Cherry and Lemon Cream Slice Cseresznyés Lepény

This is a lovely soft buttery pastry jewelled with sweet summer cherries and flavoured with kirsch or cherry liqueur. It's usually served just dusted with icing sugar but this time I added some home-made lemon curd to give it a tangy creaminess. You could serve it with lemon curd mixed with lightly whipped cream too or vanilla cream. Whatever you do it will be a delicious afternoon treat.

100g butter

125g vanilla infused caster sugar (or plain caster sugar and few drops of vanilla essence)

pinch of salt

2 eggs

1 tsp kirsch (optional)

1 tsp baking powder

200g refined white spelt flour (or plain flour)

grated zest of a lemon or a lime

100ml milk

400g cherries, stones removed

Preheat the oven to 180C. Mix the butter and sugar until smooth, light in colour and fluffy. Add the salt, lemon zest, kirsch, eggs and mix well until very smooth. Mix the baking powder with the flour and add it gradually to the mix also adding a little bit of the milk each time until all completely incorporated. Grease and line a 20x30cm brownie tray, pour in the cake mix and spread the cherries on top. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes or until cooked through. Cool and slice, dust with icing sugar. I cut each slice horizontally and spread a little lemon curd in the middle before sandwiching them together again. But it would be lovely to serve it with some lemon curd flavoured whipped cream too.

 

Apple Cinnamon Muffins with Pecan Streusel Topping

Muffins are one of the things I never had much luck with before. The recipes I tried were always a little bit disappointing, never tasted as good or looked as plump as they were supposed to. Going back to classics, I had a look through my Delia Smith books and found her basic American muffin mix a really good one, plus she had quite a few ideas for toppings, which are really so trendy again. 

I love the crunchy streusel topping on her muffin cake, which I used in this recipe. It's a crumble mix made with sugar, butter, flour and nuts usually sprinkled on top of cakes in Germany, it gives an extra texture and nice rich looks to the muffins. I replaced the flour for spelt and made mine an apple-cinnamon version. All in all what can I say? Pippa Middleton eat your heart out, Delia Smith still rocks!

For 15 normal size muffins:

300g white spelt flour (or plain flour)

1level tbsp baking powder

half tsp salt

half tsp ground cinnamon

2 eggs, beaten

220 ml milk

100 g melted butter, cooled to room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

200g apples, peeled and chopped into small cubes

For the topping:

75g demarara sugar

75g self raising flour (or plain flour with a pinch of baking powder)

25g butter, at room temperature

1 tsp ground cinnamon

50g chopped pecan nuts

1 tbsp cold water

The secret of a good fluffy and light muffin is in the mixing. You must never over-mix the ingredients. For this reason it is suggested to sift the dry ingredients twice so that you only have to mix the wet ingredients in very little. This stops the flour activating too much, so as long as there are no white clouds of flour in the mix, don't worry if it looks a bit on the lumpy side, it's fine.

Preheat oven to 200C, gas mark 6.

Sift the flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon into a bowl. Mix the eggs, vanilla extract, milk and melted butter in another bowl until smooth. Then sift the flour mix into the egg mix again and fold in with a wooden spoon very gently 10-15 times. Fold in the chopped apples gently. Spoon the mix into muffin cases in a muffin tray just enough to fill the cases. Make the topping by rubbing the flour, cinnamon and butter together until crumbly. Add the sugar and the nuts, mix well then sprinkle the water over the mix and press it loosely together. Sprinkle this over the muffins generously and bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes, until cooked through. Cool on a wire rack.

Blueberry and Spelt Birthday Cake

I made this cake for our little one Leo's 2nd birthday last weekend. He loves blueberries and any cakes, so I wanted to make something special but not too sweet for him. He also has a bit of eczema problem and can't eat heavily creamy puddings, so I used creme fraiche instead of butter or cream filling. The sponge is a standard one I use for many recipes, you add the same number of tablespoons of water and sugar as the number of eggs you use and double number of tablespoons of flour. You can then reduce or increase the quantity as you wish. I learned it from a friend's Mum, she told me a little rhyme to remember it for the rest of my life :-) It goes like this: "Ahány tojás annyi víz, dupla cukor, dupla liszt" In this rhyme you might notice she adds more sugar (!) but I half this for my recipes these days. 

3 eggs, whites and yolks separated

3 tbsp water

3 tbsp caster sugar

6 tbsp wholemeal spelt flour (or plain flour)

1 heaped tsp baking powder

few drops of vanilla extract

For filling and decorating:

icing sugar

blueberry jam

300 ml creme fraiche

fresh blueberries

chopped pistachios

Preheat the oven to 180C. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Mix the egg yolks with the sugar until completely smooth and pale in colour. Add the water and vanilla extract and mix well. Add the baking powder and the flour gradually and mix well again. Using a wooden spoon, very gently fold in the egg whites so that all the air is incorporated and the sponge mix is light and fluffy. Pour into a lined 20 cm cake tin and bake for 30-40 minutes until cooked through. Let it cool on a wire rack then slice into two discs. Beat the creme fraiche with 3 tbsp icing sugar until it resembles soft peaks of double cream, but add more sugar if you like it sweeter. Spread the blueberry jam and the creme fraiche on one half of the cake, place the other half on top. Sprinkle the top with icing sugar, pile some more creme fraiche on top and arrange the blueberries in the middle. Sprinkle with the chopped pistachios and serve the remaining creme fraiche on the side.

Darázsfészek Walnut Bun Cake

Variations on this tasty treat can be found all over Europe. In Hungarian it literally translates "wasp's nest" and is usually made with walnuts, cocoa or cinnamon. Makes a great brunch or delicious breakfast buns but it's also great as a celebration cake to have around any holidays or take it to your friend's house as a present. It can be baked in a round tin or a square roasting tray but make sure the dish is deep enough for the buns to rise. A couple of things make this cake really soft and fluffy, one of them is scalding the milk with the butter before adding it cooled down to the dough. And the other is brushing the buns with hot sweet milk while they are baking. This will also add a lovely shiny glow to its finish. This quantity will fill a large 30x40 baking dish. But I wanted to make round cakes so I used a 23cm round and a smaller 20cm cake tin. It freezes well if you are not likely to finish the whole lot in a hurry. Best served with fresh vanilla custard.

For the dough:

500g plain flour

7g dried yeast

50g icing sugar

60g butter

200ml milk

pinch of salt

3 eggs, beaten

Filling:

200g walnuts, ground to a coarse breadcrumb texture with a food processor

100g butter

100g icing sugar

For the top:

150ml milk

50g granulated sugar

few drops of vanilla extract

First make the dough. Heat up the milk with the butter until almost boiling, then let it cool to room temperature. Sift the flour, yeast, icing sugar, salt into a bowl and mix well.  Add the beaten eggs and then the lukewarm milky butter mix. Mix thoroughly and knead for 10-15 minutes until the dough comes off the sides of the dish. Either leave in a warm place to double in size for about an hour, or leave it in the fridge overnight for slow cold fermenting like I did. You achieve the same result but the latter gives you a more stable, more digestible and easier to handle dough that will be ready for baking in the morning. When you are ready to bake, bring the dough to room temperature for 30 minutes if it's in the fridge. Knead it briefly on a floured surface, then divide into two. Roll out each to a 30x40cm rectangle shape. Brush it with melted butter, sprinkle with icing sugar and walnut equally divided between the two. Roll up from the longer end and cut up into 5cm discs. You will get around 16-18 buns. Place them into a buttered baking dish or cake tin, loosely next to each other and put the tin(s) in the oven, then switch the oven on 180C/gas mark 4. While the oven is warming up, the buns will have time to prove once again. From that point it takes around 30 minutes to bake them ready, during which time you can warm up the milk with the sugar and vanilla until almost boiling, and brush the buns with the milk as soon as they start to colour a couple of times while baking. My oven is really fierce so I covered the cakes with tinfoil once they reached a nice golden colour. It is done when the testing skewer comes out clean. Leave it to cool on a wire rack and it will keep fresh for a couple of days or also freezes well. Defrost thoroughly and warm up in the oven for 5 minutes before serving it with fresh vanilla custard.

 

Vanilla poppy seed cake Mákos Pite

As long as you have a packet of poppy seeds on hand, this is an easy winter store cupboard cake. You need to grind the black poppy seeds with  a spice or coffee grinder before making the creamy poppy seed paste for the filling. A very popular pie-shaped (or square tin shaped) cake all over Eastern Europe, Germany, Austria and a really great afternoon treat with your tea or coffee. This is made with a quick shortcrust pastry and a creamy vanilla and lemon scented sweet poppy filling. Add dried fruit to the filling if you wish, sultanas, prunes, cherries or small pieces of quince jelly are delicious mixed in. Serve with a dollop of creme fraiche or whipped cream.

For the pastry:

300g plain or wholemeal flour

150g butter, cut into cubes

pinch of salt

2 tbsp sour cream or creme fraiche

For the filling:

150g ground black poppy seeds

50g sugar

50g semolina

200ml milk

1 tsp vanilla extract or scraped out seeds of a vanilla pod

grated zest of a lemon

1 egg white

1tbsp sultanas

1 egg yolk for glazing

Make the shortcrust pastry quickly by putting all ingredients into a food processor and mixing until a pastry ball is formed. If you are doing it by hand, crumble the cold butter and the flour together between your fingers until you get a fine crumble texture. Add the salt and sour cream and knead into a firm dough. Make the filling by heating the milk with the sugar and vanilla until almost boiling. Take it off the heat and add the ground poppy seeds, semolina, lemon zest, sultanas, stir until well mixed. Let it cool to room temperature. Beat the egg white until firm peaks form then gently fold into the poppy mix. Preheat the oven to 180C. Divide the pastry into two and roll out the first one to the shape of your greased or lined tart case or baking tin. I used a 24cm loose bottom tart case. Place the pastry in the tin, pour in the filling and roll out the other pastry to cover the filling. Press down along the edges and cut the excess pastry off neatly. Brush the top with the egg yolk and bake for about 40 minutes or until all the pastry and filling is cooked, check this with a wooden skewer. Let it cool and dust with icing sugar.   

Easy ricotta doughnuts Túrófánk

February is the awaited doughnut (fánk) season in Hungary. There are lots of Farsang parties and fancy dress parties for the kids the whole month. There is no such celebration without some form of the deep fried sugary goodness of doughnut and it is always something to look forward to! There are lots of different types, but the most loved one is the Viennese style yeasty dough doughnut I made last week. It is a tricky one and it didn't turn out as attractive as it should, although my family still polished it off! It needs more practise! But there is a much easier and lighter doughnut made with curd cheese túró hence its name túrófánk. Here in England I make it with ricotta and it's just perfect. There is no yeast involved so it is much quicker and no anxiety over collapsing dough and shapeless end result. And it's a lovely light dessert with the scent of vanilla and lemon, you can serve with apricot jam traditionally or with anything that takes your fancy. My family suggested chocolate, dulce di leche, whipped cream filling, all sound delicious. This quantity makes 25 golf ball size doughnuts and they are great as a dessert or brunch or an afternoon snack. 

250g ricotta cheese

3 eggs

2tbsp caster sugar

150g plain flour

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

1tsp grated lemon zest

few drops of vanilla extract

sunflower oil for frying

caster sugar to coat

apricot jam to serve

Beat the eggs and the caster sugar, add the ricotta, vanilla extract, lemon zest and mix well. Add the bicarbonate of soda and the flour and mix until smooth. Let it rest for 30 to an hour. Heat the oil to medium temperature, I used a smallish pan with about 3cm of oil so not really deep frying, but enough to give a good depth for the doughnuts. With the help of a couple of teaspoons, scoop and drop little dough balls into the oil and fry for 2-3 minutes each side until dark golden doughnut colour and cooked through. Lift onto kitchen paper and roll around in a ball of caster sugar. I filled them with apricot jam or serve it on the side.

Cardamom rice soufflé cakes Rizskók tortácskák

Rizskók or rizskoch is usually a sweet rice soufflé baked in a large baking tray in the oven, then cut up into squares and served with a drizzle of raspberry cordial or jam. It's the typical school dinner pudding and afternoon treat from my childhood and it was always delicious as it was. I wanted to improve the recipe by using nice arborio rice with one or two things I love with rice and milky puddings. An addition of ground cardamom and topping the cakes with cinnamon roasted red plum compote is just so much more wintry and warming. Using little cake moulds, cups, muffin or tart cases  make them look a lot more appealing, but it would be just fine in a tray or cake tin too. 

120g arborio risotto rice

500ml milk

25g butter

half tsp ground cardamom

half tsp lemon zest

few drops of vanilla extract

50g caster sugar

2 eggs, yolks and whites separated

Melt the butter in a pan, add the rice and stir it around gently so it's all coated. Add the cardamom, lemon zest, vanilla extract, sugar and gradually start adding the milk as if you were making a risotto. Try not to stir the rice too much, just move it around slightly, adding more milk as the rice soaks it up while cooking. It should be cooked but not mushy, a creamy texture with a scent of cardamom. Let it cool down. Preheat the oven to 180C. Beat the egg yolks and mix it with the rice when it is cool or just lukewarm. Beat the egg whites until stiff then gently fold it into the rice, making sure it stays airy and light. Fill your greased cake moulds with the rice mix or spread into a lined baking tray and bake for 20-30 minutes until cooked through and lightly coloured. Stick a wooden skewer into the centre, it should come out clean.

For the topping I cut 8 red plums into quarters, sprinkled with cinnamon and 50g sugar, mix and roast in the oven at 180C for 20-40 minutes depending on the ripeness of the fruit. It should be soft and the juices syrupy when ready. Drizzle this over the cakes and dust with icing sugar.

Kakaós Csiga Chocolate Swirl Buns

Another pastry stall staple from Hungary, these chocolate swirls are everyone's favourites and keeping many students happy on their way to school or uni. Great with your morning coffee too replacing the usual pain au chocolat or croissant. I made the dough with slow, overnight cold fermenting in the fridge again. This seems to make the pastry much more digestible and so much easier to work with. Of course you can prove it in a warm place until it doubles in size which is much quicker, but overnight proving seems to fit in with our daily routines so much better at the moment. The dough is always ready for rolling and baking in the morning or whenever you are ready to bake. Take it out of the fridge 30 minutes before rolling and shaping to allow it to come to room temperature.

For the dough:

500g plain flour

7g dried yeast

pinch of salt

3 tbsp caster sugar

1 whole egg

1 egg yolk

250ml milk

80g butter

For the filling and glazing:

unsweetened plain cocoa powder

icing sugar

50g butter

200 ml milk

1 tsp caster sugar

few drops of vanilla extract

Scald the milk with the butter by heating it until almost boiling then leave it to cool to a lukewarm temperature. This will make the pastry nice and soft when done. While the milk is cooling, sift the dry ingredients for the dough together in a mixing bowl, mix well, add the beaten egg and yolk, and mix in the lukewarm buttery milk. Knead it for about 10 minutes until feels doughy and the dough comes away from the side of the bowl. If you are leaving it to prove in the fridge overnight, place the dough in a lightly oiled large plastic bag and put in the fridge. Alternatively you can leave in a warm place for 1-2 hours or until doubles in size.

When ready to bake, allow the dough to come to room temperature then roll out into a rectangle shape on a floured surface to about 1cm thickness. Brush it generously with melted butter and sprinkle with the cocoa until it is completely covered and no pastry is showing. Repeat the same with the icing sugar. This is best done with a small sieve. Roll it up from the long end so you have a long cylinder. Cut 1cm thick slices and place these swirls on a lined baking sheet spaced well apart. Let it prove in a warm place until you heat the oven to 180C. Bake for 20 minutes or until cooked through. Heat the milk with the sugar and vanilla extract and as soon as the buns are out of the oven, brush them generously with the hot milk. This will give a soft and fluffy finish to the pastry. Cool on a wire rack. They freeze well too, when frozen, allow to come to room temperature before eating and warm up in a hot oven for 5 minutes.

Christmas poppy seed roll Mákos Beigli

As you wouldn't have Christmas without szaloncukor it's also traditional to have these sweet yeasty bread rolls filled with sweet creamy poppy seed or walnut paste. They are very popular around Christmas (Karácsony) and Easter (Húsvét) and generally any celebration times in the whole of Eastern Europe and also in Jewish cuisine. Having spent the past week at home with a sick toddler while desperately hoping to get fit for our fast approaching Christmas trip to Australia - to lift the Christmas spirits I had to make this Mákos Beigli and it turned out lovely. There is much anxiety around beigli making, I didn't find it difficult or time consuming and this was the first time I made it - my Mum has always done it for the whole family, including vast quantities of frozen supplies for us in the UK if we happened to spend the holidays here :-) I have based it on the tried and tested Horváth Ilona recipe, only changed a couple of things to make it quicker and easier for the dough to rise. This quantity makes 2 large or 4 medium size rolls.

For the dough:

500g plain flour

250g butter

2 eggs

50g caster sugar

20g fresh yeast (or 7g dried yeast, can add straight to dry ingredients)

200ml milk

pinch of salt

For the filling:

300g black poppy seed

200g sugar

300ml milk

vanilla pod (seeds scraped out) or few drops of vanilla extract

grated zest of a lemon

50g semolina

handful of sultanas soaked in a splash of dark rum

To make the dough sift the flour into a bowl with the salt, add the sugar and mix well. Warm up the milk a little until lukewarm. Mix 50ml milk with a teaspoon of the sugar and crumble the yeast into it, mix until creamy then add to the flour. Melt the butter into the rest of the warm milk and add this to the flour too. Knead it until well mixed and the dough comes away from the side of the bowl. Cover and leave in a warm place for an hour to rise and double in size while you make the filling.

Grind the poppy seeds together with the sugar using a coffee or spice grinder. Warm up the milk with the vanilla until boiling, take it off the heat and add the ground poppy seed-sugar mix, lemon zest, semolina, rum soaked sultanas with their liquid. Mix well and let it cool.

Take the dough and divide into 2 or 4 pieces depending on the size of the beigli you want to make. Roll each one out to a rectangle shape to about 5mm thickness, spread the filling evenly on top, leaving the edges clear. Fold the short sides in slightly to keep the filling in, then roll it up starting from one of the long sides. Place on a baking sheet, fold side down, leaving a generous gap between the rolls. Preheat oven to 180C/gas mark 6. Brush the pastry with a beaten egg and leave it to rest until the oven is ready. Pierce the sides in several places with a sharp fork, this will prevent the rolls from splitting. Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden colour and cooked through. Cool and dust with icing sugar.

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.

Rákóczi Túrós Baked meringue cheese cake

Here is another good old curd cheese cake recipe. There are thousands in Hungarian baking! This one is a huge favourite with everyone and one of the staples you can get in any cakeshop. I have been planning to make Rákóczi túrós for a while, and recently found a Polish curd cheese/cottage cheese in Asda that is very similar to the one you get in Hungary. I was very excited to try it (Saddo). You could use ricotta too. This cake is named after the French trained János Rákóczi, the Hungarian royal master patissier. He created this cake for the 1958 World Expo in Brussels as part of a selection of Hungarian dishes to represent what is quintessentially magyar in our cuisine. Rákóczi's recipe has been changed and altered by many over the years to suit changing tastes, but I followed his basic original recipe as I think it is the best and tastiest of all. He suggests a lettuce pattern of meringue and apricot jam on top, which I think is very retro in its looks and takes too long to fiddle with. So I made a plain meringue topping that I drizzled with jam (using my new drizzling gadget I got from my aunt). You could add more filling or more meringue as you wish.

For the pastry base:

250g plain flour

60g icing sugar

2 egg yolks

grated zest of half lemon

100ml sour cream

pinch of bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

For the filling:

500g curd cheese (or strained cottage cheese, ricotta)

3 egg yolks

2 egg whites

200ml sour cream

grated zest of half a lemon

few drops of vanilla extract

100g icing sugar

4 tbsp semolina and more for sprinkling

For the meringue topping:

4 egg whites

150g caster sugar

Mix the pastry ingredients together until you get a shortcrust pastry type of dough and rest it for half an hour in the fridge. Preheat oven to 180C and roll out the pastry to about 5mm thickness and place in a baking tray, I used a 20x30cm tray with 3cm sides. It doesn't need lining and I cut the pastry to the size of the tray base. Prick it with a fork in several places. Bake it for 10 minutes, it doesn't need to be fully baked, just dry enough for the filling to go on top. Let it cool and make the filling.

Push the curd cheese through a potato mincer. Mix the egg yolks with the icing sugar until smooth an pale, add the vanilla etxract, curd cheese, sour cream, semolina, lemon zest.  Beat the egg whites until stiff and gently fold into the filling. Sprinkle the pastry with semolina and spread the filling on top evenly. Turn the oven down to 160C and bake it for about 20 minutes or until the filling has cooked through and when tested with a wooden skewer, it comes out dry. Take it out of the oven and make the meringue topping. Beat the 4 egg whites until stiff peaks form then add the caster sugar gradually. Spread the meringue mix on top of the cheese cake and bake it ready in the oven. I turned the oven up to 180C to start with to get that crisp meringue coat going, then turned it down to 140C to let the meringue centre bake a little but still keeping that lovely marshmallow texture. It really only needs to dry up a bit. When ready, cool it down and cut into squares or slices, drizzle with apricot jam.

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.