Huzarski krapi
(My auntie Irma best celebratory biscuits)
My auntie Irma truly made the best biscuits ever, and this recipe is really special to me, as I have very fond memories of her. She had no children of her own and she simply adored me and my brother.
She would bake this biscuits in huge quantities and deliver them, especially for birthdays or other special occasions that were celebrated in the family and were very popular around festivities like Christmas and Easter. She is no longer around but through this recipe her legacy lives on in our family.
These biscuits are so pretty to look at and absolutely delicious, they just melt in your mouth and the walnut coating around them give you that luxurious crunch.
You can play around a bit with this recipe to suit your taste and make them a bit different every single time you bake them. You can change the type of fruit jam to fill the biscuits with, and for the coating, you can replace walnuts for hazelnuts, almonds or any other type of nuts on their own or any combination you like.
When beautifully arranged and wrapped, these biscuits make a wonderful present for special celebrations or simple and thoughtful pick me up little gift. They will put a smile back on anyone's face. I made them for my husband's birthday, needles to say, it did bring a big smile on his face and he was very happy indeed!
This recipe will make about 12 bigger biscuits.
Ingredients
140g butter (melted)
2 eggs (separated in egg yolks and whites both lightly beaten)
200g all purpose flour
70g caster sugar
150g walnuts (chopped or roughly ground) you can use hazelnuts or almonds (or mix any combination you like)
finely grated lemon zest of ½ lemon (preferably unwaxed)
smooth apricot jam (or other flavour of your preference)
Method
Preheat the oven to 180C static and lay the baking tin with baking parchment.
In a large mixing bowl put the flour, sugar, egg yolks, butter and lemon zest. With the spatula or wooden spoon mix well to combine all the ingredients. Then use your hands to gather all the ingredients to get a dough. Shape it into a ball, wrap it in cling film and put in a fridge to chill for about 30min.
After the dough has chilled, start making the biscuits by pinching a bit of a dough (the size of golf ball roughly) and shape it into a small ball. Repeat the process until you use all the dough.
Take a smaller bowl with slightly beaten egg whites and a deeper dish where you put your chopped or roughly ground walnuts.
Dip one dough ball first into egg whites and then into the ground walnuts. Roll it round making sure the whole ball is coated. Repeat the process until all the dough balls are being coated.
Place the coated biscuits into a baking tray and press them down slightly with your hands to get a more disc shape but do not flatten them too much.
With the back of the handle of the wooden spoon make a hole in each biscuit almost reaching the bottom. Make the holes slightly bigger with gentle circular movement.
Put in the oven and bake for about 10 min or until golden in colour.
Take them out of the oven and let them cool a bit in their tray. When hot, this biscuits are very fragile and will break easily.
When still warm take a tea spoon and fill the holes in the biscuits with apricot jam.
Cool the biscuits completely before removing them from the tray.
