I’ve known grandma Katalin since as long as I can remember, and the first association I have of her is the time spent in her kitchen that is separated from the rest of the house standing in the middle of the closed backyard of an L shaped house. There I would come and without even asking she would already be giving me whatever she’s preparing, for me and to bring back home to my family.
Everything she makes has a very familiar taste, a taste that now I know can remind you of home.
Krofne (doughnuts) are however, something I remember most vividly…
Handmade Twists
That’s why when Laëtitia asked me to find grandmas to teach her recipes, Katalin and her doughnuts were amongst the first suggestions I had! She accepted, and here is the recipe she provided, but keep in mind that she does it without a scale, completely as she feels the ingredients.
The Ingredients:
- 1 kg of flour (sharp)
- More flour for mixing the dough so it’s not sticky
- 5-6 bags of vanilla sugar
- 1 square of fresh yeast
- Around 500ml of high fat milk
- 4 yolks
- 20-30g of butter
The Art of the "Odoka" Method
Watching Katalin work is a lesson in patience. In a world of digital scales and timers, she relies on the "odoka" method (by eye). She feels the dough, knowing instinctively when the texture is right and not too sticky, but not too firm.
The process begins with waking up the yeast, she warms a bit of high-fat milk and crumbles the fresh yeast square right into it, then heats it until it bubbles and foams up almost like it's boiling. Then, she makes a hole in the sharp flour and slowly, patiently pours the yeasty milk in mixing as she goes. She prefers to do it with a wooden spoon, but notices that some of her friends swear by doing it with hands.
We used about 1kg of sharp flour and adjusted the high-fat milk as we went to get the flour exactly how she likes it.
She follows this by working in the yolks, the melted butter, and the vanilla sugar.
The dough
Once the dough has at least doubled in size, after approximately 1 hour and a half, she flattened it a bit with a rolling pin and using a metal round cutter she cut half of the dough into circles, and another half she cut into rectangles which she cuts in the middle and twists before frying.
Frying
Then comes the deep fry and the kitchen fills with the scent of vanilin sugar and hot oil. She takes a small piece of dough and puts it in hot oil, and when she decides the temperature is perfect she starts putting the rest of the dough inside.
While they are still hot enough to burn your fingers, she finishes them with a heavy coat of powdered sugar and fills the handmade shallow hole in the doughnuts with thick, dark homemade marmalade.
In the end, Katalin was not satisfied with the result, claiming it’s not up to her standards while on the other hand Laëtitia and me were burning our fingers trying to eat the doughnuts as soon as she covered them with powder sugar.
Sergej & Laetitia
