Poppy Seed Kołaczki

Sometimes, eating the same kinds of food every year for Christmas can get boring, so this year I decided to take last year's Polish experiment one step further and make some (almost) proper kołaczki (pronounced co-watch-key).

Of course, these aren't properly authentic: real ones are made with cream cheese pastry, of which I'm not a fan whatsoever. So, I make them with good auld shortcrust. Although, my shortcrust pastry is more like shortbread, with an addition of some icing sugar.

The poppy seed filling, called masa makowa in Polish, has an unusual flavour: it's somewhat peppery and aromatic. The filling is basically poppy seeds, milk, sugar or honey, dried fruits, and chopped nuts. It's not spicy in the sense that mincemeat is, that is with cinnamon and cloves and such, but it's definitely full of character.

FREE FROM

☑ Soya
☑ Yeast
☑ Eggs

CONTAINS
☒ Nuts
☒ Gluten
☒ Dairy (see ingredients for a dairy substitute)
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS:
Makes about 30 kołaczki

For the pastry,

• 12 ounces (340 grammes) white spelt flour
• 6 ounces (170 grammes) butter, cut into cubes, or margarine
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) icing sugar,
• Cold water, to bind
• Optional: zest of half a lemon

For the poppy seed filling,

• 3 ounces (85 grammes) poppy seeds
• 5 fluid ounces (150 millilitres) milk
• 1½ ounces (45 grammes) caster sugar, or honey for a more authentic flavour
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) raisins, cut roughly
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) nuts of your choice, chopped into small pieces
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence
• Zest of half an orange

HOW-TO:
The night before, make the filling:

• Put the poppy seeds into a food processor, a blender, or into a pestle and mortar in small batches, and grind them until powdery. Chop the dried fruit and nuts up into small pieces.
• Mix the ground seeds, nuts, dried fruit, and all the other ingredients in a bowl. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and refrigerate overnight to allow the seeds and fruit to absorb the liquid.

First, make the pastry:

• In a large mixing bowl, mix the icing sugar and flour together. Add the butter, and rub the butter and flour between your fingertips until it becomes a fine, crumbly mixture.
• Using the tip of a knife, mix in cold water a teaspoon at a time until it become a soft dough.
• Lightly sprinkle the work surface with more flour, and tip the mix out onto the surface. Gently squash the mixture together until it comes together as a dough ball. 
• Wrap up in clingfilm, flatten into a disc, then put into the fridge. Chill for about an hour.
• Once chilled,  preheat the oven to 170ºC (325ºF/Gas Mk. 3).
• Sprinkle some flour on the work surface and roll the dough out to a quarter inch (3 millimetre) thickness.
• Using a fluted pastry wheel, a pizza wheel, or a knife, cut the pastry into two inch (5 centimetre) strips down and across, to make squares.
• Put three-quarters of a teaspoon of filling in the middle of each square, wet the edges, then squash opposite corners together to make a little parcel.
• Place the parcels about half an inch (1 centimetre) apart on an un-greased baking sheet. Bake in the centre of the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the filling has dried and the edges of the pastry have turned golden brown.
• Allow to cool and harden slightly on the tray before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

To serve, pile them up on a plate and dust with some icing sugar. Whenever I dust mince pies, I usually mix in a hint of ground cinnamon; you could do that if you like with any ground sweet spice you like.

Variation on a Theme: Lemon and Poppy Seed Drizzle Cake (Wheat and Dairy Free)

This variation is a twist on a classic tea bread loaf: lemon and poppy seed drizzle cake!

A few months ago, I tried out making some yeast and wheat free bagels, and as such bought some poppy seeds. Since then, they have just been sitting in my press, feeling lonely. However, I was flicking through a cookery book at home the other day and was inspired by a recipe for lemon and poppy seed muffins. I thought it'd make a nice tea loaf.

I brought this to church for the after service tea last Sunday, and it was quite popular with the grown ups (the children stuck to the chocolate cake).

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat
☑ Eggs
☑ Dairy

CONTAINS
☒ Gluten
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS:

• 3 ounces (85 grammes) white spelt flour
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) cornflour
• Pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) baking powder
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) caster sugar
• 2 tablespoons (30 millilitres) poppy seeds
• 2 medium eggs
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) sunflower oil
• 2 fluid ounces (60 millilitres) water
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence
• 1 medium lemon
• Caster sugar, for drizzle

METHOD

• Preheat your oven to 180°C (350°F, Gas Mk.4, or moderate). Grease a loaf tin and set aside.
• Make the batter according to my low effort sponge recipe, adding the zest of the lemon and the poppy seeds to the wet ingredients.
• Pour the batter into the tin, and bake in the centre rack of the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown. You will know it's done when it's springy to the touch, and a cocktail stick of knife poked into the middle comes out clean. Once cooked, take from the oven and place the tin on a wire rack.
• To make the drizzle, juice the lemon into a jug and match the amount with some caster sugar, that is, if you have 1 or 2 fluid ounces (30 to 60 millilitres) of juice, add the same amount of sugar. Heat in the microwave at 30 second intervals until the sugar has melted completely. If you don't have a microwave, you can do this in a saucepan over low heat.
• Poke holes in the cake while it is still warm, and spoon over the drizzle, making sure to wet every inch of the cake's surface with drizzle.Allow to cake to cool completely in the tin.

Tea breads and loaves are very typically served at Protestant church functions, and are a real favourite. This one is a nice and simple one to whip up at short notice.

THIS TIME IN 2014: No blog due to family difficulties
THIS TIME IN 2013: Mint Toffee Slice

Experiment: Spelt Bagels (Wheat-, Dairy-, Egg-, and Yeast Free)

So, recently I've been feeling a little experimental. I've been doing a bit of my traditional usual stuff recently, so I thought I'd shake things up a bit; I thought I'd try my hand at making some spelt bagels!

Bagels are a simple bread dough product - so the dough is the same dough as a bread loaf, for example - but the cooking process is a little different. Bagels are formed into doughnut shapes and then parboiled before being baked in the oven until crisp on the outside. The parboiling gives them their signature dense and chewy texture, and the baking gives them a nice crust.

But here I where I make a little confession: I absolutely and utterly despise working with yeast. Oh Lord, I hate it. It's just so darned fickle: the room is too hot, then it's too cold; the yeast touched off the salt and died; the activation water for the yeast was too hot and it died; the activation water for the yeast was too cold and it didn't wake up. Too many variables! So, whenever possible, I try and adapt bread recipes for use with baking powder, and this was one such attempt.

I used my go-to bread dough recipe with baking powder, that I use for my pizza base, but I doubled the olive oil to 2 tablespoons, which was partially because I forgot my own recipe, but it worked out for the better. I allowed them to sit at room temperature for a few minutes to rest, and I prepared some boiling salted water, and preheated my oven to 200°C (400°F, Gas Mk.6, or hot). In my oven is a big tray shelf, which I preheated in the oven too, sort of like a pizza stone, and dusted with flour.

Once the dough had rested, I divided it into four and rolled each piece into a ball. I then poked my thumb through the middle and stretched it out to made the classic bagel shape. I should have made the centres a little larger, and in retrospect I could have easily divided the dough into six instead of four.

I placed the bagels two at a time in the boiling water. To boil them, I actually used a wok half filled with water, which gave them more room to float about. Because the dough was leavened with baking powder, the bagels were dense in their raw form, meaning that they sunk to the bottom of the wok, so I had to poke them about a bit to get them to float. I boiled them for about a minute on each side, before taking out with a fish slice.

On my work surface I had a plate of poppy seeds. Poppy seeds are very cheaply available in Polish food shops, and I got a big ol' bag for about 1.75 euro. While the bagel was still sticky from the water, I sprinkled some poppy seeds on top, then popped them directly onto the preheated tray in the oven. I baked them for about 10 to 15 minutes (in batches) and then let them cool. They were a little pale, but I think I had the tray too far down the oven.

I fed one to my mother, and one to my brother. My mother said they were one of the nicest wheat-free bread products she'd had in ages, and my brother just ate the whole thing without complaint. I think that means they were successful. There's a few kinks to be ironed out before I can safely publish a full recipe on it, but so far so good!

As you can see from the photos, they look the part. The interior is dense, and the crust chewy, and they taste just like a delicious bread roll. These were lovely smothered in butter, but I only had a nibble off my brother's one (I'm watching my waist at the moment, only another 4 pounds to my ideal weight).