Christmas is only few days away but it is not too late to try to prepare some of our traditional desserts. I am not going to say that baking is easy, but definitely worth the work. My most important advice is - make one dessert a day, especially that some pastries need to rest to soften. This way you do not feel overwhelmed and rushed. Baking is always a little trickier than cooking regular meals, especially if you have special dietary needs and would like to substitute ingredients. This year I have used only dairy free products as my partner-in-crime-daughter is dairy intolerant. Whatever you decide to use instead of the traditional ingredients, make sure that your consistency is right, which means you might have to add more liquids or solids to reach the right texture of the dough. Also, when you bake, you need to measure your ingredients and I do prefer using a scale to be more accurate. I will include conversions, but if you have a kitchen scale, use that instead. Anyhow, enough talking, let’s get our hands dirty and make some scrumptious dessert!

Zserbo or Gerbeaud - a traditional Hungarian cake layered with apricot jam and walnuts, covered with chocolate - is simply amazing. The cake was originally invented by the Swiss chocolatier Emil Gerbeaud in 1884. I can tell you that most Hungarian grandmas have a “secret” recipe for this delicious dessert, here is my mom’s exact one I have been using for over 20-some years.

Ingredients: usually prepare this the day before Christmas

• 50 dkg flour - 4 cups

• 25 dkg butter - 17.64 tbsp (regular or dairy free)

• 6 dkg - 0.3 cups sugar

• 1 package of dry yeast

• 3 tbsp of sour cream (regular or dairy free), room temperature

• 2 egg yolks

• pinch of salt

For the fillings:

• 25 dkg - 3 & 1/2 cups of walnut finely chopped, smooth

• 15 dkg - 3/4 of a cup sugar

• 1 packet of vanilla sugar

• apricot jam, about a jar or two depending on size

For the top:

• 1 bag of high quality chocolate chips (regular or dairy free)

• 2 tbsp of whipping cream (regular or dairy free)

Preheat oven to 180C/360F. In a large bowl, mix flour and butter with a pastry cutter. Add sugar, salt, yeast mixed in with sour cream, (do this in a small separate bowl before adding it to the flour mixture), and two egg yolks. Mix well until smooth but still a bit sticky. You can do this with your hands or you can use a stand mixer with a dough hook. Let the dough rest for at least a half an hour. Meanwhile mix together the sugar, vanilla sugar and finely chopped walnuts. I usually just put the walnuts and sugar into my food processor together. Divide walnut mixture into 3 equal parts. Cut dough into 4 equal parts. Line a 9x13 baking pan with parchment paper. Roll out first ball into size of your baking pan and place it into pan using your rolling pin to pick up pastry. Spread a generous amount of apricot jam on top of dough, then sprinkle it with 1/3 of walnut sugar mixture, spreading it out evenly. Repeat steps two more times, then finally cover it with 4th dough rolled out. Bake it for 35-45 minutes depending on your oven, but make sure top is nicely browned but not burnt. Take it out of oven and melt chocolate chips with whipping cream over medium heat stirring until chocolate is melted and smooth.

Pour chocolate mixture over cake, smooth it out with a flat spatula or knife. Let it completely cool. Cover it and refrigerate. Before cutting the cake, take it out of the refrigerator and let it sit for a while so chocolate becomes room temperature for easier cutting. You can always dip your knife into hot water before cutting into the chocolate to prevent it from breaking. Cut into squares or diamond shapes. Immediately taste it! Yummmm!!!!

Creamy Honey Cake - Honestly, I have seen so many different names for this dessert, not even sure how to translate it exactly. In my family we simply call it “home made cake”. Simple, right? You will be surprised of its basic ingredients, yet it looks and tastes divine. Some of my friends who tried all of my Christmas desserts picked this one as their favorite. I will let you be the judge and decide!

Ingredients: prepare 2 days ahead of serving

• 50 dkg - 4 cups of flour

• 2 eggs

• 10 dkg - 0.44 cups of butter (regular or dairy free)

• 2 tsps of baking soda

• 15 dkg - 1 & 1/5 of a cup of powdered sugar

• 4 tbsps of sour cream - room temperature (regular or dairy free)

• 3 tbsps of honey

For filling:

• 8 dl - 3.2 cups of milk (regular or dairy free)

• 8 tbsp of cream of wheat

• 1 package of vanilla sugar

• 20 dkg - 0.88 cups of butter

• 30 dkg - 2.40 cups of powdered sugar

• 1-2 jars of apricot jam

I usually prepare the cream first as it has to completely cool before you can use it to fill the cake. So, in a large saucepan over medium-high heat, mix milk, cream of wheat, and vanilla sugar and while constantly stirring, bring it to a gentle boil, turn the heat down to low and keep stirring it, keeping it smooth and preventing it from burning at the bottom. Cook until it reaches a thick consistency. Pull it off the stove and let it cool completely. With an electric mixer, mix sugar and butter together until fluffy and smooth. Add it slowly to cooled cream of wheat mixture and mix well with electric mixer. Place it into refrigerator to cool completely again.

Preheat oven to 175 C/350F. In a small pan over medium heat, warm sour cream, honey, sugar, and butter, just until it is all melted together, do not boil mixture. Add eggs, mix it well. In a large mixing bowl add flour and baking soda, and add the warmed liquid ingredients. Mix it well with your hands until you have a nice, smooth dough. Divide it into 4 equal parts. Now comes the fun part - you need to bake each layer on the outside bottom of a 9x13 baking dish. Because it is harder to roll it out on the baking pan, I cut 4 parchment papers out to match the size of my baking pan and roll it out on the parchment paper, then transfer paper with dough onto the top of the upside-down baking dish. This way it will be easier to remove it as well. Bake each layer in oven for about 10-15 minutes, or until pastry reaches light brown in color. Keep an eye on it as they bake very fast and it is easy to burn it. Remove from oven and while still warm, remove parchment paper but be very careful as this pastry can break very easily. Bake all four layers and let them cool completely. Pastry will be hard, be careful when lifting it up so you do not break it accidentally. Place first layer of pastry on a serving dish or baking pan, spread apricot jam generously on pastry. Top it with another layer of pastry. Now spread half of the cream mixture evenly, then cover it with the next layer of pastry. This one you cover with apricot jam again. Place the last layer on top and cover it with remaining cream filling. Refrigerate. You should bake this cake about a couple of days before you plan on serving it as the pastry is first hard but will nicely soften with the fillings in a day or two. When you first bite into it, oh my gosh, your mouth will have a literal orgasm! You are welcome!

Beigli aka Walnut Roll - I think many European countries have something very similar to this dessert of ours. It is a great dessert after meals, or a fantastic pastry to eat alongside your morning coffee. Croissants, step aside!

Ingredients: can be prepared several days ahead or even weeks ahead and can be frozen

• 55 dkg - 4.4 cups of flour

• 20 dkg - 0.88 cups of butter (regular or dairy free)

• 5 dkg - 0.4 cups of powdered sugar

• 1 egg

• 1 dl - 0.4 cups of sour cream (regular or dairy free)

• 1 packet of instant yeast

• pinch of salt

• milk (regular or dairy free)

  For filling:

• 50 dkg- 7 cups of walnut finely chopped

• 3.5 dl - 1.4 cups of milk (regular or dairy free)

• 30 dkg - 2.4 cups of powdered sugar

• 1 packet of vanilla sugar

• half of cup of raisins

Again, I usually start with preparing the filling as it has to completely cool before you can work with it. So, in a saucepan over medium to high heat, warm milk, sugar, vanilla sugar, and raisins. When sugar is melted, add walnuts and bring it to a gentle boil. Turn heat down and cook until you achieve a thick consistency. Take it off the stove and let it cool completely.

Now to the pastry, add flour, sugar, and butter into a large mixing bowl, and mix well with pastry cutter. Mix together sour cream and yeast in a small cup, then add it to the flour mixture, add egg as well and mix it until you get a smooth dough. If pastry is too dry, you can add a little milk. Divide dough into 3 equal parts, cover it and let it rest in a warm place for about a half an hour.

Roll each dough out into a baking sheet size rectangle, spread it with 1/3 of the cooled walnut mixture. I suggest you measure both pastry and filling with scale to get exactly the same size of rolls. Roll dough up carefully and place it into baking dish lined with parchment paper. It is a good idea to also place a strip of parchment paper between each roll. When all 3 rolls are in the pan, separate an egg from yolk and white, and with a fork mix egg yolk. Use a pastry brush, brush beaten egg yolk on top of pastry evenly. Put pan into refrigerator for a half an hour. Beat egg white with a fork for about a couple of minutes, then brush pastry with egg whites. Put pastry back into your refrigerator for another hour or two before baking. Before placing it into the oven, prick pastry few times with toothpick to let the steam out while baking. Preheat oven to 180C/365F and bake rolls for about 35-45 minutes or until golden brown. Remove it from the oven and let it cool completely. OK, I will confess, I usually cut off the end while it is still warm and try a bite! When completely cooled down, wrap each roll into plastic foil and cover tightly. Rolls can be kept in plastic cover for several days, even a couple of weeks, or can be frozen. If you have it as a little breakfast pastry, pop it into your microwave or toaster oven for few seconds to warm it up to accompany your coffee or tea.

We hope you enjoyed our traditional Christmas dessert recipes. If you have any questions, comments, or would like to chat with us, email us here or at doubletake.lifestyle@yahoo.com.

Have a beautiful and happy Holiday!