Tuesday 5 February 2008

Turkish pumpkin sweet balls

Polish: herbatnik
Chinese: 饼干
Occitan: bescuèch
Samoan: masi
Aymara: misk'i t'ant'alla
Czech: piškot
Maltese: gallettina
Persian: بيسکويت
Saami- keaksa
Scots Gaelic: briosgaid
Zulu: Ibhisikidi
Swiss German: Guetzli
Thai: ขนมปังกรอบ

Biscuits were the main ingredient of this dessert, even if the most laborious indredient was kaymak. Funny, in Poland we have kajmak too, but it means here a cooked condensed milk, similar to caramel, while in Turkey, Balcan and Arab countries it means a thick cream. According to Binnur's recipe, I prepared my "southern" kaymak. The result was a thick cream, which I can not compare to any other thing. Oh, maybe to the Milky Way chocolate bar :) Kaymak and pumpkin? Yes, kaymakli balkabaği :)

see also: Turkish carrot balls
see also: Brasilian sweet potato balls
see also: Banana-aniseed balls

2 cups 3,5% milk
2 cups 36% cream
500 gr pumpkin puree (cooked, mashed pumpkin)
1 cup round walnuts
1 cup ground biscuits
1/2 cup sugar (or even less)
coconut flakes

1. The first step must begin 2 days before serving. You have to prepare kaymak. Combine milk and cream and boil. Pour into pyrex dish. Cook water in a pan and put the pyrex dish on the pan to let the milk-cream cook thanks to the vapour from the pan.



Simmer for 8 hours, cool and keep in the fridge for 24 hours. There may be milk under your kaymak layer but I found none. If yiu find, use it to some other dish.

2. Cook pumpkin puree with sugar until sugar is melted

3. Add ground walnuts and biscuits to the pumpkin cream. Combine. Cool.

4. Take hazelnut-like, small portion of kaymak and form a ball. Take a handful of pumpkin cream, form a ball and hide inside it previously made kaymak ball. Coat with coconut fkales. Keep in fridge for about 1 hour. Before serving, roll each ball in your hand again, fixing its lovely shape.





2 comments:

Binnur said...

Ellerine saglik Ewa:) I'd love to have some Kaymakli Balkabagi!
Sevgilerimle,

Ewa said...

Dear Binnur, that was the best approbation I could ever hear! I promise, I will learn Turkish one day! And I will cook more Turkish dishes! I am sorry to give you such a late answer, but I was very busy with my master thesis... Again, teşekkürler!
Sevgilerimle,
Ewa :)