Hungarian Poppy Seed Pastry “Kifli” Recipe

I have these Budapest Saturday flea market While wandering around antique and vintage stalls. I love them so much I want to recreate them at home. I do love anything poppy seed – just like legal drugs.

The word kifli and other variations mean “horned”. The shape is lunar, like a crescent moon, so it may have pagan origins, worshiping a goddess. The crescent is considered the oldest pastry shape. The moon shape may also be traces of Islamic and Turkish culture, as Hungary was occupied by the Ottoman Empire for centuries. You can still see traces of this in modern Hungary, for example in Turkish baths and with pickled radishes with meals.

Any stale pudding can be made into the Austrian recipe Kipfelkoch, which is a bit like bread and butter pudding but with croissants and apples.

Poppy Seed Kifli

I bought these pastries at a flea market in Budapest. I like anything with poppy seeds, but you can also buy a walnut butter-filled version.

course Afternoon tea, desserts, eleven meals, snacks

keywords Eastern European Food, Hungarian Recipes, Kifli, Pastries, Poppy Seed Recipes

Serve 15

raw material

For the pastries:

250 gram plain flour
1 spoon fast acting yeast
35 gram powdered sugar
100 ml warm milk
1 Egg
125 gram Butter, cut into cubes
1 teaspoon Salt

For padding:

225 gram poppy seed
125 ml milk
60 gram butter
75 gram fine sugar
4 spoon Honey
1 Lemon, zest

Brush on pastry:

instruct

Place the flour, yeast, powdered sugar, warm milk (make sure not to be too hot or it will kill the yeast), eggs in a bowl or stand mixer and mix until well combined.
Add salt and butter piece by piece until combined.
Cover and leave in a cool place for an hour or overnight.

Make the filling:

Grind poppy seeds in vitamins or similar.
In a small saucepan over low heat, add milk, butter, sugar, honey, lemon zest. Heat gently until butter melts, then add poppy seeds. Stir well, then remove from heat and allow to cool.

Assembly:

Place the pastry on a clean floured surface and divide into 15 balls (about 45g each).
Roll each ball into a strip approximately 11cm (4in) wide x 18cm (7in) long. The ends should be slightly thinner.
Pick up a ball of the ground poppy seed mixture with your hands or a spoon (it’s firm so you can handle it) and roll it into a thin sausage about 15cm (6in) long. Place in the middle of the pastry strip.
Fold the pastry over and seal with your fingers. Then push the ends up to form a crescent shape. Place a silpat, silicone sheet, or parchment paper on a flat baking sheet.
Preheat the oven to 180C (360F) and continue making crescent shapes with the pastry and poppy seed mixture. If you bake all the baking sheets at once, you may need 2 baking sheets.
When the crescents and kifli are all made, brush them with egg wash.
Bake for 20 minutes until golden.
Serve with coffee.