Portuguese yolk-almond pudding

Portuguese: saudade
Galician: morriña
Bosnian: sevdah
Armenian: կարոտ
Arabic: وجد
Greek: λαχτάρα
Albanian: mall
Hebrew: ערגה
Finnish: kaiho

This time, for the first time, no Polish therm. I am sure there would be one and I have someting on the tip of my tongue but didn't find it yet. But as far as I know languages, there are several words which may mean something similar. Thus, saudade wouldn't be untranslatable. To pine for somebody that you miss deeply, to wish you could be there or have it again, that nostalgic yearning for something that may no longer exist, melancholic, fatalist overtone that the object of longing may never return is known for people in the whole universe, me included. It was so overwhelming, my saudade, that I had to prepare something Portuguese to relief myself. I chose something ancient, gluten-free and even quite healthy: toucinho do céu. The whole doçaria conventual is fascinating: yolks, almonds, sugar, cinnamon, not much more, and the list of the desserts is infinite. This sweet literally means "lard from heaven" and the fact is that in the past lard was added to this recipe. I was following this method. Recommendable. I'd add doce de gila/chila, it should be even tastier with this ingredient, but in Poland you can't. Not that I won't buy doce de gila anywhere, I'd do it on my own but I never found gila so far :( I should try with a differrent type of pumpkin. Next time.

10 egg yolks
250 gr sugar (I used muscovado)
150 ml water
125 gr almonds (I gave more, about 200 gr)
1 teaspoon powdered cinnamon
1 teaspoon cederat (or lemon) zest
icing sugar

1. Boil sugar with water for a while to the point just before caramelizing (should be golden). Cool down a bit.

2. Peel, toast and grind almonds

3. Beat egg yolks, gradually add almond flour, cinnamon, fruit zest and sugar syrup.

4. Spread your mold / pyrex with butter and sprinkle with sugar. Pour the mass.

5. Bake in the oven. Mine took 45 minutes in 180C oven. Every oven is differrent so just observe your toucinho, it can't be raw inside. When ready, sprinkle with icing sugar. Boy, was it delicious. But saudade is not gone :(

ps. tocino de cielo is similar only by its name. This Spanish dessert contains no almonds nor gila. Just yolks and sugar. I'll make it some other longing day, for sure.

Romanian sunflower halva

Polish: słonecznik
Latin: Helianthus Annuus
Kurdish: gulberojk
Mongolian: аран цэцэг
Occitan: virasolelh
Ossetian: Æхсынæн
Upper Sorbian: słónčnica
Lower Sorbian: słyńca
Navajo: Ndíyíliitsoh
Azeri: adi günəbaxan

I wonder what is your sweetest culinary childhood memory. The sweetest memories of that kind should be things you rarely eat or can not eat anymore or can not find or the person who prepared you that dish is not there anymore. My childhood was full of milk puddings and differrent pancakes - you know, all the blini, oladi, yeast or soda, fried, baked or steamed cakes, sweet, sometimes fruity, mouthwatering. I also remember  well kogel-mogel and halva. Halva is and was very popular here in Poland. My theory is that it came here thanks to the tight relations with the East Poland had from medieval times, look at the ancient Polish recipes, they are full of herbs and species bought from Persia and Ottomans, look how is Poland called in Farsi and Turkish (and in Hungarian) and you'll know that the relatiosn were close. More than that, Turkish delight was manufactured in Polish houses til XIX century (we were caling it rachatłukum) and halva was popular here as well. When I say halva I think about the Arabic type, made from oleaginous seeds, not the Indian fruity one (which is by the way totally delicious and there is a plenty of creative ways to do it). Halva doesn't have to be from sesame and my childhoods almost forgotten taste is sunflower halva. It is hard to buy it today in Poland, but it is widely available in Bulgaria, Romania, Ucraine, Russia, all the eastern mate countries. I remember my Grandfather was buying me blocks of greeny oily sunflower and pumpkin seed halva and it was a special crunchy nutty delight. I know that it can also be made from poppy seed and I'll continue experimenting. Now, an original Romanian recipe for a homemade sunflower halva, Halva de floarea soarelui. Tastes heavenly and just like the old childhood memory. Ewa, remember, don't you do it too often! Not about your weight, but the taste that brings childhood memories back shouldn't be overdosen!

ingredients:
350 gr sunflower seeds (peeled)
100 ml water
300 gr sugar
optionally, nuts of your choice

1. Slightly toast sunflower seeds (just til they start smelling nice)

2. Process them to a paste in food processor (I used coffee grinder). Put aside, add a bit of sunflower oil if it is not oily - you should receive something similar in its consistency to tahina. Mine was a wee more dry but I found it ok. If you can, beat it a bit to make it smooth. I couldn't beat mine and didn't want to add too much oil to make it more "tahiny" so no worries.

3. Pour water and sugar into the pan, bring to boil and continue till it caramelizes (I hate termometres, but it should be about 125°C and golden colour)

4. Back to the bowl with your sunflower tahina. Gradually beat the syrup mixture into it and whisk all the time. When you reach a homogeneous paste, place it in a tin covered with baking paper. Put in the refrigerator overnight, cut while still cold and try not to devour all at once.

Gluten-free ideas - to be continued

Polish: bezglutenowy
English: gluten-free
Romanian: fără gluten
Portuguese: sem glúten
Turkish: glutensiz
Estonian: gluteenivaba
Hungarian: gluténmentes
Irish: saor ó ghlútan
Bahasa Indonesia: bebas gluten
Suahili: gluten-bure

I don't suffer from celiac disease, but I am a slightly depressive or maybe just melancolic girl, and several studies suggest that gluten may be a reason of depression. I like my melancholy but I don't like the depression, plus, I solidarise with my little niece, cause my sis decided to not give her gluten-containing food just to make her healthier. But the fact is that when you are hungry, you grab a slice of bread to fill the stomach and the point is to satisfy the hunger with something tasty and also healthy. And flour isn't too nutritive, obviously. What makes me totally laugh is the amount of crazy recipes for gluten-free breads and cakes, which requires fancy flours and weird artificial ingredients to put the final product in shape. I would never make a cake from a mix of brown rice flour, white rice flour, potato starch flour, tapioca starch flour, sweet rice flour, cornstarch and xanthan or guar gum, or maybe just once to have a try. Of course starch is one of those to fill your stomach and if you exclude gluten from your diet just to be healthier, use the flour-starch-recipes only for rare special occasions, that is my suggestion. Otherwise, there are plenty of great ideas without the label "gluten-free" which always were gluten-free and delicious and nobody complained, but in this labeled and comercialised world people sometimes stop thinking. I know many traditional recipes for gluten-free sweets and cakes and would liek to prepare here a list just to help you to choose something. Cause I know people with celiac disease have less choice than I have. If it comes to bread, I easily excluded it from my repertoire, but let's talk about breakfasts some other time and concentate on sweets / desserts / baked goodies. Here is my list of ideas, some with recipes to follow, some recipes will be given later or go google them :)

1. CHEESECAKE - doesn't really have to have that cookies bottom. Take your favourite cheesecake recipe and forget about the bottom and don't add semolina to your cheese if a recipe requires (just add custard powder, but the one from potato or corn starch)
Example from my blog - here (forget about those tablespoons of flour, you don't really need them)
PASCHA - Eastern-European cheese delicacy, similar to cheesecake.

2. PAVLOVA / MERINGUES - gluten-free from their own nature. For my birthday I like to bake a meringue layered cake, three layers of big flat meringue and whipped cream (flavoured, usually with cocoa) between.
Recipe will be here soon.

3. POPPYSEED CAKE / tort makowy - a Polish classic, poppyseed layered cake, usually filled with white chocolate cream. Recipe can be found in the net or I'll post it soon.

4. WALNUT CAKE / tort orzechowy - another Polish classic, walnut layered cake, filled with nutty/buttery cream and sometimes with apple filling. To be posted soon.

5. BUCKWHEAT CAKE - made in Poland, Austria, Germany. Find it or I'll post it.

6. ICE CREAM. Thing of a big bowl in which you'd freeze layers of your favourite ice cream, cut it as a cake.

7. FLAN, pudding, custard, panna cotta, all these milky desserts pupular everywhere. Make it healthier and tastier by adding differrent nuts, fruits, chestnuts, cinnamon, lemon zest, anything of your choice. If you invite guests, make a big flan in a pie-like form to pretend it is a cake :)
Example from my blog - here
Spoon desserts: here, here, here, here, here, here and here 

8. Asian puddings and jellies (almond, grass and so on) with agar agar, "eastern" sisters of all the milky "western" puddings

9. HALVA / TURRON / BURFI - You can do it on your own at home. Think of a fancy shape and serve instead of a traditional cake.
Example from my blog - here.

10. BEAN BROWNIE - experiment with differrent kinds of beans and chocolates, almonds and differrent nuts, try it with chickpeas or lupin beans - be creative. By the way, this cake is delicious. Don't tell anyone it is gluten-free, they would never know. Recipes are in the net and will be posted here as well.

To be continued. But remember, you have a plenty of recipes to follow, so head up and don't worry!

Estonian rye bread mousse

Polish: chleb żytni
German: Roggenbrot
Albanian: bukë thekre
Finnish: ruisleipä
Russian: ржаной хлеб
Swedish: rågbröd
Greek: ψωμί σικάλεωσ
Bahasa Indonesia: roti hitam
Portuguese: pão de centeio
Czech: žitný chléb

Does a simple rye bread serve only to prepare sandwiches? In Baltic countries deffinitely no. Once I found in a grocery a delicious yoghurt with rye bread crumbles from Lithuania. Since that time I was looking for other sweet dessert recipes with rye bread. For instance, in Estonia people know how to prepare delicious rye bread sweet soup, rye bread pudding or cake or a wonderful rye bread mousse (leivakreem). I guess if there is rye bread ice cream? :)

To prepare 2 portions of leivakreem, you need:

few slices of rye bread (about 100 gr)
300 ml whipping cream
1 tablespoon butter
a pinch of cinnamon
40 gr sugar + 40 gr vanillasugar

1. If your bread slices are not dry enough, dry them in a toaster or oven. Then, grate

2. Fry bread crumbs in butter with sugar. Add cinnamon and set aside to cool

3. Whip the cream and when ready, add cooled breadcrumbs. Serve with any kind of sour jam (I used mirabelle)

ps. some people also add 1 teaspoon of gelatine to the mousse (just sprinkle the gelatine with few cold water, set aside for 5 minutes, warm shortly in microwave and beat together with whipping cream. Of course in this case you'll have to wait about 2hours before serving the mousse)

Portuguese papaya flan

Polish: papaja
Vietnamese: đu đủ
Tongan: lesi
Thai: มะละกอ
Yucatec Maya: put
Zulu: uphopho
Portuguese: mamão
Malayalam: പപ്പായ
Bahasa Melayu: betik
Telugu: బొప్పాయి

Crème caramel, flan, flam, bánh flan, leche flan, pudim de ovos, caramel custard - this dessert is a celebrity, worldwide beloved. I was never a fan of it cause I never ate a really delicious one, probably. Here in Central Europe other custard and pudding-like desserts are eaten. So I decided to prepare a flan on my own. With papaya flavour :) The technique was interesting, expectations were high and results... won out! Make yourself this Portuguese papaya flan, pudim de papaia, it's worth your effort!

(makes 4 small portions or 1 big)
1 medium papaya, not ripe!
3 eggs
50 gr flour
150 ml milk
100 gr butter
400 gr sugar
(+ more sugar to prepare caramel)
zest of 1/2 lemon (ground)
(+ you will need 1 big or 3-4 small bowls which are suitable to bain-marie cooking, and 1 big tray for the water!)

1. Peel papaya and cook it until soft (check with a fork constantly! It doesn't take much time!). When ready, drain it, throw the seeds away and press through a sieve or puree the fruit.



2. Combine milk, flour and lemon zest. Add to papaya puree.

3. Whisk eggs with sugar. Add melted butter. Add to papaya puree and stir well.

4. Prepare caramel: pour sugar into the saucepan (I tool about 1/2 cup, but here the measurements are not that important... if you have a ready, bought liquid caramel, you can probably use it too), add a little bit of water (2-3 tablespoons or more) and stir on a low heat until you have caramel. When still warm and liquid, pour it into the bowl (one big or 3-4 small ones) and move the dish the way so that its walls are covered with caramel. Pour papaya cream into the bowl(s), place it in the tray with water and place the tray (with water and bowl(s) in the oven. Bake 30 minutes in 180C. When still warm, take off from the bowl(s) and serve.

Portuguese sweet chickpea pockets

Polish: ciecierzyca
Pashto: نخود
Macedonian: Леблебија
Greek: Ρεβιθιά
Bengali: ছোলা
Mapunzugun: kalfan
German: Kichererbsen
Arabic: حمص
Thai: ถั่วหัวช้าง
Slovak: cícer baraní

Don't be angry on me. I know we have still 4 months until Christmas but I couldn't wait... Anyway, I wouldn't mind if someone makes for instance pascha (Polish -also Russian and Ukrainian- Easter fresh cheese dessert) in December or fry Polish Christmas carp in the summertime... :) So here they are: delicious Portuguese pockets with sweet chickpea-lemon filling which just melt in your mouth: azevias de grão, a Portuguese Christmas dessert dish, absolutely delicious!!

(to make 25-28 pockets)
dough:
250 gr flour
75 gr butter* (cold)
1 egg
a pinch of salt
a bit of water, if needed to knead the dough

**filling:
250 gr chickpeas (canned)
150 gr sugar
zest from 1 lemon or 1/2 orange
a pinch of cinnamon
2 egg yolks
(optionally: 1 handful ground almonds)

+ (optionally***) oil to fry
+ powdered sugar to sprinkle

1. Find a good movie and put a comfortable pillow under your back while peeling chickpeas (yes, you should throw away that thin "membrane"...)

2. Knead all the dough ingredients together. You may need a little bit of water to make your dough elastic but it is optionally. I think that you can replace butter with *vegetable oil or *margarine. Some recipes require the use of *lard. If you have nothing against this ind of fat you should do your azevias with lard exactly, cause it is the most traditional and typical way. Set the dough in the fridge until you are finished with the filling.

3. Blend "naked" chickpeas with lemon zest, sugar, cinnamon (and optionally almonds) and yolks. If needed, add some water (but I didn't). I must admit that I didn't add cinnamon. When I prepare something with cinnamon, I always add too much of this spice cause I just love it and then everything tastes so similar and cinnamon taste dominates. I wanted to feel chickpeas and not necessarily cinnamon, so I just added two times more lemon zest and the taste was fantastic!

4. Roll the dough thinly on your workplace which should be sprinkled with some flour. Cut rings using the edge of a glass, mug or bowl, depending on the size that you wish to obtain. Proportional, put a tea- or tablespoon of a filling and close dough rings forming half-moons. Fry (***or bake!), sprinkle with powdered sugar and control yourself to not eat half of the portion before serving to your family!







**some more information about the filling:
you can serve azevias with chickpea filling, the one I just wrote abozt, but azevias are also eaten with sweet potato (azevias de batata doce), kind of sweet white pumpkin (azevias de gila / chila) or white beans (azevias de feijão). I can't help you with gila/chila cause I've never seen it nor tasted, but if you prefer to make a filling with sweet potato or white beans then just cook those vegetables and add same ingredients as you would add when choosing chickpeas. Just beware cause sweet potato is already a bit sweet. Some recipes omit yolks. Good luck in experimenting! If it is still too difficult and you would like to have an exact recipe how to prepare similar pockets with sweet potato, I will post very soon a very similar, but Spanish recipe, to make truchas de boniato, Canarian Christmas sweet potato delicacy.

Brasilian sweet corn pudding

Polish: kukurydza
Malagasy: katsaka
Zulu: ukolweni
Bambara: kaba
Basa Jawa: jagung
Nahuatl: cintli
Slovenian: koruza
Thai: ข้าวโพด
Ossetian: Нартхор
Bantu: pémbá

My Peruvain friend was somehow surprised that in Poland we have basically only yellow corn in cans and not much idea what to do with the fresh one, besides grilling or cooking and eating with melted butter and salt. Plus, cornflakes and corn porridge cooked with milk and sugar for children. Oh yes, and we have (at least in my city) great corn bread, yellow and soft. While in Peru there are so many variants, including the purple one, an ingredient of mazamorra, purple corn pudding, something I am dreaming about to try :) Maize is a staple food in many regions of the world, just remember Italian polenta, Romanian mămăligă, African sadza, Mexican chicha and tortillas, Peruvian mazamorra :) and so on, without forgetting corn syrup and cornflakes. Maize can be prepared on a sweet or savoury way and to proove the first declaration, prepare yourself a Brasilian dessert, curau (when made from fresh yellow maize; when white dried and soaked in water is used, the dish is called canjica), which is a kind of milk pudding with corn.

see also: Egyptian zucchini pudding

4 fresh corn cobs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup coconut milk
sugar to taste
cinnamon

1. Grate corn cobs using a fine vegetable grater. If your grater is not very fine, you can puree the corns in a pood processor. Strain through a strainer and squeeze with a spoon to divide bagasse from juice. Throw bagasse away, keep the juice.



2. Put the maize juice in milk and cook until thicker. After about 20 minutes of low cooking and stirring, add coconut milk and sugar to taste (I added 5 tablespoons vanilla sugar) and cook some minutes more

3. When the cream is homogeneous and thick, pour it into bowls and set aside to cool. Set in the fridge for about 2 hours. Sprinkle with cinnamon and serve! (traditionally, especially during Festa Juninha, Midsummer Night!)

Spanish sweet eggplants

Polish: bakłażan
Tajik: Боқлаҷон
Suahili: mbilingani
Romany: patlazhùy
Albanian: patëllxhani
Sranan: bulansyey
Catalan: albergínia
Tagalog: talóng
Finnish: munakoiso
Papiamento: berehein

I was wondering more than once which plant is a vegetable and which is a fruit. Recently an Egyptian told me that in Egypt strawberries are considered vegetables... or rather, students are taught that strawberries belong to the vegetable family. But since I know that it is possible to make a sweet cake from spinach, parsnip, zucchini or beet and add quinces, pears or apricots to meat savoury dishes, nothing is impossible. Going back to the divagations about aubergines and traditional dishes made of this, like Indians say, "king of vegetable", but prepared on a sweet way, I suggest Spanish (Menorcan) berenjenas dulces, sweet eggplants. Actually, I know two sweet eggplant Spanish dishes. Both have a long tradition and are more than probably ancient, medieval, Arab influence. Berenjenas dulces are more sopisticated than berenjenas a la miel, eggplants fried in a batter and dipped in honey. The second recipe will be posted here soon, too.

2 eggplants (rather big)
1 potato
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon breadcrumbs
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder
1 egg
1 teaspoon butter
+ some more butter and breadcrumbs

1. Cook unpeeled potato in water with a bit of salt. When soft andstill warm, peel and mash it and set aside.

2. Cut eggplants lengthwise in 2 halves and cook 15 minutes in boiling water. Drain well and set aside to cool. Using a teaspoon, take the pulp away, but leaving 1/2 cm-thick marge of eggplant pulp. Now you have "boats" from the skin and 1/2 cm pulp.

(left: aubergine pulp, middle: aubergine boat, right: aubergine half)

3. Mash eggplant "meat" together with potato and fry 5 minutes in butter. Set aside to cool. After that, add sugar, cinnamon, whisked egg and breadcrumbs. Taste and check the consistency, if needed add some more sugar or breadcrumbs.

4. Fill the "boats" with sweet aubergine-potato filling, cover with butter scraps and sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Bake in the oven (180 C) for about 20-30 minutes (you have to check if the surface is already golden-brown and crunchy)

(filled boats)


(filled boats with butter and breadcrmbs, just before being baked)

Brasilian sweet potato pralines

Polish: orzech kokosowy
Suahili: mnazi
Tagalog: niyog
Thai: มะพร้าว
Marathi: नारळ
Mongolian: наргил
Vietnamese: quả dừa
Persian: نارگیل
Laotian: kok mak phao
Italian: noce di cocco

Good news for all the fans of Turkish sweet carrot and pumpkin balls! Brasilian docinhos de batata doce, sweet potato balls, belong to the same family, that's sure :) In this case, besides the obvious ingredient which is of course sweet potato, you will need two coconut products: coconut milk and flakes. A great party-idea would be to buy little muffin / praline forms and hide sweet balls there.

see also: Turkish pumpkin balls
see also: Turkish carrot balls
see also: Banana-aniseed balls

1 cup sweet potato puree*
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup ground almonds**
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 coconut milk
1 cup coconut flakes

1. Cook peeled, diced sweet potatoes and puree them*. Take one glass of the puree and set aside. Soak almonds** in milk for 1 hour, drain, pour boiling water on them and after 1/2 hour, peel and grind. take 1/2 cup of them.

2. In a saucepan, combine sweet potato puree, coconut milk and sugar. Cook while stirring, until it becomes some thickness. Pour into a bowl, when still warm add butter and stir well. Butetr should melt and everything should be creamy and homogeneous. Add ground almonds and 2 tablespoons coconut flakes. Set in the fridge for 1 hour.



3. After that time, form lovely balls (walnut-size) from the mass and roll in coconut flakes. Put the balls to the fridge again and take them off just before serving. You may roll them in your hands once again before serving.

Danish buttermilk dessert soup

Great recipe with a bad picture :( Koldskål is a Danish summer dessert, actually something between sweet cold soup and (butter)milky drink. Some people drink it with a straw, other eat with a spoon. If you prefer the second variant, serve it with Danish kammerjunker cokies, or your favourite biscuits, wafers or butter / cardamom (or other) cookies.

1 portion:
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg yolk
25 gr vanilla sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
cookies (kammerjunker or similar)

1. Beat yolk with vanilla sugar to obtain a creamy froth

2. Slowly add buttermilk and lemon juice and continue whisking. You can season it with lemon peel. Optionally, sprinkle with crunched cookies. Very refreshing, enjoy!




(my version, delicious even without any cookies)

Polish elder pancakes

Polish: bez czarny
Upper Sorbian: hołdračk
Bosnian: zovha
Arabic: بيلسان
Occitan: saüc
Albanian: shtogu
Galician: bieito
Lithuanian: juoduogis šeivamedis
Quechua: yana rayan
Cornish: skawenn

When you smell black elder's blossoms during an evening walk, you know it's late spring. In Poland the blossoms are fried in a batter and eaten with powdered sugar; in north Germany a soup from the berries is very popular; in Romania you can even buy a kind of Fanta with elderbery taste, and in Hungary elderberry brandy; in central Europe it is quite common to prepare a thick syrup from the blossom and lemon juice; you drink it dissolved with water or add to flavour your tea. Blossoms are dried and prepared as an infusion, too. This spring I dried some panicles which I am gonna drink in the wintertime, I also made a syrup and pancakes from the elder. Today I am gonna share the recipes for the elder pancakes, in Polish: placki z kwiatow bzu.

1 cup flour & 1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup sparkling, carbonated water
1 small pack vanilla sugar
1 egg white
1/2 - 1 cup elder blossoms
(eventually: 1 tablespoon lemon juice)

1. "Crumble" the panicles of elder to separate blossoms from the stalks. Some people deep the whole panicles into the batter but the taste of the stalks can destroy the whole pancake... I mean, in my opinion my way of making pancakes is much better than the fritters-methode... But it's up to you... My advice is to use blossoms only. It takes some more time but it is worth it! When you choose ripe paniles, blossoms will divide easily from the stalks!

2. Sift the flour with baking powder. Add water, milk and vanilla sugar. Combine. Beat the egg white and add gently to the batter. Add elder blossoms, they should be all covered with the batter. Now you can add lemon juice, too.

3. Fry! Just like regular pancakes. Serve sprinkled with powdered sugar, with homemade marmalade, honey, butter, maple syrup, dandelion syrup, manjar (How to do this Latin American spread? You can learn it from my recipe for Peruvian suspiro), nutella... So many possibilities!

Polish apples in jackets

Polish: jabłko
Mohawk: sewahyowane
Blackfoot: ápasstaamiinaamm
Navaho: belasana
Anglonquin: waabimin
Ossetian: фæткъуы
Inuktitut: kimminaujaq
Polabian: jobkú
Votic: õuna
Livonian: umar

Apples are everywhere! In English in pineapple and aubergine (mad apple is one of its synonys), in French in potato (pomme de terre), in Old English in cucumber (eorþæppla)... but there is also apple mint... elephant apple... alligator apple... apple snail... apple of eye... apple of discord... apple butter... Adam's apple... Newton's apple... and... Ewa's baked apple :P Originally this Polish dessert is called apples in jackets or apples in dressing gowns (jabłka w koszulkach / jabłka w szlafrokach)

2 cups flour*
125 gr margarine
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 pack vanilla sugar or few drops vanilla aroma
3 tablespoons cream (should be thick)
salt ( pinch)
apples: about 8 (I can't tell you exactly; it depends on your apple's size)
1/2 cup marmalade, sour*
powdered sugar + cinnamon to sprinkle
+ flour to sprinkle the workplace

* the Polish name of the flour I used is krupczatka. I will not give you the number, cause the numeration differs depends on the country. Take the flour you would use to make shortcrust pastry: a grainy one (called semolina flour)

** homemade would be the best: I used homemade mirabelle jam, but gooseberry, sea-buckthorn and currant would be great too. If you don't have any of those, take bilberry or bramble or actually anything which is at least a little bit sour

1. Sieve flour, add cold margarine and hack with a knife. Usually it is not recommended to do it with hands because we don't want the margarine to melt with the warm of our hands, cause this dough has to be crunchy after baked. Add egg, yolk, 1/2 cup powdered sugar, vanilla sugar / aroma, cream, salt and knead fast with your hand (has to be done fast for the reason mentioned above). Let in the fridge until you are ready with apples, but the best would be to let it rest for at least 30 minutes

2. Peel apples, divide into halves and take the seeds off



3. Take small amounts of the dough from the fridge, roll them on the surface sprinkled with flour. Roll until thiner than 1/2 cm. Put a half of an apple in the middle, fill with marmalade and cover with the resting dough (see the picture, it serves better than my words :P)





4. Preheat your oven until 200-220C. Butter your tray and sprinkle it with semolina, breadcrumbs, coconut flakes or simply with flour. Bake about 15 minutes or until golden. When ready, sprinkle with sugar and / or cinnamon.

Belarussian curd rolls (pancakes)

Polish: twaróg
Albanian: gjizë
Russian: творог
Tatar: eremçek
Swedish: kvarg
Spanish: requesón
Romanian: urdă
Hungarian: túró
Latvain: biezpiens
Dutch: wrongel

Curd roll covered in chocolate is one of the Central and East European snacks. Probably it's because Central and East Europe is a true kingdom of milk and its products, from buttermilk and kefir through differrent kind of curd and fresh cheese until curd pancakes, breadrolls, crepes, buns, dumplings and thousands of differrent curd snacks, until innumerable variety of cheesecakes. My grandmum has access to fresh cowmilk and she makes her own curd, of course, and soured milk. Coming back to my Belarussian Recipes book, I tried Belarussian curd rolls, Батончики творожные. They are actually a kind of pancakes, we prepare very similar ones in Poland. Curd rolls available in grocery stores are not fried, and also remember that frying curd pancakes is a bit difficult cause it drinks oil and becomes golden brown very fast. But still, they taste really good!

500 gr curd / fresh cheese
1 cup flour
1 egg
2 tablespoons cream
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
powdered sugar to sprinkle

1. Rub curd with cream and sugar. Whisk egg, mix flour with baking soda

2. Add egg to the curd, when homogeneous add flour and mix well

3. Roll the dough and cut into 10 cm slices. Fry and sprinkle iwth powdered sugar

Polish carrot pancakes

Polish: tarka
Lithuanian: trintuvė
Luxembourgian: Rapp
Persian: رنده
Estonian: riiv
Russian: Тёрка
Hebrew: פומפייה
Finnish: raastin
Turkish: rende
Portuguese: ralador

...yes, kitchen grater :) The most important (and actually the only one) utensil to prepare Polish carrot pancakes, racuszki karotenki. Could be served as a warm sweet supper, dessert or breakfast, with cream, powdered sugar or cinnamon. After deliberating yesterday wether a carrot is a fruit or a vegetable, I decided to add one more sweet carrot recipe to my blog, also one of my favourites. I guess I really like carrots served in a sweet way. This recipe will be sent to Joelen to join her Tasty Tools Blogging Event. I have no special tips about kitchen grater... and my family already ate all the pancakes while only now I realised that I should make a pic with both pancakes and a grater :( But I hope I can still join, Joelen?

and the recipe:

1/2 kg carrots*
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
a pinch of salt
cinnamon, icing sugar

1. Grate raw peeled carrots very fine (take the side of the garter with the smallest "eyes")

2. Whisk eggs with salt, sieve flour mixed with baking powder. It should be ready to fry but if you ffind it too loose, add a bit more flour. Fry, sprinkle with cinnamon and icing sugar

*you may add half grated apple too

Turkish sweet carrot balls

Polish: marchewka
Belorussian: морква
Armenian: գազար
Turkmen: кәшр
Maltese: zunnarija
Zulu: ikhalothi
Urdu: گاجر
Guarani: makychĩguasu
Estonian: porgand
Gujarati: ગાજર

Why is avocado considered a fruit and carrot or pumpkin - a vegetable? Right... Is carrot actually a fruit or a vegetable? The European Union didn't want to preoccupy baout this issue and an adequate decree declares that it is a fruit. So that Portuguese carrot jams can be classified as required. If in Portugal there is carrot jam; in Poland apple and carrot pie filling, carrot sweet fritters and carrot sweet dumplings; in Belarus sweet carrot and semolina puddings; in Spain, probably not very popular but still eaten carrot flan; and carrot cakes are eaten worldwide: then is carrot a fruit? We could divagate, multiplying arguments and reasons. In the meanwhile, prepare yourself another wonderful carrot dessert, Turkish carrot balls, havuçlu toplar.

see also: Turkish pumpkin balls
see also: Brasilian sweet potato balls
see also: Banana-aniseed balls

1 cup carrot puree (peel and cook carrots in water with salt and sugar, mash)

1 cup cookies, pepit beurre / leibniz type (mash them or grind in coffee grinder)

1 cup ground walnuts or a mix of walnuts and hazelnuts

a pinch of cinnamon

(about) 1/2 cup sugar, or to taste*

some biscuits, coconut flakes and / or cornflakes

When you have all the ingredients already prepared, just combine all of them and form lovely balls. I add 1/2 cup of powdered milk* to sweeten and make the mass thicker, but the original recipe require sugar* or sometimes a bit of butter / margarine (about 50 gr). Sprinkle with ground biscuits, coconut flakes or cornflakes (the last one is my invention). It is one of my favourite desserts.

Belarussian baked milk with plums

Polish: suszona śliwka
Welsh: prŵn
Breton: prunevenn
Spanish: ciruela pasa
German: Trockenpflaume
French: pruneau
Turkish: kuru erik
Russian: чернослив
Arabic: برقوق مجفف
Hungarian: aszalt szilva

Besides the digestive value, Moroccans add prunes to tagine, Jews to tzimmes, Norwegians to fruktsuppe, Poles to Christmas compote, Icelanders to the filling of Christams layered cake, Germans fill them with marzipan and fry in beer batter, and so on. There are so many ways of preparing prunes, in both sweet and savoury dishes. In Belarus (and probably Russia too, but I found чернослив в молоке recipe in an old Belarussian cookbook so it is Belarussian to me) prunes are baked in milk. This recipe is exceptional: very simple but astonishing and really tasty.

50 gr prunes (without stones)
2 cups milk
1 tablespoon sugar

1. Wash prunes, put in a bowl and pour boiling milk over them. Cover and set aside for 2 hours

2. Add sugar. You can cut prunes into smaller pieces as I did, or just leave them as they are

3. Pour the mixture into a pyrex tray and bake in the oven (200C) until the surface is golden and crunchy. I can't say exactly how long does it take cause it depends on your oven, but more than 1 hour for sure. When ready, cut into pieces and serve; it is not quiteeasy to cut thisdessert into lovely pieces but that doesn't matter. there will be a lot of sweet prune juice in the tray: pour it on each portion. You can experiment with quantity of prunes, milk and sugar and change a bit the taste and consistency, which reminds me all the milk-and-eggs desserts baked in the tray which is set inside another tray, full of water, like flan and leche asada.

Polish apple fritters

Polish: jabłko
ChuvashP: Панулми
Kashubian: jabko
Sudovian: ābalē
Old Prussian: vuobelis
Kazahk: алма
Tamil: ஆப்பிள
Fijian: yapolo
Greenlandic: iipili
Manx: ooyl
Yoruba: ápù

In France people say: An apple a day keeps the doctor away, in Morocco: A stone from the hand of a friend is an apple, in Germany: Handsome apples are sometimes sour, and in Poland: There no apple is sweeter than your mother. There are thousands of proverbs about apples, many stories, myths, legends about apples, because it is one of the most expanded and oldest plantations worldwide. Where was the biblical paradise? In China or in Cenral Asia, cause those regions are a homeland of wild apples. They love template climate, that is why in Central Europe they are the most beloved fruits. Can you believe that there are more that 10.000 differrent sorts of apples? And so many ways of eating them. This Polish recipe is called jabłka w cieście: Polish-style apples in batter.

1 cup flour
1 cup milk
1 egg
salt, sugar, a handful dried coocnut flakes
apples - I took 7 (juicy and rather small ones, elstar would be great)
cinnamon powder, powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar

1. Put unpeeled apples into boiling water for a short while, less than 5 minutes

2. Peel them and hollow out the part with the seeds (great if you have a special knife to do this)

3. Cut each apple into 3 thick slices but be careful, they are quite soft!

4. Prepare the batter (combine all the ingredients), deep each apple slice in the batter and fry from both sides. Sprinkle with cinnamon or powdered sugar or both before serving.







I am really glad to participate in Apple Cooking Event, cause apples are the most popular fruits in the country where I come from. My mum is an avid apple eater, but she accepts only one sort, sweet and sour and juicy elstar apples. She eats about 3 apples a day! A very Polish way of eating apples is to deep them into a batter and fry. There are many kinds of batter, even with beer, but I offer you my batter that goes perfect with apples, bananas or even vegetables.

Peruvian condensed milk dessert

Polish: westchnienie
German: Seufzer
Hebrew: אנחה
French: soupir
Mapunzugun: afküduamn
Guarani: ãho
Scots Gaelic: anail
Valencian: suspir
Danish: suk
Welsh: anadl

A sigh was what a Limenean lady used to do when her manjar blanco was ready, after stirring it constantly for some hours. Manjar blanco, the main ingredient of suspiro de limeña (Limenean lady's sigh) is one of the most important imngredients in Latin American pastry: serves as alfajores (special kind of cookies and cakes) filling, flavour of ice-creams, breakfast spread etc: I was in Chile once and manjar blanco was everywhere. Of Middle Eastern origin, not that laborious as kaymak, but still you need about 2 hours to prepare this dessert. But beware, you really have to love sweets! Even if extremely tasty, I couldn't eat even a half of my portion... My advice: enjoy your suspiro de limeña while drinking strong unsweetened coffee, just like Arabs do when gloating over their extremely sweet pastries ;) I forgot to say... Dedico este postre a mi amigo muy querido Pepe...!

see also: Polish milk pudding

1 cup condensed milk (sweetened)
1 cup evaporated milk (condensed but unsweetened)
2 eggs
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 glass oporto*
cinnamon

1. Combine two kinds of condensed milk in a saucepan. Simmer over a low heat, stirring constantly, for about 2 hours (until it becomes thick and golden). What you obtain is called manjar blanco



2. Take the manjar blanco off of the heat. Blend well with two yolks. Some people also add vanilla aroma and beat manjar with yolks over a saucepan with boiling water. When ready, pour the cream into glasses and cool in the fridge.

3. In the meanwhile make a syrup from sugar and lime juice. The original recipe claims for oporto* (but I drink no alcohol so I made the original version for my family but for my portion I just replaced oporto with juice from 1 lime and added few drops rum aroma. There was no differrence in consistency)

4. Beat egg whites. When stiff, pour warm syrup and beat until the meringue is cool. Pour over manjar blanco and sprinkle with cinnamon.





This is my contribution into oporto event :) hosted by Nysa. I am very glad to participate, even if I personally drink no alcohol and even don't eat it in desserts, but I decided, after mailing with Zorra, to translate my recipe into German. Please forgive me all my mistakes :) And try someday this delicious Peruvian dessert!


1 Glas evaporierte Milch (Kondensmilch ohne zusätzlichen Zucker)
1 Glas Kondensmilch, süss
2 Eier
1/3 Glas Zucker
1/4 Glas Portwein*
Zimt

Die beiden sorten Kondensmilch werden unter ständigen rühren in einen Topf erhitzt und bei niedriger Hitze köcheln gelassen. Nach 2 Stunden ungefähr erhalten sie goldene, dicke Creme das heisst manjar blanco. Die Eigelbe werden mit manjar blanco geschlagen. Die fertige Creme verteilen und erkalten lassen. Inzwischen, ein Syrup von Zucker und Portwein bereiten (*Portwein kann mit Zitronensaft und wenigen Tropfen Rumaroma ersetzt werden). Die Eiweiße steif schlagen und Zuckersyrup dazu geben. Weiter schlagen bis den "Baiser" gekühlt ist. Baiser auf manjar blanco Creme gießen und mit Zimt bestreuen.

Fertig! :)

German grits pudding

Polish: kakao
Irish: cócó
Xhosa: ikoko
Yiddish: קאַקאַו
Lithuanian: kakava
Sestwana: khoukhou
Arabic: كاكاو
Japanese: ココア
Manx: coco
Serbian: какао

In Poland semolina porridge is considered baby food. In Germany Grießbrei is one of the most commonly eaten desserts. When I was studying at the German Baltic coast, it was normal to find semolina milk pudding with red berries sauce as the main dinner dish. Cocoa as the main ingredient was my own idea but the general proportions were based at many German culinary sites that I surfed through before preparing this pudding, that is why I include it to German recipes list. Pure vanilla version would be also tasty. But what surprises me the most is the way in which differrent nations serve semolina: Central Europeans, Arabs, Latin Americans... (p.s. Middle Eastern semolina desserts will appear soon, I promise!)

2 cups milk
2 tablespoons cocoa powder (add only one if you don't like your grits to have a strong chocolate taste)
1 tablespoon (or more, or less, just as you prefer) sugar or even better vanilla sugar
1 tablespoon butter
50 gr (about 3 tablespoons) semolina
a pinch of salt
1 egg yolk
coconut, shredded

1. Combine milk, cocoa and sugar to obtain cocoa drink. Try if it contains enough sugar and cocoa!

2. Cook cocoa drink with butter and a pinch of salt. Add semolina, stir and cook until boiling - until tht time semolina gets thicker.

3. Reduce the heat. Add yolk and stir constantly, until homogeneous. Don't boil anymore! Just sprinkle with coconut flakes and enjoy :)






Pora na polską wersję :) Po raz pierwszy od założenia bloga mam zamiar brać udział we wspólnym gotowaniu tematycznym! (chwilkę przedtem było o anyżku po angielku, a teraz o kakao po polsku; dzień debiutów!) Strasznie się cieszę na tę myśl. Miałam w zanadrzu przepis na czekoladową kaszkę mannę i czekoladowy pudding z tapioki. Zdecydowałam się na pierwszy z deserów, ale o tapioce jeszcze będzie u mnie mowa. Nawet jeśli nie wypróbujecie mojego przepisu, to mam nadzieję, że zainspiruję Was w jakikowliek sposób do upichcenia czegoś nowego :) Proporcje przygotowałam na podstawie wypadkowej kilku niemieckich stron kulinarnych. Niemcy bardzo często jedzą kaszkę mannę. Z ich przepisu wyszedł mi naprawdę pyszny deser; przedtem mój grysik zawsze był zbyt gęsty albo o prostu niesmaczny.

Zatem włączając się do czekoladowego weekendu Bei z Mojej Kuchni: proponuję Wam moją czekoladową kaszkę mannę. Potrzebne będzie:

2 szklanki mleka
1 łyżki kakao (chyba że wolicie mniej czekoladowe)
1 łyżka cukru (zależy od Waszych upodobań: może wolicie mniej cukry, może więcej) albo lepiej cukru waniliowego
1 łyżka masła
50 gr (około 3 łyżki) kaszki manny
szczypta soli
1 żółtko
szczypta wiórków kokosowych

1. Wymieszajcie mleko z kakao i cukrem az otrzymacie kakao (koniecznie spróbujcie czy jest odpowiednio słodkie i odpowiednio czekoladowe)

2. Zagotujcie kakao z masłem i szczyptą soli. Dodajcie kaszkę, mieszając doprowadźcie do wrzenia. Kaszka zgęstnieje.

3. Zmniejszcie ogień do minimum. Dodajcie żółtko i mieszajcie aż masa będzie jednolita. Zdejmijcie z ognia - masa po dodaniu żółtka nie może się już zagotować! Udekorujcie wiórkami kokosowymi i... smacznego!