Baking with St. Elizabeth of Hungary

Today we celebrated the life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. Her life story has always inspired me.

St. Elizabeth of Hungary is the patron of bakers – how neat is that! So I thought it would be fun to make some Hungarian rolls called beigli. These rolls are commonly filled with walnuts or poppy seeds. I’ve never made beigli before or even tasted them. There are so many different recipes out there so I used a combination of them to make my rolls.

1 cup milk

2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast

4 cups flour

1/3 cup icing sugar

1 cup butter (or margarine)

3 egg yolks

3 Tbps. sour cream

1 tsp vanilla

Warm milk to 43 degree Celsius (110 F) and stir in yeast.

Mix together flour, icing sugar and salt. Cut butter into flour mixture.

Mix milk mixture, flour mixture, egg yolks, sour cream and vanilla in a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment. Mix until the dough is soft and elastic about 5-7 minutes.

Place dough into a greased bowl and let rise until doubled in size, about 1.5 hour. Divide dough into two.

Roll out dough into two 12 by 16 inch rectangle and spread with walnut or poppy seed filling. Roll up lengthwise and fold under ends. Bake at 350F for 40-45 minutes.

3 cups walnuts

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup raisins

1/3 cup milk (approx.)

1 Tbps. butter, melted

Grind walnuts and mix all ingredients together in a bowl.

My poppy seed filling wasn’t great because I didn’t have enough seeds so I won’t post the recipe.

These are tasty rolls! The walnut filled roll was tender and sweet. The poppy roll needed more filling (as you can see by the picture). Have you ever eaten these or made these before? Feel free to share your thoughts.