A traditional Hungarian pastry our family has made for years. These scrumptious flaky Kifli’s are rich in butter, so soft, and light, each filled with organic jam filling.
Simple recipe for these flaky Crescents
Only 5 ingredients needed for this recipe:
Flour: all-purpose flour is used in this recipe, and don’t forget to sift it once it’s measured.
Salt: added to enhance the butter and egg yolk flavours
Butter: an important step in this recipe, is the requirement that the butter is very cold when added to the flour and salt
Egg yolks: are only needed for this recipe, and the yolk has a high fat content, which makes baked goods rich in flavour and texture
Iced water: why iced water you ask, well, when added to the flour mixture, it helps to keep the butter cold and the pastry flaky
Hungarian Flaky Butter (Kifli) Crescents
Ingredients
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 lb cold unsalted butter
- 4 egg yolks
- 1 1/4 cup ice water
- organic raspberry/strawberry/blueberry/apricot/peach jam for filling
- Confectioners’ powdered sugar, for dusting
Instructions
- In the stand mixer, using the paddle attachment, sift flour and salt in mixing bowl. Cut and add cold butter into the mixing bowl distributing evenly, and mix at low speed until the butter is broken into smaller pieces and coated with flour, about 15-20 seconds. You want to still see larger pieces of butter throughout.
- Continue at a low speed, add the egg yolks, and gradually the ice water, mixing until the water is absorbed and the dough comes together, then stop mixing, about 10 seconds. DO NOT overmix.
- Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface, and dust the top of the dough as well and work with your hands to pat down and form a rectangle, but still maintaining a thickness to about ¾ inch. Wrap with saran wrap tightly and place in the refrigerator to chill for 20 minutes. Remove from the refrigerator and roll out to about ½ inch thickness and fold in thirds, envelope style. Wrap again, chill for another 20 minutes, and repeat this one more time.
- The final rolling and wrapping, place in a zip-lock bag and chill for 4 hours or overnight.
- Preheat oven to 425°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Take out dough from refrigerator and cut one-third, and put the remaining two-thirds back in the refrigerator to say cold. Roll out the one-third to ¼ inch thickness. Then cut into 3 inch squares. Using a teaspoon, fill with desired filling at the lower half of one corner of the square, the fold over until you reach the end of the opposite corner.
- Place 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets, and bake for 12-15 minutes, until golden in colour. Allow to cool for 5 minutes, remove and place on cooling rack.
- Serve once cooled and dust with icing sugar.
- Storing: These crescents or Kifli's can be stored up to about 3 weeks in the refrigerator. If you have cold cellar, that would even be better. My mom would store them in the cold cellar and it maintained the texture and flakiness to these Kifli's, however, today, not everyone has a cold cellar, so the next best option is the refrigerator. Before serving, dust them with icing sugar.
Nutrition
This recipe makes approximately 80 crescents/kifli and I made half the recipe, since I didn’t need that many and this was the first time I made these on my own. I would often help my Mom growing up when she would make them every Christmas. They are one of the best pastries to make, they do take time but majority of the time is resting in the refrigerator.
I hope you give it a try, they are well worth it, and you family will thank you!
Once you transfer the dough onto the floured surface, dust the top of dough, and then pat the dough down and form a rectangle, and at this point the thickness should be about 3/4 inch. Wrap tightly with saran wrap and refrigerator for 20 minutes.
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and lay it on a flour surface again, roll it out to about 1/2 inch thickness. You will notice the difference in the texture of the dough, it will be softer and less coarse. Fold in thirds, and again wrap tightly in saran wrap and refrigerate.
This time, you are repeating the same process as before by rolling out dough to 1/2 inch thickness again, and fold into thirds, and then wrap into thirds, and wrap in saran and then place in a zip-lock bag and chill for 4 hours or overnight.
Roll out a 9 inch by 12 inch rectangle. Measure 3 inch squares and using a sharp knife to cut through the rolled dough. Then add a teaspoon of the filling, jam filling in this case, near one of the corners, and then begin rolling until you reach the opposite corner.
Carefully roll and making sure that the filling stays inside of the pastry, and avoid pressing down. Lay them about 1 inch apart on the baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for about 15 minutes until they are golden in colour and they have puffed up showing layers of flakiness.
They lovely, tender, and flaky crescents/Kifli’s are best fresh out of the oven, but first allow them to cool since the jam is very hot! They can be stored in the refrigerator for about 3 weeks. Before serving, allow them to cool, and dust them with icing sugar.
Just like my mom’s. Delicious. I used walnut filling in half, and jam in the rest
Hi Denise,
So glad to hear you like it! My mom too often added a walnut filling, she whipped egg whites, then added them to the ground walnuts with a little sugar. They were sooo good, and one day I will make those too, just need to find her recipe 🙂
Thank you for sharing and your rating!
Rose
My mom made these but her recipe uses lard and butter mixed and has a bit of vinegar ( which you can’t taste at all but i think it helps with the rising. The nut filling was my favorite too! It is: 1 c. Finely chopped walnuts, 1/2 c. Sugar, 3 egg whites, and rind from 1/2 lemon. She ground boiled, dried apricots and added 1/2 c sugar for the apricot filling. I am going to try subbing out a bit of fruit juice concentrate for the sugar to avoid processed sugar.
Hi Lori,
My Grandmother and Mom started to use only butter after they moved to Canada and their kifli’s were phenomenal, so flaky and light in texture and the flavour made such a difference. That is why I stay with butter only in my recipes.
Thank you for sharing and your feedback.
Rose