Cookie recipes

[eve11]

Kiflies are the little rolled-pocket hungarian cookies that my grandmother makes. I'm part taking from the paper recipe she follows and trying to add in her methods for cooking them...




Kiflies
Dough
6 cups sifted flour
1 tsp salt
1 lb crisco or margarine (suggest margarine b/c crisco makes them too puffy/flaky)
1/4 lb butter
8 oz cream cheese
3 egg yolks
1 pint sour cream
1 tsp vanilla

In large bowl mix the flour and all dry ingredients. Cut in crisco or margarine, butter and cream cheese. In another bowl put the eggs, sour cream and vanilla, mixing thoroughly. Add this mixture to the flour bowl and blend well enough to make the dough smooth. Divide dough into small balls (approx. 2tbsp per?) and refrigerate covered overnight.

The next day, heat oven to 375 degrees. Roll each dough ball thinly on a lightly floured board. Fill kifli with filling (she uses either walnut filling or prune lekvar, recipes/providers to come) and roll or fold into a half-moon shape.  If using lekvar, pat the kifli with a little bit of cornstarch and water to seal so the lekvar doesn't run out.) Dust with sugar. Bake 15 minutes or until firm. Cool, dust with powdered sugar again, and serve.




Walnut filling for kiflies

1 cup fine-ground walnuts
sugar to taste
enough milk to make a paste
1/2 tsp vanilla (to taste)

Mix walnuts together with milk to form a paste, add sugar and vanilla to taste.

For prune lekvar, buy a jar from the local Hungarian food supplier or make your own (eg this recipe)




Hungarian Nut Roll

1 cup butter (or margarine, crisco, mixes thereof etc)
4 cups flour
3 tbsp sugar
1 cake compressed yeast (this is 0.6 oz-- grandmom says use this kind but I suppose you could substitute 1 package active dry yeast, activated, for it)
1 cup milk
3 eggs, separated
1/4 cup sugar

filling
1 3/4 cup ground pecans or walnuts (1/3 pound)
1 1/2 cup sugar (or less to taste)
1 cup white raisins

Mix butter, flour, 3 tbsp sugar and yeast together to make crumbs. A pastry blender works well. Add milk and egg yolks. Blend well. This should feel and look like refrigerator cookie dough (if it sticks to your fingers, add a bit of flour). Chill several hours or overnight. Divide into 3 equal parts. Roll each part to about 1/8inch thick (put between floured wax paper to roll easily) in a 12 inch square or as good as you can get it. Beat egg whites until foamy. Gradually beat in 1/4 cup sugar until stiff peaks form. Combine all ingredients for filling. Spread stiffly beaten egg whites over squares of dough, leaving about 1/2 inch uncovered around the edges. Sprinkle with filling mixture (grandmom leaves the raisins out of the mix and then lines them up "like little soldiers" onto the roll). Roll up like a jelly roll, sealing ends and edges well. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk (about 40 minutes). Put about 5 dents in the rolls with a knife so they don't split while baking.

Bake on a lightly greased cookie sheet at 325 degrees for 35 minutes or until it "looks done". Dust with confectioner's sugar and serve.


ETA: OMG LJ figure out your damn update window thing! Now it's set at either use only rich text or use only HTML. What happened to the old way of doing things? Arg, I hate change!!!!!

Comments

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, sound yummy :)

[penwiper337.livejournal.com]

Intriguing! I might have to try this one when you get the filling recipes up. :)

huh

[ansel1.livejournal.com]

Did I know you guys had Hungarian in your family?

[eve11]

they really are. she makes them every christmas; I've been meaning to get the recipe for a while :)

[eve11]

If I can get a straight answer on the walnut filling I'll post it. Some version of crushed walnuts, sugar and egg whites or merengue, folded together? I'll ask again tomorrow. It's like, if she's just talking at me and telling me this and that and the other thing of what she does, she's fine, but if I try to ask her to wait a moment or for details she gets vague.

The lekvar is something grandmom says is easiest just to get in a jar. Prune butter or something to that effect. You can apparently make it by boiling dried prunes with sugar and then pureeing them into a paste, too.

Re: huh

[eve11]

I think so? Dunno though, it's hard to forget my grandmother if you meet her. But yeah, she's full-blooded Hungarian. So we're 1/4 Hungarian.

[penwiper337.livejournal.com]

Now that you mention it, I remember seeing prune filling in the baking aisle. Cool!

[eve11]

yeah, that's probably it! It's really thick stuff, thicker than pie filling, more like a paste. I put up a link to a recipe for making it too, if you can't find it in a store.

[kalypso-01.livejournal.com]

When you say "Cut crisco or margarine into the butter and cream cheese" - do you cut them together and then cut them all into the dry ingredients?

[eve11]

good question. The recipe was vague, but I'm assuming the butter/crisco mix goes in with the wet ingredients. Also, I'm wondering if it's missing some sugar? Hm. Well, I think she gave me the paper recipe somewhere too; I'll look it up

[eve11]

Okay, double checked the recipe and it should say, cut the crisco, butter and cream cheese into the dry ingredients. Also, there is no sugar in the dough; I guess the sweetness is for the powdered sugar on top and the filling.

[kalypso-01.livejournal.com]

that makes sense. I used to make a very similar dough for those pecan tassies I learned from Ben's mom. It was just a mixture of flour, butter, and cream cheese, cut together until you could form it into dough. The filling consisted of 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup melted butter, one egg, a teaspoon of vanilla, and one cup of chopped pecans. Always came out good :)