Once again just like the Layered Biscuits these are laminated
from two distinctly different dough with the addition of finely ground crackling.
Food bloggers tend to copy without the realization that what
they put out is misinformation. This often is the case when one takes on an
ethnic dish without sufficient knowledge of unfamiliar ingredients or if the source
of a particular food culture comes from an unauthenticated, several times
removed personal experience. There are regional differences certainly, but when
such basic information is routinely copied as “There are two types of Hungarian
biscuits, sweet and salty.” Ahem no! It is true there are two types, but not
according to flavour. One is the “omlós”, a type of buttery biscuit and the other
is the “leveles”, the many layered type. They can be both leavened or unleavened,
sweet or salty. Unleavened layered biscuits are generally the
result of both high fat content and multiple folding. Such are the two types of
Hungarian pogácsa.
LAYERED CRACKLING BISCUITS
Dough 1:
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 egg yolks
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup 14% sour cream
Dough 2:
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup rendered fat or lard
1 cup of crackling or 2 cups of chopped pork fat
1 egg for brushing
1 egg for brushing
- Crackling is sold in Eastern European delis. If you don’t have access to crackling, it is very simple to make it.
- Chop 2 cups of pork fat trimmings into small bits. Place 2 Tbsp of oil in a non stick fry pan and add the pork fat. Fry them on medium low heat until crispy.
- Scoop the crackling out and set them aside to cool.
- Reserve 1/3 cup from the rendered fat.
- Next combine ingredients of the dough 1.
- Kneed to form a dough.
- Lightly sprinkle a sheet of parchment paper with flour.
- Place dough 1 on the parchment and sprinkle the top with a little flour.
- Flatten the dough by hand, or with a floured roller, and roll it into a 1/4 inch thick 14x11 inch sized rectangle. Add a little more flour if needed.
- Set this aside.
- In a food processor finely ground the cracklings. You can do this on a cutting board with a sharp knife but it will not be as fine.
- Next combine ingredients of dough 2. This will be quite sticky.
- Place dough 2 on top of the rectangle.
- Sprinkle a little flour on top of the sticky dough and with your hands gently spread it over the entire rectangle.
- You can use a roller, but first lightly flour the top and cover it with plastic wrap first. Dough 2 is very sticky and will stick to the wrap an/or the roller without a flouring first.
- When the two dough layers are roughly the same size, fold the dough in three.
- Let the dough rest for 15 minutes.
- Do a quarter turn, sprinkle with flour and roll it out again.
- Make sure the short side of the rectangle is always facing you before you fold.
- Repeat the resting, rolling and the folding twice more.
- When nearing the second rest turn the oven to slightly above 400F.
- Line a baking sheet with clean parchment paper.
- After the last rest, roll out the dough to 2 finger thickness.
- Score the top in a crosshatch pattern.
- Brush the top with lightly beaten egg. It is important to brush the top with the egg at this stage. You don’t want the egg yolk running down the sides as this would result in leaning biscuits. The aim is to have them straight and evenly risen.
- Cut out as many rounds as you can and place them on the prepared baking sheet. The size of the cutters is personal preference, you can always experiment. Personally I prefer very small layered biscuits.
- Do not reroll the scraps, lightly guide them into a round grouping and bake them as they are. The resulting pull-apart is every bit as tasty as the biscuits.
- Place them in the preheated oven.
- Bake until the tops are golden brown.
