Dilly Onion Bread

[a_boleyn]

About a month ago, I picked up a 20 kg bag of all purpose flour and finally got a chance to do some bread baking. I used two different shaping methods ... the traditional 3 strand braid and the more exotic 'epi' which is supposed to resemble the way that wheat grows on its sheaf which is referred to as an épi de blé. In reality, the epi is simply a

Comments

[anonymous]

The cookbook no longer has a cover, but it was originally published in 1935 (my dear mother was born in 1936, so I'm guessing this was her mother's cookbook). It is call Az Inyesmester ever Ûj Receptje (I'm guessing it is the Art of Hungarian Cooking, new recipes - very roughly translated). The recipes are in paragraph form, which I find very difficult to read. Word of caution, my Hungarian is not as good as it used to be, - there may be nuances that I just don't get being born and raised Canadian and this book is 80 years old. I have not tried this recipe before. However, here goes:

Leveles Töpötyus Pogácsa (Flaky Crackling Biscuits)
30 deka Töpötyus in small pieces or ground with 18 deka flour kneaded into the töpötyu dough (note from Eva, I assume the fat from the pork will help bind the dough). 18 deka flour with 2 egg yolks, a pinch of salt, a spoon of rum (it says rumból and I just assumed it was rum, since I could not find any other definition on line) and a spoon of sour cream will also make the dough which shouldn't too hard or too soft. Knead it well and then roll it out and add the first dough and butter dough with the technique of butter dough, fold the second dough around i and then roll it out. Do this folding and rolling three times in total allowing it to rest a few minutes in between each folding and rolling round. Roll out the dough and cut with a cookie cutter (my mom always used one about 5" cm in diametre) and then cut the tops into little squares and carefully brush with another lightly beaten egg yolk. Careful not to let it drip down the sides which apparently prevents it from rising. Bake in a moderate oven until the tops are beautiful golden brown.
Good luck, Maria
Eva http://kitcheninspirations.wordpress.com/
I noticed in this recipe, is that there is no leavening other than the egg in this dough, others on line use yeast, and I think my mom did too, although I can't recall for sure (over 30 years ago)

[a_boleyn]

I'm probably going to combine 3 or 4 recipes that I've seen when I end up making this. I need to come up with a recipe that will give me the proper proportion of fat/pork cracklings to flour, and then use enough water/milk, yeast and sugar to create the dough onto which the ground fat/pork crackling paste can be spread.

I think that the technique is the basic French one for making croissants or puff pastry with cycles of spreading the paste (instead of chilled butter) over the dough, folding, chilling, rolling out (and spreading more fat), folding chilling etc until the paste has been incorporated into the dough to create those multiple layers which puff up because of the fat melting during the baking process.

You don't want the beaten egg brushed on top to fall over the side and glue the layers together so that they can't puff up. That may be why some recipes say to brush the beaten egg on top of the rolled out rectangle and then cutting out the circles before putting them on the baking sheet. You can then push together the funny shaped left over dough between the circles and bake them into "cook's treat". Or cut the biscuits into squares. :)

My mother used yeast as the leavening agent for the dough, though she never had rum in the house so I think you can probably leave it out. :) The Romanian versions I've found also sprinkle whole cumin seeds over the egg washed biscuits before baking them, something else which my mother never did.

Thank you for sharing your recipe. I'll post my final recipe and pictures when done.