Crackling biscuits filled with plum jam

Author: Karin Bartová – thyssenkrupp Materials Slovakia

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 kg semi-coarse flour

  • 1 tablespoon of lard

  • 2 eggs

  • 1 cube of yeast

  • 500g ground cracklings (they can be bought already ground at a butcher)

  • salt, black pepper

  • milk for preparing sourdough

  • egg yolk for spreading

  • plum jam

STORY

I have the recipe for crackling biscuits from my beloved grandmother Terka, who learned it from her mother. These biscuits in our family were basically prepared only after the slaughter, after the crackers had been melted. This recipe also testifies to how our ancestors knew how to use everything. After baking the cracklings, the so-called „bottom“ from cracklings – leftovers that would otherwise not be eaten and would be thrown away.

However, our clever great-grandmothers and grandmothers ground them and processed into the mentioned cracklings biscuits. My grandmother still prepares them from this „bottom“ of cracklings. Every time grandma bakes them, the whole family gathers at her home and enjoys their crispy top with smooth and soft inside. They are best when warm, yum. I also learned to prepare this recipe, but I embellished them a little. The crackling biscuits filled with plum jam! Devotees of traditional crackling biscuits were initially shunned by this novelty, but after tasting it, they couldn´t stop eating it.

DIRECTIONS

1. First, put 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar in a little lukewarm milk and crumble in the yeast. Put the milk with the yeast aside and wait until the yeast is ready.
2. While we are waiting for the yeast, add salt and black pepper to taste the ground cracklings, Don´t be afraid of salt, the biscuits are tasty then, if they are salty. Stir the mixture properly with a wooden spoon.
3. If we already have the yeast ready, we will prepare the dough. Pour out the flour into the bowl, add 2 eggs, 1 tablespoon of lard, the yeast and salt. Make a non-sticky dough.
4. Knead the dough a little more with your hands and then roll it out as much as you can. Divide the crackling mixture into three parts and spread the rolled dough with the first part.   
5. At the bottom, grab the edge of the dough and fold it to the centre. 
6. Then grab the upper edge of the dough and fold it to the center in the same way. Repeat this folding with the right and left edges of the dough. It is about creating layers after baking, like for example with puffy pastry. 
7. Leave the folded dough to rest for 30 minutes. Repeat this process two more times until we run out of the crackling mixture. At the end, we will have a nice fluffy dough, which we can divide into two parts to make it easier to work with.
8. We roll out the dough again, divide it into squares, which we fill with plum jam.
9. We fold the dough into triangles and press the edges with a fork so that the plum jam does not leak out during baking. 
10. Place the stuffed triangles on a baking sheet lined with baking paper and brush with egg yolk.
11. Place the stuffed triangles on a baking sheet lined with baking paper and brush with egg yolk. Placet the biscuits in an oven heated to 200°C and baked until the top is nicely browned. The lenght of baking is individual for each oven.
12. In case you do not dare to fulfill the whole dose of dough with plum jam, simply roll out the dough to the thickness of the width of your thumb and cut out the biscuits. The dough should be thicker than thin. Before you start cutting the dough, make decorative lines with a knife.  Simply put the knife more into the dough and draw diagonal lines.
13. Place the biscuits on a baking sheet lined with paper, brush with egg yolk and bake in the same way as the ones filled with plum jam. I wish you a good appetite!