Racuchy

Eating Racuchy is like coming back to childhood memories. A cozy grandma's kitchen, those long summer days on the fresh air playing "hide and seek", cup of hot, sweet, lemon tea always ready when time for afternoon treat. She was an absolute master in baking/preparing sweets for us, but I need to confess Racuchy were always my favorite. Eaten still warm, melting in mouth, richly covered with icing sugar. I always ended up with more than 1 or 2 ( I know...greedy child).

The best way to describe Racuchy is to compare them to more fluffy American pancakes, as contain yeast. Before leaving the dough to rise, I added small pieces of apples, like in original Polish recipe. 

Racuchy 

(makes around 25 medium size Racuchy)

2 medium size apples

500 g plain flour

 Pinch of salt 

12 g fast action dried yeast 

2 tbsp sugar

300 ml milk

1 egg 

Oil

Icing sugar to sprinkle (you will need a lot- that's how we roll back home)

Wash and peel the apples. Cut them into small pieces and leave on the side.

In a large bowl, mix flour and pinch of salt. Make a well in the middle, add yeast, sugar and 100 ml milk. Leave it in warm place for 15 minutes (that's how long it takes to activate dry yeast). After this time add rest of the milk and egg and mix until well combined. Stir in the apples. Dough should be thick and elastic. If it's too liquidish (what shouldn't happen) add some more flour. 

Leave it in warm place for around 1,5 hour to rise, until the dough has doubled in size. 

Pour oil on large frying pan, and place it over the medium heat.

To make sure batter won't stick to your spoon when frying Racuchy, dip the spoon into hot water, each before putting batter on.

When oil is hot, spoon some of the batter into the pan, to make round shape pancakes, the same size mike American ones. Fry on each side for around 2 minutes, until golden brown, and remember about the medium heat, to make sure Racuchy are ready also inside. Transfer to a serving plate, cover with the aluminium foil, and continue frying the rest. Taste the best still warm, with a really generous amount of icing sugar.