Chak-chak
A chak-chak is a dessert of various Turkic peoples. It is relatively easy to prepare with a little effort and tastes great with coffee and tea. To illustrate, I have taken pictures of various preparation steps. Here we go:
For the dough:
- 200 g of flour
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 teaspoon vodka
- 1 small pinch of salt
The vodka is important so that the dough later becomes fluffy during baking.
For the sweet crowd:
- 200 g of honey
- 3 teaspoons of sugar
- Roasted and chopped nuts, poppy seeds, etc. at will
Also required:
- Oil for frying
- A dish lined with plastic wrap
preparation
The sugar is stirred with the egg yolk, then add the vodka. The egg whites must be beaten stiff. Put the egg whites under the egg yolk mass. Then add the flour. The dough must give a firm lump - this must no longer stick. The dough now has to rest covered for about half an hour.
Then knead the mixture well again and roll it out very thinly (comparable to a pasta dough ... about 1-2 mm thick it should not be ... anymore). Now cut the rolled out dough into approx. 4 cm wide strips, which are then cut again to approx. 2-3 mm wide pins.
Heat the oil in a pot (fryer will only work if the sieve is relatively fine-meshed, alternatively you can get the pastry out with a foam trowel) and fry the pens golden-yellow in several courses. Always stand by the pot and do not do anything else, as the pastry is cooked within seconds. It is also important to turn the pins in the oil, so that they are golden yellow from all sides. You can still extract this on a kitchen crepe the excess oil.
Now boil the honey together with the sugar and cook until the mass is golden yellow (be careful, because here too, the honey can quickly become too dark). I simmered the honey for about 5 minutes. That should be enough.
Line a dish with cling film. In a second bowl, fill the sticks layer by layer with the honey ... Mix everything well so that the honey encases as possible every pin. This must happen relatively quickly, as the honey becomes very tough when it cools down. After stirring, the mass in the shell, which is lined with cling film, refill and allow to cool.
After cooling, the Chak-Chak can be overthrown. This can now be cut into pieces ... but it breaks relatively easily, so that the pieces are not even ... so you can not expect perfect pieces of cake. Also, it is relatively sticky and should still be eaten by hand, because you only spit more when skewering on the fork. Nonetheless, this is a very tasty pastry and not as elaborate as it reads.
Alternatively, you can also form small balls instead of the pins and then bake them. Also, keep in mind that the balls are not too big, because they still go up while deep-frying.
