Hungarian Beigli

This delicious sweet bread, named Hungarian Beigli, filled with walnuts and poppy seed is one of the most loved traditional Holiday desserts. Every family in our culture loves it. There are no exceptions. Everybody…Everybody has the favorite one and every time goes so fast that one long roll, not survives the next day.

I will show you today with the Walnuts and Poppy Seed filling. My personal favorite is the Poppy Seed one. There are several different ways to make the Hungarian poppy seed cake, this one is the “Pozsony” dought variety. The other one is usually being made in the countryside, just like my grandmother used to make them, using a “Kalács” dough. Which is a completely different recipe. The one that I showing you is the Original Beigli Recipe.

You can see that the Kalács look like more a sweet bread. The dough raised up more and is thicker. Is soft like bread. And it’s easier to make. That’s why imagine it like a sweet bread with fillings. The Hungarian Beigli, with the “Pozsony” dough, not raising up that much and it doesn’t have the softest consistency what the bread gives. But these are different recipes and both of them are so delicious.

How to make the Hungarian Beigli?

We don’t need to activate the yeast, just simply throw it into the room temperature milk, stir it up and leave it aside for a few minutes. Add the powder sugar to the flour and also the salt. It is essential to salt the dough. And simply dry the ingredients. Make sure all is evenly mixed. Add the butter, which needs to be incorporated with the flour. Crumble it into small crumbs. That could take a few minutes. And mix it together.

A lot of people are scared to start making the Hungarian poppy seed roll, but let me tell you this is a very simple recipe. Just pay attention to the workflow, and keep the times required between the stages. You can find in great details step by step everything you need to know.

Once the dough is prepared, divide it into 2 pieces which will be the portion of each beigli recipe, and put them into the fridge for an hour to rest. While the dough is resting in the fridge we will prepare the fillings.

If you own a stand mixer, you are welcome to use it. But essentially this dough, unlike other yeast doughs, doesn’t need a lot of kneading.

As soon as the dough reached a solid consistency you can stop mixing. Now you can add, the milk with yeast and the egg yolks. And start mixing the ingredients again. Continue mixing until the dough comes off from your hand and from the wall of the bowl and not sticking.

Pick up all those loose pieces of dough in the bowl. When you are done empty it onto the work surface, remove all the ingredients, don’t waste any. Pick up all loose pieces by pressing the dough on the surface.

Our dough’s consistency can’t be too dry. So this process will take a few minutes. When the dough combined well, make two pieces and shape it into a ball form. Then put into a plastic wrap and let to rest for one hour.

Ingredients for the Hungarian Beigli fillings

Well, you can use a bunch of different ingredients, in the example, some people like to put raisings or with ground cinnamon, but in my household we are like it just as simple as it gets.

You can make different fillings. For example, you can use melted chocolate or ground cinnamon for the filling. The Walnuts and the Poppy Seed fillings are the traditional ones and the most used in Hungarian households.

In our case, we use the same amount from everything in both fillings. So add the sugar, lemon zest, and vanilla sugar in the ground walnuts and ground poppy seed. Mix them well separately and bring the boiled water and mix it until every little part got wet and it gives you the perfect texture.

Essentially, the important thing with the fillings is when done, the consistency of the mix should have an easily shapable density. Under no circumstances too soft or too hard.

Because you won’t be able to work with them. Do not add a lot of liquid at once, because if you pour more than needed, you will have a hard time working with it.

The consistency of the poppy seed is totally different compared with the walnuts and probably you need to add more water to it. It has to be a beautiful creamy consistency.

More Tips for Hungarian Beigli

In my opinion, the perfect beigli recipe contains an equal amount of dough and fillings. Try to roll it to the shape closest to a rectangle so the corners join easily. Keep rolling it until the thickness is around 3 mm. You don’t have to dust the surface with flour, because the dough should’ve been sticking. Do not leave the dough too thick, pay attention to this.

Pay attention to avoid spreading the filling all the way to the edges.

It’s not a big task to prepare this, even if you don’t get the perfect result for the first time. Don’t be scared because these are not made for the pastry shop, the point is you have a homemade beigli made by yourself.

When you finish with the fillings the edges of both sides need to flatten a little bit because when you roll the dough, it won’t be bulging on the sides, and you can even press it down, as it would bulge after folding.

Let’s roll it up now. While rolling it you will feel the proper tightness of the roll. In the end, pay attention the dough has to join the dough in order to attach them and the filling won’t have the chance to leak out.

Next step, brush them with egg yolks evenly and make sure you brush them all the way to the bottom. You have to brush the yolks twice. But after the first time, you have to put it in the refrigerator to dry.

After 30 minutes, when you feel that it doesn’t stick on your hand you have to brush it again, the second time with egg yolks.

Then again, after 15-20 minutes will take it out when it’s dry and this time you have to brush it with egg whites only. Then they will remain at room temperature in the kitchen until it’s dry. You don’t have to whip the egg whites, just simply put on the beigli as is.

Then poke holes in the dough to let the moisture escape from the inside. Just grab a toothpick or skewer and poke holes on the top and the sides. You have to be sure you let every moisture out and won’t stay inside to crack the dough open.

Mainly, this is the brushing procedure to obtain the usual marbled finish.

Then bake the Beigli for 20- 30 minutes on 200 Celsius – 400 Fahrenheit.

Cut them up when they cooled down because they can break into pieces, and you won’t be able to have the best-looking Bejgli.

But…you have to take it out the wrapping paper under the beigli as soon as possible because it will stick when the beigi is cooled down. And you don’t want that.

Before this dessert, you can start with my tasty Hungarian Cabbage Soup. It’s damn delicious and it’s easy to make it.

Also, Vin Chaun from WithSpice.com it’s a perfect match with this holiday dessert. It’s an iconic Christmas drink.

Another Christmas dessert that is perfect for kids to make the party more fun for them. Easy Melted Snowman Cookies Recipe is easy and quick to make which also can be a last-minute treat at the Christmas party.

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