Steamed Sweet Dumplings (Buchty na Pare)
Ingredients: leavened dough, plum jam, butter, poppy seeds, ground walnuts, powdered sugar
Prep Time: 30 minutes (not counting time to prepare the dough)
I have a sweet tooth. This ought to be apparent to anyone by simply looking at the ratio of recipes in the Sweets category compared to the rest of the site. Unfortunately this is also apparent to my dentist. But it’s so hard not to like sweets, when Slovak cuisine is full of them. One of my favorites are sweet dumplings (buchty) on steam (na pare), which I show you how to prepare in this recipe. This is another dish I helped with at my grandma’s.
Start by rolling out the leavened dough to about 3 mm thin. Then using a knife or the circular dough cutting tool, cut out squares about 2×2 inches. Place a spoonful of thick plum jam (slivkový lekvár) in the middle. Pinch the dough together in one spot and work your way around accordion style to make the dumpling.
Alternatively, you can pinch together the diagonal ends. Form into a ball.
Place the dumplings aside, and fill a large pot with water. Make sure you have a lid for it. Then place a cloth over the top and tie it around with a string.
Then once the water is boiling place the dumplings on the cloth. Cover and let steam for about 12 minutes.
Carefully remove buchty from the steam and brush on melted butter. Then top with sweet ground poppy seeds or ground walnuts mixed with sugar.
Serve as main course for lunch or dinner. I particularly like this dish after a bowl of chicken noodle soup. Dobrú chuť!
Oooo, my grandma Bozenka (Devosova) Beregzazi used to make these in the farmhouse kitchen in southern Alberta. And she also made the best chicken soup in the world! I bought a poppy seed grinder last Christmas 2009 and my kids had poppy seed noodles for the first time in years! What a missing treat here and we’re bringing it to Canada AGAIN!
Enjoyed the recipes, while I am not of slovak heritage, my husband is and enjoys slovak food. Do you have a recipe for Knedle. While visiting relatives in Slovakia last year, I tried to learn the secrets of knedle. However, I have not had luck making it here in the USA. I know that the flour is different in Slovakia than we have in our regular grocery stores.
Thanks Nancy! Yup, I do. It was one of the first recipes I prepared for this site. I made it using the regular all-purpose flour (Gold’s brand, I believe):
http://www.slovakcooking.com/2009/recipes/steamed-dumpling-parena-knedla/
I just found out about your website and it sure looks good. Today I made Cesky goulash and it was very good.
Ahoj
Darinka
I used to make these with my mamicka. They are my favorite. Thank you for sharing our wonderful traditions. I was taught by a dash and a pinch, never measurements. It is good to be able to give my daughter exact measurments now. Dobru Chut!
please can buy buchty in store. thanks richard
I make my Babka’s Buchty dough in my bread machine and then just do the same/similar steps as above for the Buchty. My Babka came to live with us several times for the winter (since winter is so cold in Slovakia) so she and I worked side by side she did a mug of this, pinch of that and I measured/weighed it and wrote it down.
My bread machine making the dough for me and makes it a recipe that before I made maybe once a year, to a recipe I can make once a month! This is my boys favorite dish and they beg for it all the time!
OH, you can make perfect plum jam by taking the dried plums in the grocery dried fruit section and putting them in a bowl with boiling water. Pour 1/2-1 cup of boiling water over them (depends on how many dried plums you have. You want them just barely covered in hot water) and let them sit overnight. For a quicker method, do the same amounts as above but cook them on low until they are soft and mushy, maybe 10-15 min. The plums will absorb the water and turn soft and you just mash them up to make a jam and add a touch of lemon juice. Plums are super sweet so you don’t need to add additional sugar. Just store in a jar in the frig and it will keep for a long time.
I also fill my Buchty with canned peaches. just a little cube or two. I use the little snack size cups of diced peaches as opening a can of peaches is too much.
We have been making these in my family ever since I was a little girl. I now make them and the receipe that I use is from my Great Great grandmother which calls for the dough to rise three times. We also eat a meal of chicken soup first… must be a slovak tradition.
I have also varied this receipe slightly by adding apricot jame and raspberry jam.
I love this website…It takes me back to my childhood when I spend all my summer/winter holidays with grandparents and they used to cook all this lovely dishes…
These are delicious !! My mother also used baking powder dough that she rolled out and filled with fresh cherries (šerešne) or plums (slievky). A twist on these dumplings are Guliváry !! Yeast dough filled with fruit or jam and after cooking, covered in ground poppy seeds mixed with powered sugar !! Dobrú chut !!
Yes Cynthia, čerešne and slivky. Also good.
I used to watch my babka making these in Hostovice, Slovakia. The trick in making the buchty na pare perfectly round without jam getting everywhere is to do it as follows:
1. roll out the dough into a rectangle
2. take a small cup and mark circles on 1st half of the rolled dough
3. place jam in the middle of the marked circles
4. fold the 2nd half of the dough over the 1st half
5. with the same cup cut out the circular shapes over the folded dough.
You get perfect circles, the cutting wiht the cup seals the lower and upper part of the dough together with no messy jam… and your buchty na pare will look like your babka’s buchty.
Enjoy 🙂
I spend months trying to figure out why oh why my parena knedla or the buchty dough wouldn’t rise….tnanks to your step by step pictures,i finally managed to “roll” out my perfect dough.my little daughter really enjoyed the kneading process.anyway,the dough is rising in the oven and tomorrow we will have nungerian goulash with the dumplings
I spend months trying to figure out why oh why my parents knelda or the buchty dough wouldn’t rise….tnaks to your step by step pictures,i finally managed to “roll” out my perfect dough.my little daughter really enjoyed the kneading process.anyway,the dough is rising in the oven and tomorrow we will have nungerian goulash with the dumplings
Hi, my mother is slovakian and remembers her mother making a baked then steamed dumpling (a rich dough) rolled in honey, poppyseeds and sugar at Christmas and thought the name of it was opecansa. could this be the same thing only she didn’t fill hers? or is hers a different thing.
No, Nancy. It is not the same thing. Buchty na pare are large soft round buns filled with slivkovy lekvar and topped with melted butter, poppyseeds (grounded) and mixed with powder sugar. What your mother did was a Christmas sweet meal called opekance. Much smaller dumplings not filled with anything but the topping is the same. They are both yummy. 🙂
never mind! I just found the recipe I have been looking for for years. It is the next one on your page! Hurray! and thank you so much1
H AVEN’T HAD THESE SINCE BEFORE MY MOM DIED (1994).
This might be too old to recieve a response. But I’m confused on the step with the lid, is the cloth on top of the lid? or is the lid over the cloth with the buchty on the cloth?
Steamed home dumpling
http://www.mimibazar.sk/recept.php?id=3590
My grandma makes these every time I visit her, they are delcious!! Hers are a little diffrent, they are also sometimes filled with cottage cheese (tvaroh) and topped with a melted chocolate/cocoa powder sauce that is delicous!!!! You should definitely try it!