides of the bowl.  Cover and let it prove in a warm place for 1 to 2 hrs or until doubles in size. When ready to braid, divide the dough into 6 and roll them into a 40cm long strand each. Bunch them at the top, arrange them into a fan shape and start braiding. Study this tutorial from YouTube before you have a go. This is what mine looked like after braiding:

 

When ready, let it prove in a warm place until you warm the oven to 180C. Glaze the loaf with the beaten egg yolk and bake for about 30 minutes or until golden and cooked through.

Delicious eaten fresh, but also freezes well and it is perfect toasted for breakfast.

Cherry and Almond Advent Wreath

In Hungary Advent wreaths are normally made of fir, pine cones and 4 candles for the 3rd Sunday before Christmas, to light a candle each Sunday and then the last one on Christams Eve. I was so happy to discover that people also bake them, in fact some bake one for each Sunday of Advent! I think it's a lovely thing to do and you could decorate it with small candles if you wish.

I based the recipe on the Norwegian kringle wreath from Scandilicious Baking and glad I did. The distinctive flavour of ground cardamom in the dough and the lightness of this sweet milky bread is fantastic. I added kirsch soaked dried sour cherries instead of sultanas as they go so well with the almond paste that is the filling for this wreath. The sugar crystals and almonds on top make it look really festive too.

For the dough:

300ml whole milk

75g butter

500g plain flour

1tsp ground cardamom

3/4tsp salt

7g dried yeast

1 egg, beaten

Filling:

50g dried sour cherries

3-4tbsp kirsch or cherry liqueur

150g marzipan 

75g ground almonds

50g butter

1tsp vanilla extract

1 egg, beaten

1/4tsp salt

2-3 tbsp caster sugar

To finish:

1 egg, beaten

flaked almonds

sugar crystals (I used Lidl's edible cake decorations) or crushed sugar cubes

Scald the milk by heating it with the butter until almost boiling, this will make the bread softer. Let it cool to lukewarm temperature. Sift together the flour, sugar, cardamom, salt and dried yeast and mix well. Add the beaten egg and the slightly warm buttery milk and mix it until you get a smooth dough that comes off the sides of the bowl. Cover and let it prove in a warm place until doubles in size, for 30-40 minutes.

Make the filling by soaking the cherries in the kirsch. Mix all the filling ingredients together (add sugar to taste) in a food processor until you get a creamy paste.

Roll out the dough on a floured surface so it is a long thin rectangle of about 15x60cm. Spread the filling evenly over the dough, drain the cherries and sprinkle these over evenly. Roll it up into a cylinder, starting from one of the longer edges of the rectangle, brushing the other long edge with a bit of water to help seal the pastry. Bring the two open ends together to form a wreath shape and pinch to seal them together. Leave to prove in a warm place for 20-30 minutes. 

Preaheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Glaze the wreath with the beaten egg then sprinkle almond flakes and sugar crystals all over it. Bake for 30-40 minutes until golden brown and hollow sounding when tapped on the base. My oven is really fierce, so I had to cover it halfway with foil, but all ovens are different. Cool on a wire rack before serving. You can also make it in advance and freeze this wreath, in that case defrost in a low 150C oven for 20-25 minutes, then bake at 190C for 5 minutes.

Mákos guba - Honey and Poppy seed Bread and Butter Pudding

Autumn is truly here with its damp and cold days and it naturally inspires me to cook more wintry dishes. There are a lot of store cupboard ingredients to choose from when there is less fresh fruit available, and the two most popular ones for toppings and fillings in sweet dishes in Hungary are poppy seeds and walnut. There is so much more to poppy seed than it being just a decoration sprinkled on cakes and pastries. Ground up and cooked with milk, sugar and spices it makes a delicious sweet and creamy paste, or ground and mixed with icing sugar you can sprinkle on various baked desserts. To ground poppy seed it is easiest to use a coffee grinder or a spice grinder. I mix it with icing sugar and grind it like that if a recipe calls for both. Mákos guba was originally made around Christmas time to symbolise wealth with the thousands of tiny seeds. It is still prepared as a celebration dish around the holidays. But these days many families have it all year round, it's a favourite with children too. This is a classic version of a traditional dish, but it can also be baked with custard, spices or orange and lemon zest added, served with cream or whatever takes your fancy. I love it traditionally served with a generous drizzle of honey. In Hungary you would make it with butter horn pastries (kifli), these are medium size yeasty dough pastries shape of a half moon. I will add a post on how to make these, they are really simple. This time I used a normal size baguette which is available everywhere.

1 normal size baguette (not too long and chunky)

450ml milk

vanilla pod or vanilla extract

80g black poppy seed

80g icing sugar

40g butter

honey

Preheat oven to 180C. Slice your baguette into 1cm discs and place them on a baking tray then put it in the oven to dry them out a bit. This pudding is usually made with slightly stale bread that soaks up the vanilla scented milk better. If you have a fresh baguette, drying in the oven helps to achieve this. Keep an eye on it so it doesn't start to toast. 

Butter a medium size baking dish and place the baguette discs in. Warm the milk up with a few drops of vanilla extract or the scraped seeds and pod from the vanilla. Do not let it boil. Pour the hot milk over the bread and let it soak. Turn it if you need to so it soaks up the milk all over. Grind the poppy seed and mix it with the icing sugar. Sprinkle this on top of the milky bread, turning it to coat the whole lot. Dot the top with pieces of butter and bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes or until warmed through and the bread is softened but slightly crispy on top.

Serve it with a good drizzle of honey.