Sochinskaya Baklava

Dear Friends,

Today I present you the queen of baklava (at least for me :))

"Sochinskaya Baklava" (i.e. baklava in a Sochi style) - a wonderful sweet cake which, I am sure, will impress your guests and beloved ones.

There is a small confectionery shop in the center of Baku called "Raffaelo" where they sell delicious sweets and bakeries. The owner of the shop makes it all by herself. I tried this baklava there for the first time and was amazed by the taste. It had ingredients I love - raisins and nuts.

So, here we go:

For the dough:
3 cups of flour
250 grams of butter
3 egg yolks
200 milligrams of sour cream
0.5 teaspoon of baking soda
a pinch of salt

For the filling:
4 egg whites
2 cups of walnuts
2 cups of raisins
1.5 cups of sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of cardamon
milled clove on the tip of the knife
1 tablespoon of cognac
1 vanilla
1 tablespoon of honey for spreading

Dough

Sift the flour in a bowl, add cold cut butter cubicles and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Make crumbs. You can make them with the help of a knife or a blender if you have a proper pot and a special knife - this will make your work easy and quick. Add 3 egg yolks on the floury buttery crumbs. Stir the sour cream with baking soda and salt and add on the dough. Knead the soft dough, it should be slightly sticky. All looks wet. Split the dough in 3 balls, wrap each one in a food foil and leave them in the fridge until you complete making the filling.

Filling: 

If you think that your raisins aren't clean enough, you can rinse them in water and dry them gently. My own ones were very clean, so I omit this process. Gently bit up 4 egg whites with sugar. Use a fork. Roast the walnuts in the oven for 10 minutes. Do not leave them roast for too long as they may bitter the taste of the filling. Now, crush them. Pour them on to the egg white-sugar mixture, add cinnamon, vanilla, cardamom, cloves and cognac.

Roll out one ball to a thin sheet to match the size of the tray which you will use to bake your baklava (my tray was 37cm x 39cm). With the help of a rolling pin move the sheet on the tray which you have preliminary covered with a baking paper. Spread half of the filling on the layer sheet. Put the second sheet on the top exactly the same way as you did with the first one. Spread the remaining half of the filling and put the third sheet on the top. With a sharp knife carefully chop raw baklava into squares or diamond shapes as desired. Brush the top sheep with beaten egg yolk and 1 teaspoon of honey. Put the tray in cold oven and bake at 200 degrees Centigrade for 5-10 minutes. Then reduce the temperature to 160-180 degrees and continue baking for another 20-25 minutes. Then take the baklava out, gently brush the top with honey and return back to the oven for another 5 minutes.

Take the ready baklava out and let it cool.

I recommend baking baklava in the evening to have it cool in the morning with a cup of coffee or tea for breakfast.

Bon Appétit!

Kulcha

Welcome!

I thought for long which publication to begin with. First I thought to start it with the biggest love of my life - Bulgaria. Then I decided to begin with something that I enojoy doing the most. Then a bunch of other different thoughts popped up and, eventually, everything got messed.

On March the 21st here in Azerbaijan, where I live right now, they celebrate Novruz - the holiday which marks the arrival of spring. We had 10 days off and we decided to go to the province. My husband has many relatives there - ordinary but very heartful and hospitable people. Every day we were visiting one of them. The interesting thing about visiting relatives in this part of the world is that you can't refuse their offer to visit them as you're afraid to upset them. My husband's beloved ones are his two sweet aunts - Almaz and Beyim. I'll tell you about the second one which impressed me the most. She remembered me my grandma, rest her in peace.

This is her - aunt Beyim.

She lives in a small town of Azerbaijan, more a province, called Goychay. The town situates about 250km to the northwest of Baku (the capital city) and is famous for its most delicious pomegranate in the world. She has nursed four children - two sons and two daughters. She has beautiful blue eyes and unusually beautiful hands decorated by a very primitive wedding ring put on by her husband many many years ago. Please don't think that she appears this way all the time. She covered her head with a shawl because she was feeling cold. But this way she looks even more beautiful.

My husband used to spend summer holidays at her place when he was a little boy and she took care of him like any beloved aunt can do it to his beloved nephew. Those were the most unforgettable days of his childhood.

When we lived in Prague (yes, we had this experience in our lives as well), my husband kept on telling me about the most delicious sweet-bread once cooked by aunt Beyim. He said he loved having it with a cup of sweetened tea for breakfast. Now she is 75 years old and she's lost the power to knead dough.

It's all about "Kulcha" (in Azerbaijani: "Külçə"/English transcription: [kul`tʃa], stress on the second syllable) the recipe of which is over 200 years old. I found out that nobody in my husband's family can prepare Kulcha except for aunt Beyim. Thus the recipe was officially passed to me for future generations and, for sure, I took it with honour. I baked my first one immediately after we had returned back from Goychay and my husband happily played the role of a taster. He said I took him back to the childhood. I took it as a compliment. 

My Kulcha was baked exclusively of home-made natural products which we brought from the province. You serve it with a cup of sweetened regular black tea.

Ingredients:

*1 tea-cup = 250ml

Flour	500gr.
Eggs	2pcs.
Sugar	1/2 tea-cup
Warm milk	2/3 of tea-cup
Dry yeast (powder)	1 teaspoon
Turmeric	1/2 teaspoon
Fennel seed	1 teaspoon
Sunflower oil

Preparation:

Sift the flour into a bowl (or basin). Add all dry ingredients on it (sugar, dry yeast powder and turmeric) and mix with a spoon. Put the fennel seeds in a frying pan and heat them slightly on a hot stove for about 5 minutes mixing uninterruptedly in order to avoid burning. Then slightly crush the seeds in a mortar and add them on the flour. Fennel gives the bread an exclusive flavor.  

This is the moment to show you the photograph of this ingredient. I found out that fennel seeds are available in pharmacy shops in Bulgaria in a form of tea J

Split the white and the yellow of the eggs. Slightly beat up the white with a fork. Make a hollow on the flour and pour the white in it. Mix with a fork and make sure to add the warm milk. Mix the soft dough – it must not stick on to your hands and fingers. Periodically wet your hands in the sunflower oil during mixing. Leave the dough for 1.5 hour until it double grows in volume.

After the dough has grown in volume, easily flatten it again to make a round bread and place it in a round shape the inner walls of which you have preliminary treated with sunflower oil. I used a shape with diameter of 26cm. I put a special baking paper on the bottom of the shape instead of oiling it. Leave it this way to grow in volume for one more hour. Then, with the side of a teaspoon slightly make several decorations in a form of fish scales. Now apply the yellow of the eggs with a brush on the top side. 

Bake the bread for 30-40 minutes at 160-180°C. Constantly keep your eye on the bread while baking to avoid burning. Sweet dough can easily burn. 

 Bon appétit!