Hard knots of spicy sweetness - honey, raisins, and ginger. Real Litvisheh Teiglach, not those decadent piles of soft, sticky, teiglach you see in the bakery.
If I had to relate this to the Parsha, I would talk about the mitzva of Challah on items that are boiled, not baked and have no water but do have honey (see note at end), or, for last week's parsha, the mahn being described as tzapichis bidvash. But mostly this is just because I'm proud we finally grasped the nettle and made them. And then we ate them.
Here are thirteen recipes I found that are similar to ours. Ours is last, in Hebrew, and is mostly like XIII - A Taste of Israel, and one from The Women's Guild of the Sydenham Shul. We used considerably more vodka than any of the recipes call for, both in the teiglach and in the teigel-macher.
If the individuals whose recipes I placed here wish to assert their intellectual property rights, I encourage them to contact me. Once contacted, I will immediately remove their recipe.
Suggestions: Make sure the dough is soft, but not sticky. The final product will be slightly softer, and it's much easier to work with. Second, instead of making a knot, make a ring with overlapping ends and twist one of the overlapping ends to the inside. That will become a knot. It also helps to slightly dust the rope with ginger before knotting.
I
By Gwen Beinart
Ingredients:
6 eggs
1 Tablespoon Oil
1 Tablespoon Brandy
Pinch salt
2 teaspoons grated orange zest
½ teaspoon baking powder
Flour: 3 cups to start
Syrup: 2 lbs or 1 kilo tin golden syrup,
3 cups sugar, and 2 ½ cups water
Directions:
1. Slightly beat 6 eggs with oil, add brandy, salt, orange rind and then baking powder.
2. Add 3 cups flour sifted (one at a time).
3. Take a little bit on a small heap of flour and work in flour until dough is soft, slightly sticky but pliable. Roll into shapes in floured hands.
4. Put into floured tray to dry – preferably in sun for approximately 20 minutes, s turning over after 10 minutes
5. In the meantime, put syrup, sugar and water on to boil in large heavy pot (or weighted lid).
6. When boiling fast add teiglach. Close lid and boil on high for 5 mins
7. Then turn down to medium/high (low to medium on gas) to boil for 30-35 mins (26 – 30 on gas) before lifting lid. (Very important to weigh down the lid!)
8. Wipe lid and stir in quick motion every 5 mins until done (an additional approximately 20-30 minutes, or six stirs). Total time on the stove is 1 hour 10 mins according to Mommy but on gas probably a total of 55 mins)
9. Special note for gas : after 1st 5 min fast boil move pot to medium size plate on medium gas for 30 mins. Then do the lid/wipe/stir @ 5 min interval either 5 or 6 times in total.
10. When done take off 1 ½ cups of syrup for next batch
11. Then put in 1 heaped teaspoon ground ginger and half to ¾ cup boiling water down the side of the pot.
12. Stir until bubbling stops and take out teiglach onto damp board or plate. Leave to cool.
13. Can roll in chopped nuts if desired.
14. Store in plastic air tight container.
15. If making further batch add ½ used syrup and ½ new to same other ingredients – usually better
II
By Tina Wasserman
Ingredients
3 egg, beaten
3tbsp. vegetable or canola oil
2tbsp. water
1/2tsp. pure vanilla extract
2 1/2cup all-purpose flour
1/4tsp. Kosher salt
1/4tsp. baking powder
1/4tsp. ground ginger
1lb. honey
1/2cup sugar
2tsp. orange zest
rainbow sprinkles or nonpareil decorations (optional)
nuts or candied cherries (optional)
Servings:
10 servings
Instructions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a small bowl, combine the eggs, oil, water and vanilla, and beat with a fork or whisk until light and well-combined. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, salt, ginger, and baking powder. Add the egg mixture to dry ingredients and stir with a fork until well incorporated. Knead inside the bowl, using your hands, until the dough feels smooth and looks shiny. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rest for 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes, roll out small handfuls of dough into long, 1/2-inch wide ropes. Cut each rope into 1/3 inch pieces. Roll each piece of dough into balls and place balls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 20–22 minutes or until golden brown.
While the dough is baking, making the honey syrup: In a large, heavy, 3-quart saucepan, add the honey, sugar, ginger, and orange zest and slowly bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat and simmer for exactly 10 minutes.
Add the teiglach balls to the honey mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until all the teiglach is well-coated. (If you want to add nuts or candied cherries, add them now.) Spoon into paper muffin or cupcake cups and sprinkle with nonpareils or colored sprinkles if you are using them.
III
By Rebecca Firkser
In a large bowl, whisk together 2 cups all purpose flour, 1½ teaspoon baking powder, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, and a pinch of kosher salt. Beat in 3 eggs and 1 teaspoon sesame oil. Use your hands to form the mixture into a sticky dough, then turn out onto a floured work surface. Knead the dough until it just comes together, then form the dough into a long log.
Cut the dough into 12 pieces, and roll each piece into a strip about 3 inches long, then pull each in half. Stretch those 24 strips out until they’ve doubled in length, then tie each into a knot (similar to garlic knots you may find in a pizza place), tucking the edges into the center as well.
Mix 2 cups honey with ½ cup granulated sugar, ⅓ cup water, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, and a 1-inch knob of peeled and grated fresh ginger in a large stock pot. Heat the mixture over low, whisking all the while to dissolve the sugar. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium high heat.
Drop the prepared dough knots into the boiling honey syrup and then reduce the heat to a high simmer. Cook the teiglach for 40-50 minutes, giving the mixture a stir every 10 minutes. After every 15 minutes or so, add ⅓ cup water to the pot.
For a crunchier pastry, raw teiglach balls can be fried in hot canola or grapeseed oil until golden brown or baked at 375ºF for 25-30 minutes minutes, and then simply dunked in the honey syrup.
Teiglach are finished when the dough is a deep golden brown, so depending on the heat of your honey syrup, they may require up to an hour of boiling to finish cooking completely.
While the teiglach are cooking, fill a shallow bowl with ½ cup sesame seeds ⅓ cup chopped toasted almonds, ⅓ cup chopped toasted walnuts, ¼ cup diced candied ginger, and ¼ cup chopped dried cherries. Line a baking sheet with waxed paper, then butter or grease the paper with cooking spray.
Fish the teiglach out of the pot with a slotted spoon and drop them a few at a time into the bowl with sesame seeds and almonds. Roll 3 teiglach at a time into the nuts and fruit mixture then place each mound onto the greased cookie sheet.
Use the leftover honey syrup in any place you’d use maple syrup: on pancakes or waffles, yogurt, or to sweeten drinks. It also makes a killer cocktail sweetener: try whisking it into a hot toddy, a bee’s knees, or an Old Fashioned.
IV
Teiglach
From Gil Marks’ The World of Jewish Cooking
Dough
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
About 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
Syrup
1 cup honey
½ cup sugar
½ teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts, blanched almonds, or hazelnuts (optional)
1/3 to ½ cup minced candied fruit (optional)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a large baking sheet or two small ones. Oil a large plate or second baking sheet.
To make the dough: Combine the eggs, baking powder, and salt. Gradually stir in enough flour to make a soft, workable dough. Place on a lightly floured surface and, using floured hands, knead until smooth, 2 to 3 minutes.
Cut the dough into 1/3-inch thick strips and roll into ropes. Cut into 1/3-inch pieces and roll each piece into a ball. (The dough will still be a little sticky at this point but simply roll the dough in a little bit of flour. It is okay that the dough pieces are not smooth, as this will allow the honey to seep inside.)
Arrange the dough pieces in a single layer on the oiled baking sheet. Bake, until very lightly browned, 10 to 15 minutes. Let cool.
To make the syrup: Stir the honey, sugar, and ginger in a large saucepan over low heat until the sugar dissolves. Stop stirring, increase the heat to medium-high, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes.
Add the dough pieces and cook, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon, for 10 minutes. Add the nuts and fruit if desired, and cook until the syrup is a deep brown and the dough pieces sound hollow when tapped, about 10 additional minutes.
Pour the teiglach along with the syrup onto the oiled plate or baking sheet and let stand until cool enough to handle.
Using wet hands, shape into 2 to 3 inch mounds or shape into 1 large mound. Let cool completely. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.
V
by Katherine Romanow
My grandmother, who lived with us for around 10 years, in Bayside, Queens, made teiglach every Chanukkah for many years, and my Mother after her, for probably almost as many years. The ingredients in the Teiglach recipe I got from my Mom are almost identical to the one above by Katherine, but our preparation process is quite different: We always roll the dough out into 1/4 or 1/3 " ropes (rather than strips). These are chopped to about 5 - 6 " long / ea .... and are then tied into loose knots. I lay these dough knots out carefully on a broad, floured platter, while tying more of them, and bringing a large pot of the honey and ginger to a boil. Once most of the dough is tied into knots, I begin dropping them, 1 at a time, into the biggest bubble of the boiling honey syrup. Once all of the remaining dough knots have been tied and dropped into the boiling the dough knots, allow them to boil for around 20 minutes, until golden brown. Once done, can add around 1/2 C water for each 2 C's of honey, to thin down the syrup. Then cool in a casserole dish, and once cooled, cover and store, or serve. The Teiglachs will become more crunchy once they are completely cooled, and will continue getting more crunchy as the days pass, which is how I like them best. However, you may prefer them in the more tender phase just after cooling.
Ingredients:
Syrup:
1 lb. honey
¾ cup water (plus more if needed)
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 cups sugar
Dough:
6 eggs
1 Tablespoons ginger
½ Tablespoon salt
3 Tablespoons oil
1 tsp baking powder
3½ cup flour (plus ½ cup or more for rolling dough)
Garnish:
¾ cup slivered almonds
½ cup whole glacéed cherries
½ cup sesame seeds
Instructions:
Line 2 cookie sheets with aluminum foil and oil lightly. Set aside.
In a large, heavy pot (at least 6-quart capacity*) mix together the honey, water, lemon juice, and sugar. Heat to boiling.
* (This pot size may seem too large; however, the syrup would overflow a smaller pot later in the recipe.)
While the honey syrup is heating, beat together the eggs, oil, ginger, and salt until blended. Sift together the baking powder and 3½ cups flour. Add to the egg mixture to form a sticky dough.
Cut into 8 pieces. Dust each piece with flour and roll between your hands until it forms a “snake” about ¾ inch in diameter. Slice each snake into about 10 slices, ¾ inch thick.
Add to the boiling syrup and simmer slowly for about an hour. It is important to cook the dough for the full time.
At the end of the first half hour, the teiglach will be an attractive golden color , but they will not be hard and crisp. Further cooking will improve their texture and make them a beautiful dark mahogany color.
Stir gently every 10 minutes or so during the cooking period. If the liquid seems close to evaporating, add more water, about 1/3 cup at a time. Ten minutes before the end of the hour, add the almonds and cherries. Stir frequently until done, to make sure that the syrup doesn’t burn.
When the cooking is complete, remove pan from heat. Immediately place the teiglach, almonds, and cherries on the oiled pans, keeping as much of the leftover syrup as possible on the pot.
Separate the teiglach so that they don’t stick together.
Stir the sesame seeds into the leftover syrup, adjusting the quantity to the amount of syrup that remains, if necessary. When the sesame-syrup mass cools enough to be handled, form it into spheres the size of gumballs.
Work quickly but carefully: the syrup is extremely hot at first, but will become too hard to shape as it cools. Form the teiglach into pyramids–one large or several small–and decorate with the cherries, sesame balls, and slivered almonds.
Note: Teiglach keep very well and make an excellent gift. If it is necessary to cover them, use lightly oiled aluminum foil. Some cooks roll the finished teiglach in finely chopped nuts or coconut, which makes them less sticky. Others form the teiglach dough into shapes, such as spheres or knots. They can be stuffed with bits of nut or dried fruit before they are cooked.
VI
Also by Tina Wasserman
(but these are the pyramid kind.)
Growing up on Long Island meant that before the High Holidays almost every bakery had a sign in its window that implored people to place their challah and Teiglach orders early. In Dallas it was a little known treat but I taught how to make it every chance I got. You will enjoy sitting around the table and picking the sticky balls off their pyramid. Here’s to a sweet year!
3 eggs
3 tablespoons oil
½ teaspoon vanilla
2 Tablespoons water
2 1/2 cups flour
¼ teaspoon salt
1/4-teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 pound wildflower honey (any honey is O.K. but wildflower is the best)
½ cup sugar
½ teaspoon ginger
1 piece of orange zest 2″ long 1/2 inch wide
1 cup toasted hazelnuts
1/2 cup candied cherries or raisins
————————————————————————————————–
Preheat the oven to 375F.
In a small bowl combine the eggs, oil, water, and vanilla and beat with a fork or whisk until light and combined. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, salt, ginger, and baking powder.
Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir with a fork until well combined. Knead with your hands for a few minutes until dough is smooth and shiny. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 10 minutes.
Roll out small balls of dough into long 1/2-inch wide snakes and cut into 1/3 inch pieces. Roll dough pieces briefly in your hands to make balls and place them on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 20 – 22 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely or freeze until later use.
When you are ready to complete recipe, combine the honey, sugar, orange zest and ginger in a heavy 3-quart saucepan and bring slowly to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and add the teiglach balls, nuts and cherries or raisins to the honey mixture and stir to coat well. Place in a pie plate or individual tart tins mounded to form a pyramid.
VII
Rene Price got this recipe from her mom’s best friend, Sylvia, who Rene referred to as “Aunty Sylvia.” The recipe calls for 4 pounds of syrup, a syrup that Rene remembers being different than honey. A good substitute might be cane sugar syrup, which can be found at Global Foods Market or Whole Foods.
Dough
Ingredients
· 6 eggs
· 1 tsp ginger
· 1 tsp sugar
· 1 egg cup oil
· Flour - about 3 cups (Flour needed depends on egg shell size, and the amount of oil it measures. Dough must be a sticky consistency.)
Method
1. Roll pieces of dough and then shape into round doughnut shapes with a hole in middle.
2. While you are working the dough, please keep bowl of dough covered with a wet cloth. You want to keep dough moist.
3. Place doughnut shaped teiglach on floured baking tray and when dough is complete place tray in 150-degree oven to dry outside of dough.
4. Leave in oven 2 to 3 hours. You want the outside to be dry and the inside will be moist. You are not cooking the teiglach.
Syrup
Ingredients
· 4lbs syrup
· 1tsp ginger
· 1 cup sugar
· 2 cups boiling water
Method
1. Heat syrup mixture in very wide pan across multiple burners of stove.
2. Bring syrup to boil.
3. Add teiglach to syrup.
4. It will cook fast.
5. When they are ready switch off stove and add 2 cups boiling water to boiling syrup pan.
6. Take teiglach out and put on a damp board.
7. Sprinkle with sugar, small quantities at a time.
8. The boiling process should take about 1 hour.
Important tip: When you think the teiglach look ready, leave it for a few more minutes, then add the water.
VIII
By Rachelle Urist of Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ingredients
Syrup:
1 cup sugar
1 cup honey
Dough:
2 cups flour
3 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons oil (Grapeseed oil is good for this.)
Plus:
raisins and nuts
Preparation
Mix dough ingredients to make a soft dough just stiff enough to handle. Divide dough into several parts and roll each into a long rope about ½ inch in diameter. Cut into ½ inch pieces. Bring honey and sugar to a rolling boil in a deep kettle. Drop pieces of dough in, a few at a time, to prevent lowering of temperature. Cover and simmer ½ hour, shaking pan occasionally to prevent sticking. When top layer has browned, turn gently with a wooden spoon to bring bottom ones to top. Cook until all are golden brown and sound hollow when stirred. Add raisins and nuts. To test, break open a teigel, and if inside is crisp and dry, remove from heat. Add ½ cup boiling water and stir just before turning off heat. Let cool slightly. Remove teiglach with a perforated spoon, and heap in bowls. Pour some of the syrup over the teiglach. Serve. Eat.
Notes:
Once you get the hang of it, it’s nice to double the recipe. Then you get lots of bowls of it, and you can give some as gifts.
1/4 tsp ginger is optional. I don’t happen to use ginger in this recipe, because the honey gives it enough bite for me.
The proportions of honey and sugar can vary. It can get expensive using lots of honey, and it tastes just fine using more sugar – so long as there’s SOME honey, and so long as there’s enough water added at the end to turn the sugar (and honey) into syrup. The cookbooks never mention adding hot water. If you don’t add hot water, the results will be that the cooled honey/sugar mixture and the honey-coated teiglach will be hard as rocks and inedible.
Any kind of nut works. Filberts, Hazelnuts, walnuts, almonds – whatever you like. You can also add bits of dried apricot. Or you can use a combination of dark and light raisins.
IX
By Lynne Jacobson
Teiglach
Dough Ingredients:
6 large eggs, minus 1 white
1 Tbsp. corn oil
1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. vanilla
1/8 tsp. ground ginger
pinch of salt
3 cups all-purpose flour
Syrup Ingredients:
2 cups water
3 cups Lyle's Golden Syrup, a South African sweetener that can be ordered on Amazon.com, or substitute with honey
2 cups granulated sugar
In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs until frothy. Add the remaining dough ingredients. Beat until a soft dough forms.
Take a small amount of dough and roll it in your palms, forming a ball 1/4-inch in diameter. Continue until no dough remains. (If the dough is sticky, moisten hands with water.) Place teiglach balls on a platter and reserve.
To Prepare Syrup: Place all syrup preparation ingredients into a large, deep pot. Stir to blend. Cover the pot; bring it a low boil. Remove the pot from the flame. One by one, carefully slide each teiglach ball into the syrup. Give the pot a quick stir and then cover it. Return to the flame and bring to low boil. Do not uncover the pot for 20 minutes. Watch the pot almost continuously to avoid a spillover. Should the syrup rise more than halfway up the pot, lower the flame immediately.
Open pot and stir the contents. Teiglach should be brown. If not, simmer a few minutes more. Remove from flame; cool to room temperature. Serve immediately or place in an airtight container.
Makes about 100 teiglach.
X, XI, and XII
Thank you to Adinah Oschry of Yerushalayim for sending me the Women's Guild Recipe Book from the Sydenham Shul in Johannesburg. It dates from the early seventies, when her father, Rabbi Leonard Oschry, was the Rabbi in that shul, and her mother, the saintly Rebben Oshry, encouraged the ladies to take part in shul activities.
Unfortunately, we have no record of Rebben Oschry's heavenly oatmeal cookies. The last time I had one was sixty two years ago, and I can still taste it.
Sydenham Highlands - North Recipe Book
XIII
This recipe is from the book A Taste of Israel: From Classic Litvak to Modern Israeli by Nida Degutienė, published in 2015 by Struik Lifestyle. For more information on the book, click here.
This is almost exactly like my mother's recipe, below, if you skip the nuts and lemon and add a lot of ginger.
Ingredients
DOUGH
6 eggs
4 tablespoons cooking oil
2 tablespoons vodka
5 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
4½ cups cake flour (or more if the dough is very soft)
SYRUP
2 cups water
2 cups runny honey
1 cup sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of ½ lemon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
½ cup chopped nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts) and desiccated coconut, or sesame seeds or poppy seeds
Method
In a bowl, beat the eggs together with the oil, vodka, sugar and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the baking powder and flour, then mix well. Add the flour mixture, bit by bit, to the egg mixture, mixing all the while. The resulting dough should be soft but not sticky. Divide the dough into three pieces. Coat your hands in flour and roll each piece into a long rope. Shape the ropes into whatever shape you like for the teiglach:Some roll the dough out in thin cylinders and slice them into 2cm-long gnocchi-shaped chunks; others shape their teiglach into little knots – they roll the dough out into even thinner cylinders, slice them into 3- to 4cm-long strips and then tie the strips into little knots.
For the syrup, combine all the ingredients in a large pot and bring to the boil. When it begins to bubble, carefully place the teiglach, one by one, into the pot. Reduce the heat and cover with a tightly fitting lid. Without removing the lid, boil for 40 to 45 minutes, then stir. Continue cooking, uncovered, until the pastries are a dark, reddish shade. This is the true teiglach colour. During the boiling, be careful not to burn the honey syrup. If it seems too thick, CAREFULLY add a little water. (It might boil violently and spray you with extremely hot honey if you add too much water too quickly.)
Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Using tongs or a slotted spoon, remove the boiled teiglach from the honey syrup and place on the prepared tray. Make sure the pastries do not touch one another or else they will stick together. If you like, pour the remaining honey syrup over the teiglach. Sprinkle with nuts and coconut, or sesame or poppy seeds, and leave to dry for at least 1 hour. They will never fully dry out and are meant to be enjoyed sticky.
Since this is the recipe I have been using, and since the amazing author is apparently one of the extremely rare Lithuanian philosemites, here is a photo of the page in her book.
IMPORTANT UPDATE
We couldn't find my mother zichronah livracha's recipe, and we got it from my cousins in Israel, who took down the instructions on a visit to Chicago. I will, bli neder, try this, and report on the results. It is very different from any of the above - you add sugar to the honey, and after boiling them, you bake them, I assume on a baking sheet. I am assuming that the temperature is Celsius, so the 180 means 350. The 650 grams is 1.4 lbs of honey. Also, I don't know where the cinnamon came from. Nobody in the family ever tasted a teigel that had cinnamon. Ginger, and only ginger. Nonetheless, having seen internet meivinim saying that ginger and cinnamon go very well together, I do plan to try it some day.
Halacha note:
Kneadable dough that is boiled: We pasken it is not chayav Challah but are machmir like Rabbeinu Tam, so we take without a bracha. As for fruit juice but no water in the dough, see Aruch Hashulchan 329:1, that the Mishna says chayav, the Rosh etc say we don't seem to pasken like the mishna so take without a bracha, the Rashba that we do pasken like the mishna so do make a bracha, and the Aruch Hashulchan that says that even if you don't take on flour plus fruit juice, you would make a bracha when it's of the seven mashkim including honey, and Reb Moshe that says in the name of the Beis Hillel in YD there that even then you should not make a bracha.
HOWEVER, the ערוך השלחן יו"ד שכט:יד says that when it's made without water, and it's boiled, there is no reason to be machmir at all, and there's no need to take challah even misafeik.
What bracha? Generally, cooked dough is mezonos, but only because it's not to'ar lechem / turisa d'nahama. But waffles and doughnuts are turisa d'nahama, and probably so are teiglach. See OC 168:3 and 13. So even though the psak is mezonos even if you are kovei'a, it's better to make a mezonos and then hamotzi on a piece of bread. To reverse is problematic because that kind of snackey thing would need its own bracha during a seuda.
