Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

Beigli and Chrusciki

Holiday re-runs are a tradition...It's a Wonderful Life. The Grinch. The movie with the kid and the Red Ryder BB gun.

I'm not trying to place myself among the classics, but a couple of last year's posts have been generating a fair number of hits and some e-mail lately, so I'm going to repost the recipes for beigli and chrusciki in the extended entry.

Now, most of my recipes are so simple that a child, or a monkey, or even a childish monkey could successfully make them. I gotta say: beigli and chrusciki do not fall into that category. Both doughs are tricky...you need to know how they feel, and adjust ingredients accordingly. Apparently it depends on the humidity and the temperature and how Jupiter has aligned with Mars and so on. I don't make the pastry; that falls to my mother and my sister. I'm more of a finisher...tying the chruscikis, rolling the beigli.

Interestingly, the requests for/memories of chrusciki outnumbers the e-mails about beigli by a wide margin. Which makes me wonder...do the Hungarian families do a better job of writing down recipes than the Polish families, so the great-grandchildren aren't turning to the internet to find them? Is chrusciki more of a Christmas tradition? Did I mangle the spelling of beigli?

(Speaking of beigli...I can't speak of it. I can't get the Hungarian pronunciation quite right. There's a woman at work from Hungary, and while she said they taste just like the ones she had back home, every time she says the word it sounds different from what I say. She is polite enough not to cringe when she hears me try to say it, though.)

Anyway, we'll be making these (in volume) in a couple weeks, but here are the recipes for the Google searchers:

Beigli

For the filling:

1 1/2 cups water
3 1/2 cups sugar
5 cups ground walnuts
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
grated rind of two small lemons

Boil water and sugar to form a syrup (about five minutes). Stir in nuts, spices, and lemon rind and allow to cool. (We generally do this the night before.)

Apricot preserves (about 18 ounces)
Raisins (about 1 pound)

For the dough:

6 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon salt
3 sticks butter
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
3 3/4 teaspoons yeast
1/2 cup milk, warmed

Also

Egg whites

Sift together flour, sugar, and salt. Cut in butter. Lightly beat eggs and mix in vanilla. Dissolve yeast in warm milk. Add egg mixture and yeast mixture and knead into soft dough. Cut into six equal pieces and let rest for 30 minutes. (Despite the yeast, the dough doesn't really rise, and it really is only supposed to rest half an hour, or so my great-aunt says.)

Roll dough as for a pie crust and spread lightly with apricot preserves. Spread a thin layer of the nut filling and sprinkle with raisins. Roll as for a jelly roll, tucking the ends under when complete. ("Lightly" and "thin" are, of course, relative. My nth cousin rolls her crust thicker and spreads the filling lighter; it looks nicer when it's cut but I like the taste of the filling better than the crust. And her crust still cracks.)

Brush with egg whites and pierce the dough several times with a fork or toothpick (or it will explode). Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, brushing with egg white a second time halfway through the baking.

Cool beigli on a rack. The crust often cracks; as the beigli cools gently push it back together. The filling will hold it together (the filling, when it comes out of the oven, is like molten lava,but stickier.). When cool, wrap in plastic wrap and foil and store in a refrigerator or freezer. This recipe makes six beigli.

Chrusciki

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 egg yolks
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract (or Amaretto)
5 tablespoons sour cream
1 quart of oil for frying
Powdered sugar

Sift together flour and salt. Beat eggs, sugar, lemon peel, and almond extract until thick. Add sour cream. Stir in flour and salt mixture. Knead until pliable.

Cover dough and let stand one hour.

Roll out dough (about one-third at a time) onto a floured work surface. Roll very thin ("so you can read through it," according to my grandfather). Cut into strips (about 1" by 3") and cut a slit in the center of each strip. Pass one end of the strip through the slit (it makes a bow tie-looking shape).

Heat the oil in a heavy pot to 370 degrees. Fry chrusciki three at a time, turning once, until light golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with powdered sugar while warm.

Posted by Nic at December 4, 2004 09:57 AM