Hungarian poppyseed bread&butter pudding with an orange vanilla custard (Mákos guba)

You see, I made the decision to write my blog in Hungarian (by the way, I’m not aware of any other Hungarian food bloggers, are you?). But to be honest, I just absolutely couldn’t wait to participate in one of the international food blog events, so I decided to do a few entries in English. This allows me to become a guest of the international blogosphere at least from time to time. This is my very first participation in a Sugar High Friday, idea of Jennifer at Domestic Goddes, so I thought I would come up with a nice Hungarian sweet, this is anyway the best part of our cuisine. And when I saw at Elise’s site who is kind to host the event this time, that theme would be custard , after a short consideration I knew what I want to prepare.

This easy dish is a kind of comfort food that families would prepare on weekdays and eat it maybe after a hearty soup. Of course then it’s not served in a fancy way like I did – no individual servings, no sauce, etc. (not speaking of the little siruppy kumquats I put on the top- indeed, not very Hungarian:)) – basicly, the recipe then would be just: pour some sweet hot milk over bread, sprinkle with poppyseed and sugar and eat…well, this time I made it a little more sophisticated and richer through adding this and that. In fact, this pudding is sooo delicious that some people have it as a christmas eve dessert. You know, just before Hungary became a member of the European Union in 2004, some eurosceptic groups would announce in their anti-EU communication campaign that because of EU legislation it will be forbidden to sell and buy poppyseed in Hungary and we will be never ever anymore allowed to eat our favourite yummy dishes with poppyseed, like Makos Guba (yes, this is the name of this dish). Of course it turned out not to be true and a whole nation was relieved. (It is true however that in some countries there are some strict rules on poppyseed production due to its high opium content). In most of the countries it can be hard to get ground poppyseed – you can buy either whole poppyseed in small bags or processed, sweetened and flavoured cake filling poppyseed. If you use the whole ones, you need to grind it in a spice or coffee grinder before using. (So, this is also one of the small secret bags that travel with me regularly on the Budapest-Brussels flight.) But it is worth believe me! I need to prepare this for my friends from abroad really many times. Always a big hit. Ah, one little warning: Don’t forget to brush your teeth immediately after eating it, in order to avoid funny comments about cute little insects, you know what I mean..

Recipe:

Ingredients (4 servings):

80g ground poppyseed
100g icing sugar
600ml milk
2 egg yolks
4 tbsp caster sugar
one piece of an orange peel
seeds of ½ of a vanilla bean
12 slices of some sweet bread, or rolls (e.g. milk loaf or challach)
50g unsalted butter
2 tbsp honey

For the orange vanilla custard sauce:
200ml milk
200 ml cream
2 eggyolks
seeds of ½ of a vanilla bean
100g caster sugar
one piece of an orange peel
1 tablespooon orange liqueur (I used Cointreau)Preheat oven to 180C.
Mix the ground poppyseeds with the icing sugar and set aside. Combine caster sugar and egg yolks until pale. Heat up the milk with the vanilla seeds and the orange peel and pour over the egg sugar mixture. Put back on heat and cook until thickened just a litte (it should remain liquid) Slice the bread or roll, butter an ovenproof dish (or individual ramekins) and put one layer bread slices into it. Pour over the hot custard, let soak a little and sprinkle with a layer of of the ground poppyseed and icing sugar mixture. drizzle with some honey and put some flakes of butter on it. Repeat the procedure once again or until all bread is used. The last layer on the top should be bread. Put flakes of butter on the top and put the dish in the oven for 25 minutes.
In the meantime prepare the second custard which will become the sauce. This is the standard way of preparing it, nothing new, just heat the milk and cream with the sugar, vanilla seeds and orange peel, pour over the eggyolks and cook until thick. Add the orange liqueur.