Meringue Cookies (Laskonky)
I hope you like sweets! Because these guys sure are sweet. But so delicious!
Staple of any Slovak pastry shop (cukráreň) are meringue “sandwiches” called laskonky. These have always been one of my favorites so I decided to try to recreate them. Just as a fun note, I made these for our somewhat non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Instead of turkey, we had the chicken on salt. And instead of a pie, we had laskonky. There is a number of different recipes, here I followed the one from varecha.sk.
Ingredients for the wafers: 5 egg whites, 300g (2 1/4 cups) powdered sugar, 75g (2/3 cups) ground nuts, 1 tablespoon flour
Cream: 75g (0.4 cups) granulated sugar, 2dL (0.8 cups) water, 3 tablespoons flour, 1/2 stick of Crisco or butter, 100g (0.4 cups) powdered sugar
Prep Time: about an hour plus 2 hours in the oven at 220F
First, let’s grind some nuts. Traditionally, walnuts should be used but I used almonds instead.
Next separate the egg whites and add powdered sugar.
Bring a pot of small amount of water to boil and place your bowl over the pot. Whisk the egg whites and sugar over the steam until you get a thick cream.
Finger lickin’ good! Add the nuts and flour and gently blend in.
Next, preheat the oven to 220F. That’s right, you want the oven to be quite “cold” since we will be drying the egg whites into meringue. Line several baking pans with parchment paper (important!) and then use an icing bag to to make discs about 1/4 inch thick. This part is super messy! Place in the oven and let dry for about 2 hours.
In the meantime, let’s make the cream. Just one note, there are multiple recipes for the cream, and honestly I wasn’t all that thrilled with this one. Some of the other ones called for nuts in the cream as well. Although I added little bit of nuts (the recipe didn’t call for any), next time I would use more. I also added two yolks, some of the other recipes called for all yolks to be used. So feel free to experiment. Some people even add rum into the cream.
Start by melting the granulated sugar into caramel.
Stir the flour into water and add to the caramel. Let dissolve and then let cool down. Once cold, add the shortening or butter and the powdered sugar. I also added two yolks and about a tablespoon of ground nuts despite the original recipe not calling for this. Slowly blend and don’t let get hot otherwise the butter will turn into liquid.
After about 2 hours, the meringue wafers should be ready to go. They will likely puff up a bit on top, so use a knife to cut off the puffs to get a flat top. Then make the “sandwiches”.
And that’s it. This recipe is actually fairly easy although quite messy. I found that you can store these pastries in the freezer, the filling doesn’t freeze and this will keep the filling fresh, plus they taste much better cold. Enjoy!
These laskonky are similar to French macarons. joyofbaking.com has a video about them. I will look for them next year in Slovakia. Thanks for continuing to post recipes.
Thanks for the tip, George!
My Slovak wife says that in her youth laskonky were just about the cheapest sweets in the cukrarens. She also says these days they are not so widely available.
Yeah that may be true. It seems that cukrárne (the plural form) of my youth have mostly disappeared. Now pastry shops are either similar to a coffee shop like Starbucks in that they offer a whole bunch of coffee products but only a handful of sweet pastries, or they are basically upscale pubs, with a fully-stocked bar and full of cigarette smoke. I don’t think it was legal to smoke in cukráreň when I was a kid since they were frequented by children. And they didn’t used to sell alcohol either.
I found them in several locations in Prague! (upscale bakery and ‘where the locals go’) They may be making a come-back.
Thanks Lubos! You are sooo clever!!! I adore Laskonky!!!
How does it translate? I know Laska is love…
My all time favorite thing in Slovakia – well next to hrusovice!
helene
Thanks Helene! Hmm, never thought of that association.
beautiful pictures!
Thanks!
ouch should I even start on this??? But I love it so much. I remember to go as a kid to cukraren (coffee shop)and buy them
Zuzi, definitely! 🙂 Turns out, laskonky are actually quite easy to make. The only thing is that they are really messy to make. The “sneh” is really sticky and using the icing bag to make the circles was bit of a disaster. As you can see in the photos, I had an icing bag which was open at one end, and I ended up with the stuff coming out of both ends. You will also need two people to help fill it case the bag sides kept sticking together. I held the bag open while Sandra helped stuff the inside. Some people just use circular cookie forms to make the shapes, I tried that too but it was even more involved and slower than using the bag.
http://www.akosatorobi.sk/video/1241/laskonky-recept-na-laskonky
http://www.dompo.sk/eshop/mlyncek-na-orechy-a-struhanku-p-497.html
grinder for nuts
Hi Lubos,
here is something you can use if you make laskonky often enough.
https://www.google.com/search?q=forma+na+laskonky
I needed one today, so I took a medium-sized vinyl cutting board about 3/8″ thick and used a hole saw to cut out the circles. Worked perfect…
http://www.azm.sk/eshop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=8080
darn it, it sounds good, though I think I would have a hart attack after eating all that butter and sugar
hey, it’s good and I am craving for it, but I have to say no!!!! 🙂
Yes, the amount of sugar is truly ridiculous. When I weighed the first batch, the one going to the egg whites, I was thinking that there surely must be a mistake in the recipe, that there is no way that the recipe would call for the ENTIRE measuring cup of sugar. Little did I know that I will be adding almost as much once again to make the cream.
the portuguese have a sweet like this, but the sugar and egg white is placed in a piping bag in candy colours too and piped on paper sheets and baked on the lowest point in the oven, its a bit sweet but one doesn’t normally have more than one bite as they are small,,sweet tooth anyone ? Querino
This was my favorite thing in the cukráreň when I was little. I tried making my own as well. I cut out oval shapes from some thick craft foam to make the stencil. I think your solution is good too 🙂
http://satchibento.tumblr.com/post/56331599900/homemade-laskonky-a-slovak-meringue-like-desert
Originally, hazelnuts should be used and filling should be real butter, icing sugar, egg yolks and nuts as well. Cukrarne later offered coconut laskonky too, but I never liked them
and forgot to mention few important tricks: bowl has to be totally clean, no traces of oil so I always wash it before using just to be sure. Egg whites have to have room temperature otherwise never turn into right consistency. Add a little bit of salt- helps making it thick.
Lubos, this looks great – I’d like to give it a try, but it sounds like you didn’t have much luck with the cream ont he first attempt. Have you found anything that works better? If there’s a recipe or link, I’d be appreciative. I was thinking that your strawberry foam might work, but I would like to be traditional – something that would be found in a cukráreň, so perhaps the strawberry foam would not be a good choice. Grateful for any advice – thanks! Ron
did you wash your hands after touching a food???
did you wash those dishes before using them agian???
These are my mother’s favorites and when we went to Prague, we tasted different variations in the different stores. My daughters say they resemble macarons… In any case, they are so wonderful we’ll have to make them again soon and feature them on our site as well.