Easter in Hungary

Easter is celebrated in a similar way as Christmas. Family members and relatives get together, eat lots of meat and sweets and small children get presents, this time from the Easter Bunny.

Easter Dinner

horseradish

The traditional Easter Dinner in Hungary consists of smoked ham (most people, who can afford it, prefer the home-made ham), milk loaf, hard-boiled egg and pickled horseradish.

This year we also made French salad which contains different kind of vegetables like chopped potato, pea, carrot, corn and onion, ham, mayonnaise, sour cream and gelatin.  

Church

Religious people go to the church for midnight resurrection ceremonies on Holy Saturday or on Sunday morning at 10 a.m. In several places chocolate bunnies will be hidden in the garden of the church which small children have to find and can eat.

Easter Monday

On Easter Monday boys and men go from door to door, say a short poem and sprinkle girls and women with perfume or with a bucket of cold water so they will not ’wither’ (like flowers). In return girls and women give them presents like painted eggs, chocolate and/or money or invite them to drink a shot of schnapps and eat a slice of ham with milk loaf and eggs.

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A truly moreish chocolate cake

If you have a sweet tooth, I would recommend a truly moreish chocolate cake, according to my mom’s godmother’s treasured recipe. If you became interested, follow the instructions below.

Day 1

Sponge cake

You need a round 28 cm cake tin. This cake can serve up to 16 (or even 24) people.
Ingredients: 10 eggs, 200g sugar, 180g flour, 20g cocoa, 1 sachet of baking powder

Method:

Step1: Wash the eggs, crack and separate them into whites and yolks. Start whipping the egg whites with an electric hand whisk. Just before (!) it seems to be done, add the sugar and continue whipping it until you get relatively hard white foam.

Step2: Preheat the oven to 170 degrees °C.

Step3: Measure the cocoa and the flour and mix them with the baking powder. I would recommend sifting them before doing so.

Step4: Line the cake tin with baking paper.

Step5: Add the yolks and the cocoa-flour-baking powder-mixture to the white foam you made in Step1. Stir them slowly and loosely with a whisk.  

Step6: Pour the mixture into the cake tin, but make sure you start baking it immediately, otherwise the baking paper get soaked. Cover the top with baking paper – which you will remove after 20 minutes.

Step7: Place the mixture in the oven for 45 minutes. Give the cake tin a 180-degree-turn after 20 minutes and continue baking the cake for further 25 minutes. Although, I would keep an eye on it. 

Chocolate cream

Ingredients: 2 dl whipping cream, 200g sugar, 250g (+200g) margarine, 30g cocoa, 50g dark chocolate, 1 sachet of vanilla sugar

Step1: Bring the whipping cream and the sugar to a boil. After a few minutes you will get a sticky, light mixture. Reduce the heat and add the cocoa, chocolate and vanilla sugar to it. Stir it quickly, otherwise it will catch on the bottom of the pan.

Step2: Slice the margarine and add to the mixture you made in Step1. Again, stir it quickly. Remove it from the heat, if the margarine melted.

Step3: Put the mixture into cold water and continue stirring it until it cools down. Then put the cream in the fridge.

Day 2

Step1: Make soft cream of 200g margarine with an electric whisk and then mix it with the chocolate cream you made the day before. Flavor it with rum or rum flavoring and tiny cherry pieces or raisin.

Step2: Cut the cake into two equal parts. Then fill and cover it with the chocolate cream. Then decorate it with cherry, melted chocolate or whatever. 

                                            Aaaand…voilà! My very first chocolate cake! :)