Cat’s eye – Macskaszem

by | Oct 9, 2015 | Desserts

The origin of cat’s eye or macskaszem is lost in the mists of time, but it’s sure that it belongs to the old fashioned Hungarian granny desserts. It’s likely that this pastry was named after its shape and sour cherry filling.  It’s made of a shortcrust pastry, which contains yeast, too, spread with apricot jam and filled with pitted sour cherries and walnut meringue. Many recipes mention breadcrumbs to make a “bed” for the sour cherries, but I rather use ground poppy seeds instead. Cat’s eye can be baked all year round, not only in the sour cherry season; in this case canned sour cherries are as good as the fresh ones.

Cat's eye
Cat’s eye – Macskaszem – photo: zserbo.com

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apricot jam macskaszem meringue poppy seeds sour cherry walnut

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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.

How to make túró at home

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.