Zsemle

by | Sep 18, 2014 | Breads, buns & biscuits

Beside bakery crescent zsemle or Hungarian bun is the other  fundamental bakery product in Hungary.  However, finding good zsemle in the stores is almost perfectly impossible, as hard as finding good bread. Things are a bit better in bakeries. If you are lucky and the baker is a conscientious representative of his profession, you can discover enjoyable and substantial buns instead of puffed up, chewy and spongy ones. But once you taste a homemade bun, you will realize that this is the best solution, and it’s unnecessary to go on searching.

The critical point that determines the quality of zsemle is the bun’s soft part. First of all it must exist, in many buns instead of dough there is air in the place of the soft part. Then it must not be crumbly and arid, its consistency must be light and firm, but not stiff. Zsemle can be made from all purpose flour or bread flour. If you choose all purpose flour, it should be combined with other kind of flour, or gluten should be added since the gluten content of all purpose flour is low.  You can use leaven if you have time to make it, but plain yeast will also do.

Zsemle can be made into a sandwich for breakfast or mid-afternoon snack. But it also shows up in several Hungarian dishes, many recipes call for zsemle as a basis for various stuffings.

Zsemle
Zsemle – photo: zserbo.com
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5 Comments

Hungarian cottage cheese

This is what Hungarian túró looks like

You often ask me what kind of cottage cheese (or curd cheese or farmer's cheese - call it what you want) I use in the recipes. In Hungary the store-bought cottage cheese is dry and crumbly as you can see in the picture. So if a recipe calls for túró, I mean this type. If you can't obtain túró, you can try to make your own from whole milk. Click on the link below.

Wish list

If you are looking for a Hungarian recipe that hasn't been published on this website yet, let me know, and I'll do my best to post it.

Metric system vs cup

In Hungary metric units are in use, all the recipes on this website are based on this system, so a kitchen scale is necessary. Since I’m not familiar with cup as a measurement unit, I convert grams to cups by using an online converter. The values in brackets, therefore, are only approximate volumes, so, please, double-check them before you start cooking.

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