Grammel – Kräpfli

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 1 kg flour
• 1 egg(s)
• 250 ml milk
• 1 cube of yeast
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp salt
• 300 g cracklings
• Flour , for the work surface
• 1 egg yolk, for brushing

Instructions

Working time approx. 45 minutes; Rest time approx. 1 hour; Total time approx. 1 hour 45 minutes

Greaves cookies, a spicy-salty pastry from Hungarian-German cuisine

The cracklings used for this pastry should be made from fatty bacon, without any meat residue. They should be golden yellow, not darker, and not overcooked. Some butchers with Hungarian-German roots carry this type of crackling. Run the cracklings through the fine disk of a meat grinder. The quantity refers to the ground cracklings. If you have a meat grinder with a lot of dead space, buy more cracklings. Make a soft yeast dough from the ingredients listed. My mother said it should be “about as soft as an earlobe.” The dough should be well salted, adding more salt if necessary. Cover the yeast dough and let it rise in a warm place for 1 hour. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to about 1 cm thick, fold it several times, and roll it out again. Repeat this process 10-15 times to create a kind of puff pastry. Finally, roll out the dough to about 1.5 cm thick. Using a cookie cutter, cut out circles approximately 6 cm in diameter. Place cookies on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Brush the tops of the cookies with egg yolk. Bake in an oven preheated to 180°C for 20-30 minutes until golden brown. The Grammel-Kräpfli taste best and most aromatic when warm from the oven or briefly reheated. Serve with coffee. Grammel-Kräpfli were my favorite dish even as a child. They are perfect for freezing. There’s no need for lengthy thawing. When you’re ready to eat them, take them out of the freezer, place them on a baking sheet, and place them in an oven preheated to 200°C (fan oven) for about 10-15 minutes.