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My Homemade Food Recipes & Tips

Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost)

March 26th, 2011 in Desserts by
Total cooking time: 1h 30min
Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost)

This pastry is very popular in countries of ex-USSR. The shape is what gave them their russian name – “hvorost” – which means “dry wood used to make a fire”. Ukrainian name – “khrustyky” – describes texture – which it very crisp.

I had troubles trying to figure out what english name to use for this dish. Even if there is an equivalent of it in cuisine of some english speaking country, I don’t know about it.

So, feel free to let me know if you have some ideas in this regard 🙂

Ingredients:


How to prepare, step-by-step:

  1. Prepare ingredients: amount of flour you need will vary, so be prepared to use more or less if needed:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 1
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 1
  2. Separate egg yolk from egg white (you will only need yolk for this recipe, here are some recipes for egg whites if you are interested):
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 2
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 2
  3. Pour about 2 cups of flour to the mixing bowl, make a small dip in the middle and add egg yolk:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 3
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 3
  4. Add sugar, if you like it more sweet you can do more than 1.5 tablespoons, just follow your taste:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 4
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 4
  5. Add 1/3 teaspoons of baking soda:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 5
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 5
  6. Add a table spoon of vegetable oil:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 6
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 6
  7. And about 3/4 of kefir cup:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 7
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 7
  8. Mix ingredients with a fork until you get dough:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 8a
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 8a
    Once dough is homogeneous, start mixing more flour in, spoon by spoon:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 8b
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 8b
    Until dough gets stiff enough to be kneaded, then dust place where you will be kneading dough with flour (I used wooden board) and pour dough over it:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 8c
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 8c
    Dust dough with flour and knead it with hands, add more flour if needed:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 8d
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 8d
    Knead dough until it stops sticking to hands:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 8e
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 8e
    Dust it with flour, cover with plastic wrap and let it rest for 15-20 mins:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 8f
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 8f
  9. Slice piece of dough and knead it a bit more (dust with flour if needed) and roll out into about 3 mm thin sheet, I usually make it wide and short, it is easier to make all pastries the same size that way:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 9
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 9
  10. Using a knife slice sheet into rectangles about 1 inch wide, length of them should be smaller then the cooking pot you will be using to fry pastries in:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 10
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 10
  11. To form a khrustyky pastry shape, cut a slit in the center of one dough rectangle (lengthwise):
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 11a
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 11a
    Take one side of the rectangle:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 11b
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 11b
    And pull it though the slit:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 11c
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 11c
    You will get something like this:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 11d
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 11d
  12. Repeat with the rest:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 11e
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 11e
  13. Warm up about 1.5-2 cups of vegetable oil in the narrow cooking pot (I used sauce pan) over moderate heat. Add several khrustyky pastries to the oil (they should float in the oil) and fry on one side until golden brown:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 12
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 12
  14. Then flip to the other side and fry until brown as well:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 13
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 13
  15. Move prepared pastries to the paper towel (if you have use slotted spoon to leave oil in the pot). Then repeat from 9 to step 14 for the rest of the dough:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 14
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 14
  16. Then arrange cooled down pastries on the big plate and season then with powdered sugar (a put a bit of powdered sugar in the small sieve and shake it over the plate):
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 15
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 15
  17. Serve as dessert:
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 16
    Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost) Recipe: Step 16
Enjoy!
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claudette cracklen
6 years ago

I have been making these for many years. I found a easier way to make them thin, I roll dough in rectangle loosely, cut strips and then pass them through a pasta machine. Save so much time and muscles and more even thickness.

Tina
6 years ago

I grew eating these, my mother or grandmother would make them by the case load. The only difference in my ” family recipe” is that my mother and my grandmother would have never used Kefir in any receipe, it wasn’t something they had at “home”. They did however use sourcream with a little milk added to it. Fresh out of the fryer just sugared or much later well cooled, they were a great munchie usualy at Christmas and Easter.

Miroslava
7 years ago

Hello Julia, I am a Czech woman and when searching for a celery root salad recipe I’ve found your very nice and inspiring website 🙂 Regarding your Khrustyky Pastry recipe I can say that Hungarians make very similar pastry named Csöröge fánk (i.e. rattle donut), for snaps try Google. In Poland you can take a taste of Faworki also named Chrusty. Faworki is the name of French origin (from faveur, that means a bow). In my country we are used to prepare a bit different pastry, see here: http://www.nejrecept.cz/recept/pivni-bozi-milosti-r1120 The dough is prepared with beer but I know another dough… Read more »

Levko
8 years ago

My mum makes them for me. I have made them with here. I am Ukrainian by decent and I call then khrust but I found they are called Ukrainian Khrusty/Verhuny – Crispy Twigs or Angel Wings and have seen them referred to as Bow Ties. I have seen them made by Greeks as well. I like the name Khrust. As it is a sweet dough it would be more likely to be Slavic than Mediterranean I would think in origin as Slavic people live in cold conditions and are preservative experts with sugar and salt. Most of the Greek desserts… Read more »

Ann Goy
8 years ago

Hello,
I am a an English woman living in Canada since 1967 and my Mother-in-Law who is Ukranian called Khrustyky (for my sake l think) “Sweet Nothings” of course now l do all of the traditional dishes and even speak the language somewhat

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