Lanieeeeeeeeeeee
the voices won and I’m officially planning on figuring out if I can / how I can make makufka sometime this holiday season (probably this upcoming week for thanksgiving (I know it’s a Christmas dish but I’m unable to fancy cook at that time of year) because I’m so curious as to what it’s like, the baking ghosts are back at it again, and because you are the person who introduced me to it, if inadvertently, so I am pulling out my biggest puppy dog eyes and asking:
do you have any tips or tricks? Or a trusted recipe you don’t mind sharing?
It took me a while to even find a recipe (I trust my rudimentary German skills and google translate as far as I can throw them and boy do I have weak arms(the only recipe I could find was in German)) so if you have any tips I would love to hear them :)
If not, no pressure of course, I just thought no harm in asking just in case :)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here's a recipe from a distant cousin o' mine, it can be adjusted but I just wanna provide it for a bit more context to what exactly is going on with it (Plus, tbh, I don't exactly trust the germans the most for makufka, the Czechs yes but not the germans)
And here's a recipe from my aunt Jennie
[Makuvka (Makufka)
1 cup ground poppy seed, 1 1/2 quart whole milk
1 1/2 cup sugar, teaspoon Vanilla
Dry cubed white bread
Mix together poppy seed and sugar, this helps it blend with the milk better. Scald milk (bring to almost a boil where it forms a skin on top), remove heat. Slowly add the poppyseed mix, stirring constantly. Add vanilla. Layer bread and milk mix in a bow, starting with bread and ending with mix.]
Also, make sure to do this the night before you plan to eat it!!! It needs to cool overnight-- if you eat it warm or room temperature, I personally don't think it tastes very good, but my grandpa likes it like that
SO, how I typically make it is I dry out a bunch of bread, its best with home-made bread but I've only ever managed to make it with home made once, usually I go for cut up pieces of walmart sub bread, because there's a lot and its not as horribly priced as it could be
Tips for drying it out:
Check it often,,, it'll be slow but browned bread in it is absolutely horrible
My grandma had me stir the bread as it dried like, once every 15 minutes, I think we had the oven at around 250F?
Typically we should use ground poppyseed, but that isn't very easy to get so usually I use whole poppyseed
And now, you have two choices
You have to boil some milk (or get it just under a boil), and usually I put the poppyseed inside the milk at that point, but my grandma does as this recipe says and pours milk then poppyseed
Whichever you choose, saving the poppyseed for the pouring or putting it in, now you have to put however much sugar you decide to put in into the milk-- and trust me, the more sugar the better, you gotta have a very delicate balance of sugar and poppyseed 'cause poppyseed in that quantity can be very strong
Then, add a bit of vanilla, and stir
After it gets to the desired temperature, take it off the heat and start adding a layer dried cubed bread to the bottom of a big bowl, pour the milk mixture over it, and if you saved the poppyseed, pour some poppyseed over it, then do that over and over and over again until you've run out of bread, milk, and poppyseed
Then, stick it in the fridge overnight and voila! Makufka!!!!!!!!
(Fun fact, traditionally Silesian families would put it in a snowbank overnight to cool it down, but,,, lets not do that)
Below the cut is some pictures from my own makufka making adventures!!!