Valentine's Day

A Hungarian gastroblogger drew my attention to this blog, which had invited the bloggers to produce and publish posts about any edible hearts. I found many good ideas here, but the main idea was that anything could be heart-shaped, even savoury things. Since the Valentine's day is not really deeply rooted in our family we celebrate it moderately with just a piece of chocolate or something like this, always with a remark that it is a typical, commercial......pseudo-feast. But why not express love and gratitude with something? Something sweet? When I was a young wife and a young mother I was really keen on baking cakes and pastries every weekend. Now I prefer those things which can de prepared in a minute. This recipe is worth the revival: very tasty, sweet and sour in one bite and not a big fuss to bake. Many housewives knows this recipe in Hungary. It was first published in the middle of the 30-ies in a cookbook, which was sponsored by the producer of a famous brand of baking powder. This is a typical recipe of that transitional period when the smallholders began to use industrial products, like sugar, vanilla sugar, baking powder, but the most of the ingredients were available among the products of the farms. In our region, in Hódmezővásárhely, Hungary most of the landowners could afford a house in the town, but from the beginning of the Spring until Autumn they lived and worked together with the employers at the farm which was in about 5-15 km from the town. They produced wheat for flour, had cattles for milk, cream and butter. One surely could find a walnut tree beside the house at the farm, partly to give shade, partly for its fruits. There were several fruit trees, mostly plum and apricot. They hardly ate fresh fruit, but processed it for jam and pálinka, the typical brandy of this country. They collected the fruit in barrels. It was fermented on its own, and it was brewed at the breweries. The winter mornings began always with a small glass of pálinka for the men. It had to last until next Summer. This way of life disappeared with the World War II, but the recipes remained. If apricot jam is not available, one can use raspberry, because the sourness is essential to the proper combination with the sweet walnut.

Rich walnut pie

Ingredients:

300 g flour

100 g butter

100 g caster sugar

200 g sugar

5 eggs

200 g grated walnut

1 small jar of apricot or raspberry jam

2-3 spoonfuls of cream or sour cream

1 package of vanilla sugar

1 package of baking powder

1 lemon

2 pinches of salt

Mix the flour with the baking powder, vanilla sugar and 1 pinch of salt. Rub with the butter, add one egg and one yolk, the caster sugar and the grated rind of the lemon. Knead into a soft dough. If it is necessary add some cream or sour cream. Take aside. Mix the remaining 3 egg yolks with the sugar and the juice of the lemon until light and creamy, and stir in the grated nutmeg. Whip the egg whites with a pinch of salt and carefully mix with the walnut mixture. Take the 2/3 of the dough and roll out to the size of the baking tin. Lift it on the buttered tin and spread generously with apricot jam. Put the walnut mixture on the top and spread evenly. Roll out the remaining dough and cut it into thin stripes with a pizza cutter. Put the stripes on the top diagonally and bake the pastry in the oven at 175 C until slightly brown. When it is lukewarm sprinkle some caster sugar on the top and cut in squares or little hearts if it is Valentine's Day.

Inspired by Éva.