The flavour and aroma of a sweet, that was your favourite in the 80's might still make your mouth water, but unfortunately it's no longer available, or if it is, it's not the real thing. It's not the same as it was back then. Why should something that is a nation's favourite stop being made or have its recipe changed?
There is good news to be happy about, though. Some products have only been reformulated in packaging, but the taste is still the same. This is the"túró rudi" in my language, a chocolate-coated cottage cheese bar, that is to be eaten chilled.
Luckily, everyone has different tastes and even though a lot of really good products have disappeared from the shelves, my favourite has remained. To this day I love it and I'm grateful, that I can get it anywhere, anytime and in addition to the original, there are now several flavours available, such as apricot, strawberry, hazelnut cream, plum jam, chestnut, salted caramel and coconut. The original was unstuffed, but it's still the same good old recipe for the stuffed ones too and it's an added treat.
As we Hungarians say "a pöttyös az igazi" which means "the polka dots are the real deal" if you ever buy one go for the one with the polka dots.
The cottage cheese bars were first produced in 1968, when the factory was not mechanised, or at least not as mechanised as it is today, and the workers did everything by hand. It was sliced, so that it was slightly differently smaller and larger, sorted and packaged in slices. The first packing was also done by manually, rolling up the wrapping paper at the ends of the bar, one by one.
The manual packaging solution was quickly abandoned, because it proved to be a slow process. Here is a picture of the more modern packaging, but still the old one I grew up on.
Today's modern mechanized system has already greatly accelerated the production process, thus they can produce bars in large quantities. Today, not only bars are produced, but also other types of products, which are of course dotted.
As shown in the picture above, they also make coconut guru bars, milk bars and cocoa milk. Things I had no idea about before. I don't know when they came on the market, because I haven't been home in over 4 years. If I ever get home, I'll try these. The good thing is, that we have a small Hungarian store nearby in the town where I live. So I am happy about that.
Some interesting facts to know.
100 000 litres of milk are used daily, sourced exclusively from Hungarian sources.
Around 1700 cows provide the daily quantity of milk needed for production.
Túró Rudi is available in Slovakia and Romania under the name Dots, but they also pop up in Hungarian shops and small delicatessens around the world.
1.1 deciliters of milk is needed for a classic 30 gram Túró Rudi.
If you're in the mood for some cottage cheese bars, but you can't get your hands on it, don't despair - you can make your own cherry poppy seed cottage cheese cookies.
INGREDIENTS FOR A BAKING PAN APPROX. 30X20 CM
For the poppy seed base:
16 dkg butter
6 eggs
15 dkg sugar
1 grated lemon zest
10 dkg flour
25 dkg ground poppy seeds
2 teaspoons baking powder
For the cottage cheese layer:
70 dkg cottage cheese
25 dkg soft butter
15 dkg icing sugar
1 packet of vanilla sugar
grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
15 dkg sour cream
two packets of gelatine (20g in total)
30 dkg sour cherries (drained sour cherry jelly)
For the topping:
10 dkg dark chocolate
a few drops of cooking oil
METHOD
Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a medium-sized baking pan with baking paper.
To make the dough, beat the butter with the sugar, then add the eggs and lemon zest and mix until fluffy. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, ground poppy seeds and baking powder and add to the egg mixture. Mix until smooth and smooth into the baking tin lined with baking paper. Bake for 15-20 minutes, test with a tester. When done, let cool completely.
When the pastry has cooled, prepare the cottage cheese cream. Mix the gelatine in a small mini saucepan with a few (6-7) spoonfuls of water, heat it up (not boil it!), stirring, and when it is completely dissolved, remove from the heat and wait a few minutes until it cools down to lukewarm. Then add to the cottage cheese and stir to combine. Spread the cottage cheese cream over the poppy seed cake base by spreading about 1/3 of the cream on top, then cover with a dense layer of icing, then scoop the rest of the cream over the top and smooth it out. Refrigerate for a couple of hours and drizzle with melted chocolate before serving.
I hope you enjoyed discovering what my all time favourite sweet is.
Do you have something from the past, that you loved and you can still enjoy?
...and you will also help the author collect more tips.
I'm not familiar with all of those tho, but it's look mouth watering seriously. I have a lot of favorite from when I young but some of them is also gone now but there are some that still here in market.