In Hungary peach biscuits played a part at weddings for decades in the 20th century, when the wedding desserts were made by family members and friends at home. Their preparation is quite time consuming, these days you rarely find them on the wedding table, mainly at rural weddings.
I put off making these biscuits long because I thought they might be fussy to decorate and my poor handiness wouldn’t be enough to complete the challenge. As it turned out, I was equal to the task, though the preparation made me sweat and my peach biscuits were far from perfect, but not as bad as they could have been.
The only problem I faced at the end of the process was that the recipe I chose produced so hard biscuits that I almost lost a tooth. There wasn’t nothing to do but bake them again. Next time I modified the recipe by adding more sour cream to the dough, so the peaches became not only spectacular, but soft and enjoyable as well.
Ingredients:
For the dough:
- 400 g (~3 1/4 cups) flour
- 100 g (~3 1/2 oz) lard
- 200 g (~7 oz) sour cream
- 6 g (~1 2/3 tsp) baking powder
- 100 g (~1/2 cup) sugar
- pinch of salt
- 1 egg yolk
For the filling:
- 50 g (~1/2 cup) ground walnuts
- 50 g (~1/4 cup) butter, melted
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
- 2 tbsp apricot jam
- 1 tbsp rum
- 2 tbsp milk
For the decoration:
- green and orange/red food colorings
- granulated sugar
First make the dough. Place all the ingredients in a bowl and knead until smooth. Wrap the dough in cling film and put in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 180°C / 356°F and line 1-2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
Tear pieces from the dough and form balls a bit smaller than a walnut. Place them onto the prepared baking sheet leaving some space between them.
Bake them for approximately 10-12 minutes until the bottom of the biscuits turns light brown, but their top is still pale yellow – don’t burn them.
After removing them from the oven carve a hollow in each biscuit with a teaspoon while they are hot. Carefully scrape out the scrap from the bottom of the biscuits beacuse the shells may break or collapse easily. Let the shells cool completely.
The main ingredient of the filling is the crumbs you have removed from the biscuits. Place it in a bowl, add ground walnuts, melted butter, sugar, cocoa, apricot jam, rum and milk, and knead together. Fill the biscuit shells with this mixture and sandwich two halves together.
The last step is to decorate the biscuits to make them look like real peaches. You can use artificial or natural food dyes according to your preferences, I painted my biscuits with beetroot juice and green coloured almond essence. Feel free to dip or paint them with a paintbrush. Once a biscuit is done, roll it in granulated sugar immediately.
