Palacsinta: Hungarian crepes
Palacsinta with chocolate filling.
Palacsinta is a famous fried crepe dessert from Hungary. It is traditionally filled with either apricot or strawberry jam, rolled up, and sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar on top. However, you can choose to add your own filling such as fresh fruits, cottage cheese, or even pudding.
Ingredients
For the batter:
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
2 tbsp of granulated sugar
3 cups milk
1 tbsp oil
For the filling:
1/2 cup fruit jam or chocolate sauce
For the topping:
Confectioner’s sugar, for dusting
Chocolate sauce or syrup
Directions
In a large bowl, add the eggs and beat with a hand mixer on low speed. Add the flour, sugar, milk, and oil while continuing to beat.
Using a frying pan, heat 1 tsp of butter on medium heat.
With a soup ladle or measuring cup pour enough batter in the pan to cover about 2/3 of the area. Swirl to cover the rest of the pan immediately.
Once the edges of the batter begin to curl or lightly brown, flip over. Heat for additional 1 – 2 minutes.
Slide palacsinta out of the pan and into a flat plate.
Fill with your choice of filling. Roll palacsinta carefully and sprinkle with sugar on top.
Repeat by adding butter for each batter poured into the pan. Serve warm.
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- German coffee cake
- Black forest torte
- Sachertorte
- Kaiserschmarrn: Austrian Pancakes
- Poppy seed & walnut rolls
Category: Recipes
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Suzanne Urpecz, creator and editor of The Hungarian Girl. Click on my About page for more info.
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You can use almost everything for filling: poppy seed, nut, cottage cheese (that’s my favourite), even nutella
Where I’m from, we always use cottage cheese, coca and apricot jam.
Have your tried the Hortobágyi Meat Crepe? That’s traditional.
Ohh, and I love your blog. XD
Thanks for your comment. Yes, you can use any filling in palacsinta. Unfortunately, I’ve never tired hortobágyi meat crepe. Although, I’ve heard that meat is used in many recipes.
I will be travelling to Hungary and throughout Europe this year and I will most certainly sample everything I can.
If you have a recipe for hortobágyi meat crepe I would be happy to feature on the blog.
Glad to hear your enjoying the postings! Thanks again.
I had the hortobágyi meat (ground veal) crepe at the Hungarian Rapsody Resturant in Southfield, Michigan and it was great. The recipe is on page 200 of George Lang’s Cusine of Hungary. On the palacsinta my mother made it with prune butter. Have also had it with apricot jam, cheese, and chocolate.
The Hungarian Rhapsody Restaurant is in Southgate, MI not Southfield – and their food is almost as good as homemade.
Hortobágyi Palacsinta are a common way to use leftover Paprikas – whether chicken or veal. After you’ve had your Paprikas, just take whatever meat is left over and chop finely in a food processor with a little of the paprikas sauce and if needed some salt & pepper to taste, then roll up in palacinta. Strain the sauce to make it nice and smooth and add a little more sour cream for thickness and a nice blush color and serve over the palacintas.
I never had palacsinta with leftover paprikas, but your description made me want to make paprikas just for the leftovers!
Thanks for your ideas! My girls love the cottage cheese filled palacsinta as that’s how my mother used to make them. I shall try some of your recipes. Love your blog!
Thanks Eva! Hope the recipes work out for you.
I love Palacsinta that my husband’s grandmother used to make. She made them with a cottage cheese filling and they were just wonderful. When she passed away, no one thought to ask her for the filling recipe and so many other hungarian recipes. Do you have the recipe for the cottage cheese filling?
Hi Kathy,
Here’s one recipe that you can try below.
Enjoy!
Sweet Cheese Filling
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese or dry cottage cheese
8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
3 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
Directions
Combine the ricotta cheese, cream cheese, and confectioners’sugar in a small bowl and whisk until smooth. Chill the sweet cheese filling until ready to use.
Here’s my great grandmother’s recipe for a scrumptious cottage cheese filling. We suggest that this recipe is not the place to use anything low-fat!
1 large container of cottage cheese
3 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup sugar
Mix with a spoon or whisk until the eggs are mixed in well. Pour into the crepe type pancake at about an 1/8 cup at a time and roll as for a crepe then layer each roll into a buttered bread pan. Cover with buttered aluminum foil and bake at 325 for approximately 50 minutes then take the cover off and bake another 10 minutes or until there is light bubbling throughout.
Enjoy!
Hi Sherry,
Thanks for sharing your recipe! Your right, these recipes are not meant for those wanting something low-fat. But I must admit there’s something very satisfying about making your own homemade dessert. Cheers!
I read somewhere that palacsinta can be made with sweet wine added to the batter. Its that true?
Thanks for the wonderful recipe! One trick to make the palacsinta lighter is to substitute 1/2 of the milk with soda water (i.e. 1 and 1/2 cup milk; 1 and 1/2 cup soda water).
Thanks for the recipe for the sweet cheese filling – I’m trying it out today! Yum
Thanks Cindy! Hope you enjoy it!
Hi there. I have been searching for a receipe from my youth. Our neighbours used to make Polychinkas (not sure if its spelled correctly) every once in a while and invite all their neighbours over to eat hoards of these delicious crepes. If I recall, they were filled with either honey, or maple syrup, or butter. I do recall something about icing sugar as well. Can anyone help me out? Thanks very much. Hector.
Hi Hector,
There are many different ways of making these crepes. Sometimes it can be confusing. Unfortunately, I’ve been heard of “polychinkas”. Using honey or a bit of butter as a filling is common but certainly not maple syrup. Other types of fillings can include jam, poppy seeds or quark cheese. Do you know if this is a Hungarian recipe? Best wishes.
My grandmother made palacsinta with a cottage cheese and dill filling for the adults. I know she used a dry curd, what she called “farmers” cheese. But I never learned the full recipe and can’t find one on the internet. As for us kids, we preferred lekvar, usually the apricot lekvar my aunt made.
My Hungarian mother made her filling with a small carton of DRY cottage cheese,1 egg yolk, 1 teaspoon vanilla and 3 Tablespoons of sugar.
I haven’t been able to find dry cottage cheese since I was a kid and the farmers cheese in the Detroit area is hard, not the soft kind that’s needed. Ricotta has the wrong flavor and is too runny so I usually use small curd cottage cheese and try draining with cheesecloth.
Crepes (nale?niki)
Famous to Hungary,Poland although French in origin.
I eat it with jam/confiture or whipped cream.Yummy.
I absolutely LOVE Palicsintas. My Hungarian grandmother used to make them by the truckload, usually with the sweet cottage cheese blend. Sometimes she would drizzle them with brandy, or strawberry/chocolate/blueberry sauce. It doesn’t matter what the filling is, though–the secret ingredient, silly as it sounds, was love. The care that she would take cooking them for her family was meticulous.