Christmas is almost here!

Hi,

Phew, I am so excited to say that my Beigli turned out great! I was baking all day even my hubby helped a bit - he was grinding the poppy seeds for me. I made walnut and poppy-seed beigli. This is always such a dreaded task to do at Christmas. AND how cool that the pastry did not crack either on the top! :)

Beigli, sometimes spelled bejgli is a Hungarian pastry consisting of a roll of sweet yeast bread with a dense, rich, bittersweet filling. The filling is a paste of either walnuts or poppy seeds. It is a popular cuisine in other parts of Central Europe, Eastern Europe and in Israel as well. Beigli is commonly eaten at Christmas and Easter time.

Hungarian Christmas sweets and pastries served at Christmas time are not numerous. In general no other pastries are served, and the traditional candy szaloncukor, large amounts of wrapped decorative fondant candies hung on the Christmas tree as a decoration, also consumed during the Christmas holidays. All Hungarian families serve both the walnut and the poppy seed rolls.

My favourite is the walnut roll - dios bejgli. :)
Here is a picture of my bejgli I made today.

Szaloncukor (literally: "parlour candy") is a type of sweets traditionally associated with Christmas in Hungary. It is usually made of fondant, covered by chocolate and wrapped in shiny coloured foil, then hung on the Christmas tree as decoration.

The tradition of hanging these candies on the Christmas tree started in the 19th century. It was named szaloncukor because the tree usually stood in the parlour (szalon in Hungarian). (Cukor means "sugar" or "candy").

The name comes from the German-Austrian Salonzuckerl, this is why the original name was szalonczukkedli.

Fondant candies originally came in a few flavours (vanilla and strawberry for example), but now there is a wide variety of different kinds of candies, including jelly, coconut, hazelnut and lots of other flavours. It is usually hung on the tree with strings or small metal hooks.