Bejgli - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The poppy seed roll is pastry

Pastry

Pastry is the name given to various kinds of baked products made from ingredients such as flour, sugar, milk, butter, shortening, baking powder and/or eggs. Small cakes, tarts and other sweet baked products are called "pastries."...

consisting of a roll of sweet yeast

Yeast

Yeasts are eukaryotic micro-organisms classified in the kingdom Fungi, with 1,500 species currently described estimated to be only 1% of all fungal species. Most reproduce asexually by mitosis, and many do so by an asymmetric division process called budding...

bread (a viennoiserie

Viennoiserie

Viennoiseries are baked goods made from a yeast-leavened dough in a manner similar to bread, or from puff pastry, but with added ingredients giving them a richer, sweeter character, approaching that of pastry. The dough is often laminated...

) with a dense, rich, bittersweet filling of poppy seed

Poppy seed

Poppy seed is an oilseed obtained from the opium poppy . The tiny kidney-shaped seeds have been harvested from dried seed pods by various civilizations for thousands of years...

. An alternative filling is a paste of minced walnut

Walnut

Juglans is a plant genus of the family Juglandaceae, the seeds of which are known as walnuts. They are deciduous trees, 10–40 meters tall , with pinnate leaves 200–900 millimetres long , with 5–25 leaflets; the shoots have chambered pith, a character shared with the wingnuts , but not the hickories...

s.

It is a popular cuisine in other parts of Central Europe

Central Europe

Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...

, Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

and in Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

as well. It is commonly eaten at Christmas

Christmas

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

and Easter

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

time.
It is traditional in several cuisines, including the Hungarian cuisine (beigli or bejgli) Russian cuisine

Russian cuisine

Russian cuisine is diverse, as Russia is the largest country in the world. Russian cuisine derives its varied character from the vast and multi-cultural expanse of Russia. Its foundations were laid by the peasant food of the rural population in an often harsh climate, with a combination of...

(bulochki s makom ), Polish cuisine

Polish cuisine

Polish cuisine is a style of cooking and food preparation originating from Poland. It has evolved over the centuries due to historical circumstances. Polish national cuisine shares some similarities with other Central European and Eastern European traditions as well as French and Italian...

(makowiec), Lithuanian cuisine

Lithuanian cuisine

Lithuanian cuisine features the products suited to the cool and moist northern climate of Lithuania: barley, potatoes, rye, beets, greens, berries, and mushrooms are locally grown, and dairy products are one of its specialities...

(aguonų vyniotinis), Croatian cuisine

Croatian cuisine

Croatian cuisine is heterogeneous and is known as the cuisine of regions, since every region has its own distinct culinary traditions. Its modern roots date back to ancient periods and the differences in the selection of foodstuffs and forms of cooking are most notable between those on the mainland...

(makovnjača, orehnjača), Romanian cuisine

Romanian cuisine

Romanian cuisine is a diverse blend of different dishes from several traditions with which it has come into contact, but it also maintains its own character...

(rulada cu mac or rulada cu nuci), and Austrian cuisine (Mohnkuchen or Mohnstriezel).

Ingredients

The dough is made of flour, sugar, egg yolk, milk or sour cream and butter, and yeast. The dough may be flavored with lemon or orange zest

Zest (ingredient)

Zest is a food ingredient that is prepared by scraping or cutting from the outer, colorful skin of citrus fruits such as lemon, orange, citron, and lime. Zest is used to add flavor to foods....

or rum. The poppy seed filling contains ground poppy seeds, raisins, butter or milk, sugar or honey, rum and vanilla

Vanilla

Vanilla is a flavoring derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily from the Mexican species, Flat-leaved Vanilla . The word vanilla derives from the Spanish word "", little pod...

. Sometimes sugar is substituted for a tablespoon of apricot jam, which is one of the most popular jams used in the Hungarian cuisine. The walnut roll filling contains raisins, rum, butter or milk, lemon rind and chopped walnuts. This filling may be spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, clove or vanilla.

The dough is at first quite heavy, stiff and dry, but with kneading and resting becomes very elastic and strong. It is rolled out into a large sheet, thick or thin depending on taste. One aesthetic principle is that the dough and filling layers should be equal thicknesses. Another is that more layers are better. The filling is spread over the dough, which is then rolled into a long cylinder or log. Traditional recipes usually involve brushing the log with the egg white left over from the yolk used in the dough. Other recipes use different washes, or an icing added after baking. The unbaked log is gently transferred to a sheet pan, left to rise, then baked until golden brown.

Christmas traditions

Hungarian Christmas sweets and pastries served at Christmas time are not numerous. In general no other pastries are served, and the traditional candy szaloncukor
Szaloncukor
Szaloncukor is a type of sweets traditionally associated with Christmas in Hungary. It is usually made of fondant, covered by chocolate and wrapped in shiny coloured foil, then hung on the Christmas tree as decoration....

, large amounts of wrapped decorative fondant candies hung on the Christmas tree as a decoration, also consumed during the Christmas holidays. All Hungarian families serve both the walnut and the poppy seed rolls, often accompanied with fruit wines, like red currant wine.

Variants

The poppy seed filling is a paste of ground poppy seeds, milk

Milk

Milk is a white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. Early-lactation milk contains colostrum, which carries the mother's antibodies to the baby and can reduce the risk of many...

, butter

Butter

Butter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. It is generally used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications, such as baking, sauce making, and pan frying...

, sugar

Sugar

Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...

and/or honey

Honey

Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans...

, often with additional flavorings such as lemon zest

Zest (ingredient)

Zest is a food ingredient that is prepared by scraping or cutting from the outer, colorful skin of citrus fruits such as lemon, orange, citron, and lime. Zest is used to add flavor to foods....

and juice. It may have raisins. The walnut filling is a paste of ground walnuts, milk, butter, sugar, and raisins, often with additional flavorings such as coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

or orange zest

Zest (ingredient)

Zest is a food ingredient that is prepared by scraping or cutting from the outer, colorful skin of citrus fruits such as lemon, orange, citron, and lime. Zest is used to add flavor to foods....

.

A very long roll may be bent so that it fits on a baking sheet; the result is called a patkó . Before baking, the roll may be given a wash of milk. The roll can be finished with an icing after baking, made of powdered sugar

Powdered sugar

Powdered sugar, also known as confectioners' sugar or icing sugar, is very fine sugar. When intended for home use, it typically contains a small amount of anti-caking agent....

and lemon juice

Lemon juice

The lemon fruit, from a citrus plant, provides a useful liquid when squeezed. Lemon juice, either in natural strength or concentrated, is sold as a bottled product, usually with the addition of preservatives and a small amount of lemon oil.-Uses:...

(or a glaze

Glaze (cooking technique)

A glaze in cooking is a coating of a glossy, often sweet, sometimes savoury, substance applied to food typically by dipping, dripping, or with a brush. Egg whites and basic icings are both used as glazes...

during baking). Usually it is brought from the kitchen already sliced.

In Hungarian cuisine the rolls, one with each filling, are served together. The combination is known as mákos és diós (poppy seed and walnut). However, in some English language cookbooks there may be no mention of the walnut filling, as if poppy seed were the only filling used. Some other non-Hungarian food writers combine the poppy seeds and walnuts together in one filling.
Because Poland and Czech culture have intermingled, immigrants to America sometimes use the term "Kolache" to describe it.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Ingredients

Christmas traditions

Variants

See also

External links