Traditional Romanian Pastries: Cornulețe

Currently in Romania is the fasting period before Christmas meaning that the people are eating a plant based diet, so most of the „normal” recipes are turned into vegan ones, speaking of which you can find more here: 10 vegan traditional Romanian foods that you should try when you visit our country Today my mother cooked a Romanian traditional dessert called in our language „cornulețe”. These pasteries are very popular in Romania being often served during main holidays, especially on Christmas. 

The original recipe is not vegan because the batter is made with the animal fat coming from pigs, but Romanians figured out a solution of making “cornulețe” in a plant based way which in my opinion is even more delicious then the original one. We name the dessert “Cornulețe” because the pastry looks like a croissant but in a smaller version.

I’ve been eating this pastry since I was a child and I am sure that many Romanians who are older than me can say that one of their childhood dessert was “cornulețe”. The ingredients needed may vary from a household to another and from region to region, but mainly they are filled with plum jam combined with walnuts and on top of them is sprinkled fine vanilla sugar.

Today my mother cooked over 100 cornulețe – just because we are a big family and we also give away – and the ingredients needed were the following:

• 500 grams of margarine

• 1500 grams of flour

• 200 ml of oat milk – I guess you can use any kind of plant milk

• 100 grams of yeast

• 100 grams of sugar and another 100 grams of fine sugar

• 4 packets of vanilla sugar

• Peel of a one lemon

• 4 tablespoons of vinegar

• 200 ml of mineral water

• 1 jar of homemade plum jam

  

As you can notice, the amount of each ingredient is high, but if you want to make the recipe for a fewer pastries, you just have to shrink the amounts in half and so on.

The first step is to heat the old milk and add the yeast in it so the yeast will melt. To the mixture add the sugar and 2 tablespoons of flour and set it aside for about 15 minutes so it will develop and rise.

In a large bowl, pour the flour, the slightly melted margarine, the lemon peel, the vanilla sugar, the vinegar and 200 ml of mineral water. After the yeast mixture had grown you can add it here too. Now you can mix everything together until you get a dough that does not stick to the hands. If the batter is too soft, add more flour. Cover the bowl with foil and leave in the refrigerator for 1 hour or until the next day.

Then spread the dough and cut as in the image below. 

Cook over moderate heat approximately for 20 minutes. When the “cornulețe” are starting to crack is a sign that they are cooked. In the end, you can powder the pastries with fine sugar and enjoy the "cornulețe" as they are warm and soft. 

Photo gallery