A Family Tradition-Making Hungarian Pastries

At Christmas this year, my mother-in-law taught me how to make kiffles(pronounced kee-flee), a Hungarian pastry. This is a family tradition for them as my husband's family is Hungarian.(If you know our last name, you probably wondered where it came from-now you know!)

A kiffle is made of a rich dough that is rolled out and then filled with a walnut filling. Also used is a prune filling called lekvar. Apricot filling can also be used. After baking and cooling, these are sprinkled with powdered sugar.


Although, it is not that difficult to make kiffles, they are quite time-consuming. It is a 2-day process, consisting of making the dough, rolling it into little balls and refrigerating it overnight the first day. The second day is when you make the filling, roll the balls of dough into circles, fill and bake them. My mother-in-law made dozens and dozens of these for our dessert reception at our wedding a little over 2 years ago. I now have a greater appreciation for her hard work!:-)
None of these pictures show the kiffles sprinkled with powdered sugar, so just imagine them covered with white for the finished product.:-)

These are so yummy! They are my husband's favorite and I like them pretty well, too!

This link provides more information on kiffles. I was surprised, however,when googling this, to find that all the recipes are a little different and the pictures of the pastries in the link look nothing like our kiffles! There are a lot of variations to this pastry.

I was tickled to learn how to make these and excited to be able to add this tradition to my own family in the years to come!