Bejgli Or Poppy Seed Rolls

There's one traditional recipe for Christmas (and Easter too), that I haven't posted yet and that is the poppy seed roll recipe, or bejgli as it is called in Hungarian. It's a traditional sweet all over Europe I think.

The bagel originally comes from the region of Silesia and this type of Silesian cake has been known in Europe since the 14th century. The name of the indispensable Christmas cake is of German origin and comes from its original bent, horseshoe-shaped shape. Beigel (German: beugen = bends, mohnbeugel = poppy seed cake) came to our country through Austrian mediation and spread in the second half of the 19th century. From that time on, they started to celebrate Christmas in the German fashion in Hungary. It is also known in walnut or poppy horseshoe versions. In the beginning, it was a cake for family holidays, then gradually replaced the traditional Christmas cake from the time of the Reformation. It is listed as "Posonyi fine poppy seed cake" in István Czifray's Hungarian national cookbook published in 1830. Translation from Wikipedia

Even thought bejgli is a must for Easter and Christmas for most people, my mum never made any for us as we had other sweets for the holidays. This is why I have only made bejgli once till this year. My niece wanted it this year and I could not say no to her. I knew it's going to be a challenge but what would be life like without challenges, right?

Over the years I've heard many women complaining about cracked bejgli, so I had no high expectations. I said if those who are baking bejgli for years can't get it right, I should have no expectations either.

I had a recipe noted down from somewhere, so I'm going to quote the recipe without source as it's not mine and can't find the source.

Ingredients for the

500g all purpose flour,

250g unsalted butter,

50g powdered sugar,

7g dry yeast or 25g fresh yeast,

2 egg yolks,

100ml lukewarm milk (1.5% fat),

pinch of salt.

Ingredients for the filling

200g ground poppy seeds,

120g sugar,

50g honey,

100ml milk (1.5% fat).

Ingredients for the top:

1 egg yolk.

I chose the lazy way again and added the ingredients for the dough to the mixer bowl and let the mixer do the job. This mixer really helped me during these days, saved me some time and I'm grateful for that. Time is something you can't buy.

After 10 minutes of kneading, I got a nice dough, which I wrapped in a plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

In the meantime I started to prepare the filling. I was not able to buy ground poppy seeds, but did not mind as those usually taste awful. Instead I ground the poppy seeds myself.

To prepare the filling, I added the milk to the pan, added the sugar, let the milk boil, then added the poppy seeds and the honey. It's an ugly black mix, but it tastes great, so don't worry about how it looks.

And this is where the challenge started. The dough supposed to be divided into 4 equal parts. To be precise, I usually use the scale, but there was no time to waste with the scale, so I tried my hand at dividing it the best way I could. It's clearly visible that the 4 parts were not equal but I was ok with that.

The next challenge was rolling out the dough to get a rectangular shape. Does that look rectangular? Not by far but you know, fake it till you make it 😂

Next challenge (yeah, this was all about challenges) was to divide the filling into four, to fill each roll with the equal amount of pppy seed filling. Well, good luck with that 😂 However, I can't complain as there was plenty for each roll this time.

Then I rolled up the dough the way you see it on the photo.

I got 4 rolls. I'm not saying they are of the same size, but still, the result is not that bad in my opinion.

Then I had to prick the rolls with a fork, to let the air come out during baking.

To get a golden brown look, I brushed the rolls with an egg yolk, then let them rest for 90 minutes. There's a trick here. The egg yolk coat on the top dries during the 90 minutes rest, the dough rises and causes the coat to crack, which will make it like marble.

After 90 minutes, the brushing has to be repeated, but to be honest, I skipped that step.

I baked the rolls for about 60 minutes at 170°C and voilà! All the rolls were cracked when I took them out of the oven 😂 The bottom one has half part ok, so I kept that for the photo shoot. Yes, I cheated.

This needs more practicing and maybe I'm going to bake more rolls for Easter, but I can't say it's a priority.

So, poppy seed rolls anyone?

If you're a newbie, you may want to check out these guides: