Recipe: Knedle

Knedle are traditional potato-dough dumplings, usually filled with an entire plum.  They are incredibly filling and can serve both as a dessert and as a dinner (being so filling.)  They are actually really easy to make and popular with kids and adults alike.

Ingredients:
3 lb of potatoes

2 cups of flour

1 egg

3 pounds of plums
Sugar

Pinch of salt

Peel and boil the potatoes, then drain well.  In a large pot, start boiling some water.  In a bowl, mash the potatoes, and mix in flour, salt, and egg.  If the dough is too sticky, add more flour until a nice consistency is reached.  Pit the plums by butterflying them (slice one side pole-to-pole) and taking out the stone.  Fill the plums' centers with a teaspoon of sugar (sugar cubes are great for this), close them, then wrap the plums in dough.  Drop the knedle into the boiling water and cook until they float.  Remove with a slotted spoon.

You can serve the knedle as they are, or fry them in a slight bit of oil (not unlike pierogi).  You can also serve them in a sweet cream sauce.
In the holiday season, feel free to add a pinch of some spices to the dough (such as cinnamon or nutmeg.)  Knedle keep well when they are frozen, so prepare them when plums are in season, then freeze.  You can serve them all winter and spring, just drop the frozen balls into boiling water.

Freshly-made knedle.

Recipe: Szarlotka (Apple Cake)

A traditional layered apple cake that serves quite well as a coffee cake.

OK, but before we get started, I'm going to go off on the lack of vanilla extract here. In my baking, I usually use gallons of the stuff; here, they have aromat waniliowy (basically the scent of vanilla) and vanilla sugar. Vanilla sugar works best because it actually has the vanilla flavor; the other stuff just makes your cake/cookies/pastry smell like vanilla (kind of stupid, right?) I haven't been able to procure some vanilla beans, so I'm stuck using packets of vanilla sugar.

Also, they do a lot of measuring by weight here (in metric too. Double whammy.) So I just converted it to English units.

1 lb of flour plus a little more

5.5 ounces of powdered sugar

5 egg yolks (or just use the whole egg.)

5.5 ounces of oil

5 ounces of butter

1 tsp baking powder (optional)

Dash of almond oil (optional)

3.5 lb of apples

Preheat oven to 350º F.

Combine everything but the apples and mix into a dough. Wrap the dough up and put it in the fridge to chill for at least an hour. Peel and shred the apples (mashing them into apple sauce also works.) Take about 2/3 the dough and spread evenly into a greased cake pan or baking dish. Spread the apples evenly on top of the dough.

Next, there are two ways of adding the remaining 1/3 of the dough. You can just spread it on and shove that sucker in the oven; or, shred the dough with a grated and sprinkle it atop the apples. Regardless of how you apply the top layer of dough, stick it in the oven for 30-45 minutes. After it's done, you can dust it with powdered sugar.

Recipe: Piegusek (Poppy Seed Cake)

This is a cake recipe that I've acquired recently and it is quite delicious. So, go and bake it. It's a little scant on baking instructions (it comes straight out a family's collection of recipes) but I'll try my best to guide it.

1 cup poppy seeds

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup oil

1 cup egg yolks (keep egg whites.)

1 cup sugar

Confectioner's sugar

Preheat oven to 350º F. In a bowl, mix the poppy seeds with the oil; add yolks, flour, and baking soda. Knead dough. Whip the egg whites with the sugar and combine with the rest. Spread evenly in greased cake pan or baking dish, making sure that it has an even depth. Bake 30-45 minutes.

The piegusek can be cut into squares like a coffee cake and sprinkled with powdered sugar.