Hungarian Shortbread : "TWD : Baking with Julia"

We've been travelling vicariously through our baking ..we've travelled from Eastern Europe to Ireland, then to Italy and the Mediterranean coast and we are, now, back in Eastern Europe, Hungary to be precise. Hungarian shortbread was the recipe of choice for the fortnightly bake-together of the "Baking with Julia" group.

The Hungarian shortbread, or omlos teasutemeny, is essentially two layers of buttery, crumbly dough that sandwiches a layer of jam. While the ingredients are your basic, pantry items that are used for most shortbread recipes, what is unique is the technique that is used to make them. One is required to freeze the dough and then, once frozen, it is grated into the baking pan in two layers. This creates that unique, crumbly looking texture that you see.

The recipe is heavy in butter and apparently, it is that butter that oozes during the baking process and binds the grated dough together. I reckon the various crumble bars that we see and eat today bear their origin or at least, draw inspiration from this recipe.

While working through this recipe what also struck me was how the preferences and tastes of the home baker have changed over the years. The book, 'Baking with Julia', is your typical old-school cookbook where the recipes are traditional with an emphasis on butter, cream, flour and sugar that sometimes, feels that it borders on the excessive for the purpose of home baking. Today, I feel, we are more inclined towards recipes that use healthier ingredients such as yoghurt, oil, oats and wholemeal flour to a certain extent!! You agree or is it just me who prefers it that way??

Coming back to the recipe, I did make a few changes. I made only half the recipe and since we don't get rhubarb in India, I used some store-bought, organic plum conserve. Some on the group did point out that the dough was a bit too sweet for their liking, so, I reduced the sugar by a quarter. I did also bake the bottom layer for ten minutes before I spread the jam layer and grated the second layer on.

There were absolutely no issues with the recipe. It came together beautifully. Once cooled and cut, these bars were crumbly and buttery and that layer of plum conserve had just the right amount of tartness to counter the sweet dough.

While the recipe does call for a fair amount of butter and you can even smell it during baking, it is that what gives these bars a beautiful, crumbly texture. While I would have preferred the recipe to have less butter, the unanimous verdict on the bars was that they were excellent. These are your no-holds barred, rich, buttery, delicious crumble bars.

Due to copyright considerations, only the person hosting the recipe for the group 'TWD:Baking with Julia' can post the recipe on their blog. The recipe for the Hungarian Shortbread will be available on the blogs of Lynette and Cher. Alternately, you can write to me at bakerindisguise@gmail.com and I will mail you the recipe.