Authentic Hungarian Pastries
"These are amazing! You would not believe that there are only 3 ingredients in the dough. My Great-Grandma used to make these every Sunday. The dough has a delicate cheese taste and the filling is nice and tart. They also have a BEAUTIFUL presentation! I've never paid attention to how many cookies it makes or how much time it takes so that is a guess. I know it looks like a lot of steps, but it is not hard to do."
photo by Munchkin Mama
- Ready In:
- 1hr
- Ingredients:
- 7
- Yields:
-
20 pinwheels
ingredients
-
Pastry dough
- 16 ounces cream cheese, softened (do not use lite or fat free)
- 1 cup butter, softened (no substitutions)
- 2 cups flour
-
Fruit Filling
- 1 lb dried apricot
- 1 cup sugar
- water
-
For dusting
- 1⁄2 cup powdered sugar
directions
- Prepare the fruit filling by putting the apricots in a saucepan. Add water just to cover.Cook until soft, being very careful not to let it burn. You may have to add more water to prevent this.
- When fruit is soft, add the sugar and cook until thick. When thickened, remove from heat and puree in a food processor. Let cool slightly, then put into a freezer bag. When you are ready to use the filling just snip off the corner of the bag. (You may have extra filling left over at the end- it can be frozen for the next time).
- Prepare pastry: Mix the dough ingredients together with a pastry blender. Roll out onto parchment paper or a lightly floured board to about 1/4" thick rectangle.
- Using a sharp knife (or a pie crust wheel), cut the dough into 3" X 3" squares.
- With a sharp knife, cut the dough diagonally from each corner to within 1/2-inch of center of each square.
- Put about 1 teaspoons of the filling in the center of each square.
- Fold every other corner of the square to the center to form a pinwheel shape, overlapping the dough at the center and pushing down gently to seal in center.
- Transfer cookies to a lightly greased cookie sheet. (They dont really expand so you dont have to worry about leaving a lot of space in-between.).
- Bake at 350 for 20 minutes on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Do not let get brown or burn.
- Dust with powdered sugar when cooled.
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Reviews
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This dessert was very good as stated. However I had enough filling left over to make another batch. The second time I added 1/4 cup sugar to the dough, and they were spectacular. That little extra sugar really made the cream cheese pop. Thanks for the post. -
my greatgrandma used to make these- they bring back such good memories, thanks for refreshing them! -
My hungarian grandmother and mother have made these every year for as long as I can remember. We call them Kipfle (Kif-lee). We also sprinkle them in powdered sugar when they're cooked. Wonderful, wonderful recipe! -
My neighbor's Hungarian mother and mother-in-law used to make these but they would roll the dough in Confectioner's sugar instead of flour. So good! -
I helped my mother make these cookies 100s of times. This is not a authentic Hungarian recipe. We never used cream cheese we used butter. To make a flaky dough we would roll out the dough, lather it with crisco kneed then fold it over cover and refrigerate till firm and repeat the steps 4-5 times, this makes a delicious flakey pastry. Hungarians did not use cream cheese! They didn't have it. All butter. Try it you will love it.
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Tweaks
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I recommend only using 1/2 the apricot quantity listed and sugar. Otherwise you will have a TON of filling left over.
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
<p> <br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s19.photobucket.com/albums/b161/tisht/?action=view?t=tish1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b161/tisht/tish1.jpg" border="0" alt="Recipezaar Challenge 2008" /></a></p>
