It was another day of being home yesterday and again it was because of the weather. It was freezing rain in the morning during commute time so everything was cancelled, every school, church event, evening activity. Driving on snow is one thing, driving on ice is just stupid. After the adventure PH and I had on the ice Tuesday, we were not in a hurry to go out. Eventually, but not yet.
SO I decided to attempt for the third time, an old world recipe that was given to me by Friend Aina.
There is nothing like bacon and onion together, is there? It's one of the best tastes you can experience - except for hot fudge. These little buns are a sweet-ish dough wrapped around a mixture of bacon and onion and baked. Friend Aina makes them for Christmas and Easter and she made 300 for her niece's wedding reception. In Lituania these little buns are called bunduki. In Latvia they are piragi but in your mouth they are the same thing.
I think sometimes when we share recipes that are family heirlooms the one ingredient we can't share is the generational knowledge that is just part of the process. Aina watched her mother make these for years and years and was watched as she learned how to make them herself. There's something in that process that can't be passed on through a shared written recipe. Aina couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong and neither could I as we went over the recipe and how I handled it step by step. But then, I didn't have her mother's touch.
I tried her mother's recipe twice and I failured both times. I use only the best, expensive bacon. No grocery store bacon in this
house. I was upset that the good bacon was trapped inside a failed bun
so I opened them all up, scraped out the bacon and made a quiche!
I googled both bunduki and piragi and found a recipe almost identical to Aina's mother's with one exception. Well, two. Aina's mother used sour cream and this other recipe called for three risings of the dough.
These came out beautifully, the dough is light, flaky, sweet and you bite into it to find that gorgeous combination of bacon and onion. The whole house smells of fresh baked bread. Aina's mother would be pleased!
Glad to see your baking hand wasn't broken! I cannot think of anything better to do on an icy snowy day than bake! I generally don't like cooking.....like dinner every night cooking but somehow I love to bake!
ReplyDeleteThese look amazing and no doubt taste wonderful as well. The completed triumphant buns look almost professional.....I mean they look like proper shop bought ones.....(that is a little joke that my inlaws always say) well done!
....it looks like my comments should be titled try try again, again. I wrote a lovely pithy little comment and I don't think it went through.....so I will say again. Those buns a complete triumph, they look as good as shop bought ones......(a little joke my father in law used to say as a compliment) nothing better than to fill a home with baking smells on a cold icy day. Well done on perservering, another recipe to hand on.
ReplyDeleteJust fyi, and not being snotty... In Lithuania they are called Laišiniuočiai or Lašinėčiai. Lithuanian descendants in America call them bunduki. There's a discussion going on now as to where that word came from =)
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