Schmerkuchen

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 500 g flour
• ½ cube of yeast
• ¼ liter milk, lukewarm
• 1 pinch(s) of sugar
• 1 egg(s)
• 2 tbsp margarine
• 2 tbsp oil (sunflower)
• some sugar
• vanilla sugar
• 20 tsp apricot jam
• Egg yolk, for brushing, or sugar water
• Flour , for the work surface

Instructions

Working time approx. 1 hour; Rest time approx. 1 hour; Total time approx. 2 hours

Hungarian traditional recipe

Schmerkuchen, or Flomenkuchen, originated in Hungary and has long been popular, especially in Hungary, Austria, and the Pannonian Plain. I got the traditional recipe from my grandmother, who also learned it from her grandmother. If you have it, you can use Schmerfett, or Flomenfett, instead of the margarine and oil, as in the original recipe. This apparently makes the dough particularly light and fluffy. First, make a yeast dough. To do this, mix a pinch of sugar with a little lukewarm water and the yeast in a small bowl and let it rise for about 10 minutes. Then mix the flour, an egg, the milk, and the yeast mixture together and knead it into a light and fluffy dough. Then let this dough rise in a bowl, covered with a cloth, for one to two hours at room temperature or for about 30 minutes in an oven at 50 degrees Celsius. During this time, you can mix the margarine and oil in a small bowl with a whisk until it forms a paste-like mass. Now comes the most important part: laying out and rolling out the dough correctly: Roll out the entire yeast dough on a large pastry board or work surface. Sprinkle it with flour every now and then to prevent it from sticking. Roll out the dough on all sides to a thickness of about 0.5 to 1.0 cm. Spread half of the butter and oil mixture over the dough and then sprinkle generously, but not too much, with sugar and a little vanilla sugar. Now fold the right edge of the dough into the middle and fold the left edge over the entire dough. Then roll out the dough again to a thickness of 0.5 to 1.0 cm in width (left to right), not lengthwise (top to bottom). Brush with the rest of the butter and oil mixture and sprinkle with a little sugar. Then use the same folding technique again. After that, don’t roll out the dough completely, but only to a width of about 15-20 cm and a thickness of about 1 cm. You now have an oblong piece of dough (approx. 40 x 20 cm). Cut it in half lengthwise. This will give you two long pieces of dough (approx. 40 x 10 cm). The cut edge shows the many individual layers of dough. Cut out approximately 4 cm wide slices from the oblong pieces of dough. This will give you about 20 slices from the entire dough. Now you can fill the slices. To do this, spread about half to a whole teaspoon of apricot jam (or other types of jam, or Nutella) on one half of the slice. Then fold the cut side over the other half like a book and press it down lightly. Place the slices on a baking sheet lined with baking paper or dusted with flour. Brush the slices with a little egg yolk or sugar water using a brush. Bake the Schmerkuchen at 180-200 degrees Celsius for about 20 minutes, until golden brown. Serve warm. They taste delicious even a day later.