Oriental sweets are striking in their variety. I would like to note that each nation has its own national goodies. The article tells about the oriental sweetness of chak-chak, which is a product from unleavened dough with honey syrup. Dessert belongs to the cuisine of Turkic peoples and is especially popular in Bashkortostan and Tatarstan, where it is considered a national dish. The most popular recipes, especially the preparation of chuck-chak cake, recommendations you can find out by reading this material.
How to cook a treat
This sweet is made from soft dough, which is mixed with premium wheat flour and raw eggs. In order to make the dough more crispy, it is recommended to add a little alcohol (cognac or vodka) to the dough, because this is a small dose, it will not bring any harm to the body. Often, dried fruits, nuts, poppy seeds are added to this delicacy.
Various billets are formed from the dough: balls no larger than pine nuts or thin short sticks similar to vermicelli. Slices of dough are fried in a large amount of deep fat, after which they are poured with hot syrup prepared on the basis of honey. Stack dessert in any way, for example, in the form of a slide or cake. Chuck-chuck will be completely ready after the honey syrup has hardened. A feature of this delicious treat is that it can be stored in a sealed container for quite a long time without losing its taste and healthy qualities.
Cooking Tips
Ideally, only wheat flour of the highest grade is used to make chak-chak treats. In addition, you should know the following:
- If the dough does not absorb flour well and the process becomes more time-consuming, it is allowed to add a little milk to it.
- When boiling syrup, it is important to prevent boiling and burning.
- Baked balls (straws, sticks) are poured only with hot syrup.
- The most delicious is considered chuck-chak, which was soaked for 2-3 days.
Chuck-chuck at home: recipe
This sweet is sold everywhere in grocery stores, mini and supermarkets. However, it is not difficult to cook a treat at home. We assure you that you will enjoy not only the dessert made by your own hands, but also from the cooking process itself. The following components are required for a chuck-chak cake:
- 390 g premium flour;
- 160 g of natural honey;
- 400 ml of refined sub. oil;
- 80 g of sugar;
- 3 eggs (medium size);
- salt;
- 20 ml of vodka.
Cake chuck-chuck: step by step recipe
The preparation of such a dessert involves many steps, so for convenience, we will break it into stages. Please note: in order to get a tasty treat, you must adhere to these recommendations. First of all, you will need to start the dough.
Kneading dough
- We take a large container and break fresh eggs into it.
- Add vodka and a pinch of salt to them and shake well with a fork. Do not neglect the advice, try adding vodka to the dough, thanks to its inclusion in the composition, the fried pieces are more airy, lush and crispy!
- Gradually, we begin to introduce into the mass flour (necessarily sifted), but not in full. In general, the following principle is used to prepare such a test: the ratio of eggs to flour is 1: 1, i.e., one glass of flour — one glass of flour (on average about 130 g). Please note: the dough for the chak-chak cake should be quite dense and elastic.
- We transfer the moistened and not yet homogeneous mass to the working surface of the table and proceed to kneading the dough, gradually adding flour.
- It’s quite difficult to knead such a dough, because it is very tight and dense, but it must be such in order to get a good quality chuck-chuck. You can’t add water to the dough! It may seem that it is completely heterogeneous, consisting of different fragments. In fact, it is so, but it will acquire a completely different consistency when it rests a little.
- We leave the dough to “rest” at room temperature, pre-cover it with a bowl, wrap it with cling film or place it in a bag so that it does not wind.
- After we knead the dough again, it becomes uniform, smooth and elastic. We cut a small part from the piece (1/7 or 1/8), close the rest of the mass again to avoid curling the dough.
Test cutting
Consider how to cook for the chak-chak cake blanks. Using a rolling pin, we roll out the dough into a thin cake no more than 2 mm thick. It is not necessary to sprinkle flour on the tabletop when cutting the dough , because it is not sticky at all.
- With a sharp knife, cut a layer of dough into thin strips. You can cut it with a special pizza knife, but it is better to do it under the ruler.
- Stripes are cut into shorter pieces about two centimeters in length. However, we note that this is not the only slicing option: someone rolls small balls, others prefer straws, or you may like cubes. We recommend not to put them in one big pile: this way they can stick together. It is better to cut the dough in portions until the next part is deep-fried.
Deep-Fried
In a small saucepan, heat the butter, it’s better not to use all the butter at once, but to divide it into two parts, especially if you are going to cook a large portion of chak-chak cake. The fact is that after 3-4 servings the quality of the oil worsens, it acquires a dark color, this is not too useful.
- Pieces of dough are put in a boiling deep-fryer, so that they float freely in it. The sticks should be covered with small bubbles and instantly increase in volume (2.5-3 times).
- On average, it takes 3-4 minutes to fry one serving.
- Remove the browned pieces with a slotted spoon, spread them on paper towels to get rid of excess oil. We throw the next portion into deep fat and start cutting a new batch.
- After all the pieces of dough are fried, put them in a large container or pan of a suitable size.
Honey syrup
When all the dough pieces have been baked, we’ll start making sugar and honey syrup for the chak-chak cake.
- Combine the ingredients in a separate container.
- Warm up the components on the lowest heat until sugar and honey grains are completely dissolved. We don’t boil the syrup, but only simmer on fire, because we all know that honey at high temperatures loses its beneficial properties and can even harm the body. We warm the syrup for about 10 minutes.
- Pour crispy sticks with hot syrup, mix gently so that all dough pieces are evenly coated with a sticky sticky mass. This should be done very quickly, since honey syrup hardens very quickly, and it becomes more difficult to mix.
Cake making
A home-made chak-chak, it's time to give it a fit. You can collect it in the form of a cake or divide the resulting mass into two parts and put it in the form of slides on a flat plate.
- The mass is very sticky, so when forming a dessert, hands should be moistened in water. We press the slides very carefully so that fragile pieces do not break.
- Let the dessert soak well and serve.
Tatar classic recipe
In the Republic of Tatarstan in the old days, not a single national wedding could do without sweet food chak-chak. And today this delicacy has not lost its popularity. To cook it according to a traditional recipe, we take the following ingredients for the chak-chak cake.
For the test:
- 10 g of sugar;
- 2 eggs;
- 70 ml of milk;
- 20 g butter;
- a pinch of salt;
- 400 g of flour.
For syrup:
- 3 tbsp. l Sahara;
- 400 g of honey.
Connect eggs, sugar, cl. butter and rub well, add salt, pour the milk into the flour and start a pretty cool dough. We give it a "rest" for 40 minutes, cut into thin bundles with a thickness of not more than 1 cm. Of them, in turn, we roll up small balls. Fry in a large amount of deep fat until a beautiful golden color.
We prepare thick syrup by boiling honey with sugar. You can check its readiness in the following way: pour 1 tsp. syrup in cold water. If it has turned into a soft ball, then it’s ready. We combine the golden balls with syrup, mix and spread on a beautiful serving dish. We decorate the Tatar cake chak-chak with candied fruits and walnuts.
Large chuck
We recommend using another recipe for baking this amazing delicacy. To prepare it, you should stock up on the following products:
- 10 pieces. eggs
- 3 tbsp. flour;
- 1/2 kg of sugar;
- a pinch of salt;
- 500 g of flower honey;
- the third part of tsp soda;
- vegetable oil.
Cooking recommendations
- Eggs should be frozen until the shells crack, then remove them from the freezer, allow them to thaw, and then peel.
- Beat them in a mixer with salt and soda, the longer the whipping continues, the better the baking will be.
- When stirring the mass with a wooden (preferably) spoon, add the flour, the dough should have the consistency of thick sour cream, but it should not stick to the spoon.
- Pour flour on the board, put the finished dough on it, roll up a layer 0.5-0.8 mm thick, lightly sprinkle with flour, cover with a towel and let it lie for an hour.
- Roll out the dough into a layer, which in turn is cut into strips 1.5 cm wide. Then we cut each of them into sticks of 0.5 mm. During the preparation of the dough, cover the dough pieces with a towel so that they do not dry out.
- Pour oil into a deep bowl and place on a fire; it should be so large that the dough can be placed freely. A feature of this method is that the product is not laid in boiling oil, but has room temperature. Do not neglect this recommendation.
- Before lowering dough blanks into fat, place them in a sieve and shake off excess flour. During heat treatment, stir the sticks regularly and fry them until browning.
- Dissolve honey and sugar over low heat until the latter is completely dissolved. Pour our dish with syrup and put it on a plate or tray, let it soak well.
We have presented you only a few recipes from a huge number of recipes. Cook, taste and enjoy the amazing taste of dessert.