Kuchli
Kuchli with Lots of powdered sugar
Here is a recipe passed down from generation to generation and goes back in our family here in the US to the mid 1800's when our ancestors came over from Switzerland. How long it was handed down before that I don't know. I am not sure if it is still spelled correctly and all the web searches I have done on trying to find a similar cookie has come up in dead ends.. So all I can tell you is this is an amazing cookie similar to Italian Angel wings or Polish Chrusciki. Deep fried and covered in powdered sugar (a bit heavier in these pictures as Ariana took her job very seriously).
Ingredients
Kuchli Ingredients
This cookie has very simple ingredients but has many parts so it isn't for the faint of heart. Between rolling 100+ balls then once chilled taking these same balls and rolling each one out until it is paper thin and you can see the counter underneath. This requires a lot of patience and man power so if you have extra hands in the house get them involved too to help share the work load. For this batch I had our whole family, Mom and Bob who came up to visit us for the weekend!
Ingredients
1 Pound Butter (4 sticks), Melted
4 Eggs
1/2 Tablespoon Salt (or omit if using salted butter)
1 Cup Wine (any flavor or kind - I used old Shiraz I had on hand)
1 Cup Sugar
1/2 Pound Almonds (8 oz), ground fine
9 Cups Flour
2 Cups Confectioners Sugar
You will also need 2 cans of Vegetable Shortening (crisco) as well as a roll or two of paper towel
Ingredients
1 Pound Butter (4 sticks), Melted
4 Eggs
1/2 Tablespoon Salt (or omit if using salted butter)
1 Cup Wine (any flavor or kind - I used old Shiraz I had on hand)
1 Cup Sugar
1/2 Pound Almonds (8 oz), ground fine
9 Cups Flour
2 Cups Confectioners Sugar
You will also need 2 cans of Vegetable Shortening (crisco) as well as a roll or two of paper towel
Step 1 - Making the dough
Melted butter and Sugar
In a small pan, melt butter. Add the melted butter to the sugar in a large mixing bowl and mix until blended. Add eggs and wine, blending until mixed. In a food processor grind the whole almonds until they turn into a fine flour. Add this to the butter mixture and mix well. Add the flour until mixer starts to struggle with mixing. At this point remove dough from the bowl and begin to knead any remaining flour into dough. Keep kneading, and kneading, and kneading until your hands are no longer greasy. This is one step that helps to have extra people on the Kuchli crew as they can help with kneading the dough
Step 2 - Rolling dough into balls
Rolling the walnut sized balls
Once your hands are grease free the dough is ready and it is time to roll it into balls. The recipe recommends keeping the balls about walnut sized. My Grandmother and Great Aunt had this down to a science and said that this recipe should yield roughly 120 balls. This batch we ended up with 101 so some of our balls were bigger then they were supposed to be. No problem as they all taste the same. Now it is time to let them chill for a few hours either in the refrigerator or outside if it is cold out.
Step 3 - Rolling out the balls
Rolling out the balls of dough
Once the dough is chilled, prepare your work area or in our case work areas with a pile of already separated paper towels, a rolling pin and a few of the dough balls. Begin rolling the dough out into a circular shape until paper thin. In our case until we could easily see the grain in the counter top.
Now gently lift the rolled dough and place it onto one of the sheets of paper towel. Repeat 100 more times :D or if you have a crew you can break it up so that everyone helps to roll out the dough balls. I can usually get 4 cookies per sheet of paper towel.
Step 4 - Preparing to Fry
Prepping the table for a cooling station
Ok so now that you have the hardest labor part of the cookies behind you, it is time to prepare for frying the cookies. Our technique is as follows: We line our diningroom table with first newspaper then a layer of paper towels over the top. We then line up the cooling racks onto one side of the table. This will be the dripping/drying spot for the cooked cookies once they come out of the hot oil. The cookies will be brought over and put onto the racks. Once totally cooled powdered sugar will be sprinkled over the top of the cookies and then the cookies will be moved over to the right side of table. This makes more room for the next hot batch to cool down.
It is time to melt the shortening. I use my turkey pan over medium low heat and I use about 1 1/2 cans of the shortening to get enough oil to fry in. While this is melting make your transport pan which is a baking sheet with a cooling rack in it. This is used to put the cooked cookies on to bring them to the table for final cooling.
Step 5 - Frying the cookies
Starting to fry
Once the oil is melted, test to see if it ready to fry in. This is done by dropping a piece of one of the cookies into the hot fat to see if it sinks then floats. If the piece comes right up to the surface and stays afloat, then the fat is ready. Begin by gently placing cookies into the hot fat usually 3 or 4 at a time. Allow the cookie to fry until the edges start to brown. Then using tongs flip the cookie over to cook on the other side. Once the cookies are brown, remove from the hot fat and place onto the transport tray. Have a team member then carry these cooked cookies to the main table to cool completely.
Now repeat process until all cookies are fried... :D