Chak-chak: A classic homemade recipe with honey

Step 1 – Prepare the dough

Before you begin preparing traditional Tatar chak-chak at home, you need to melt 50 grams of butter and let it cool to room temperature.

Let's start mixing the dough. Crack two large eggs into a bowl and whisk the whites and yolks until smooth.

Add a pinch of salt and 2.5 tablespoons of sugar to the egg mixture (the rest of the sugar will be used to make the syrup). Stir all ingredients until completely dissolved.

Add melted butter, cooled to room temperature, to the egg mixture and mix again until smooth.

Add approximately 250 grams of sifted wheat flour and begin kneading until the dough is soft and airy. (We'll need the remaining flour for the final kneading and dusting the surface when rolling out the dough.)

When the soft dough is ready and the flour has absorbed all the liquid, add another 2 tablespoons of flour and continue kneading the dough with your hands (first in a bowl, then on a floured surface), obtaining a denser, more elastic consistency.

Cover the finished dough with a bowl and let it “rest” for about 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, knead the dough a little more and divide it into 2 parts.

Cover the bowl again and let the dough rest for 10 minutes.

Roll out the first part of the dough into an even layer about 3 mm thick.

Generously dust each side with flour to prevent sticking, and begin cutting. First, cut the sheet into 3cm-wide strips.

Place the strips of dough on top of each other and cut them crosswise to form 3mm thick strips, traditional for the Tatar chak-chak recipe.

Roll out and cut the second portion of the dough in the same manner. Lightly dust the chak-chak pieces with flour and place them on a work surface to prevent them from sticking together.

Step 2 – Fry the chak-chak

Pour vegetable oil into a cauldron and heat it up.

We collect a small amount of dough pieces in a metal sieve, first removing all excess flour from their surface by shaking them in our hands or in the sieve.

Place the dough in hot oil and fry until golden brown, stirring constantly with a wooden spatula.

As soon as the dough turns golden brown, remove it from the oil and transfer it to a bowl.

We fry all the available dough straws in this way.

Step 3 – Prepare the syrup

Heat 140 grams of natural honey in a saucepan.

When the honey becomes liquid, add all the remaining sugar according to the recipe.

Bring the mixture to a boil and remove from the stove.

Continue stirring vigorously until the foam thickens and becomes full of small bubbles. This indicates that the syrup is ready.

Step 4 – Forming the hill

Immediately pour the hot syrup over the fried pieces of dough, stirring them with a spatula to ensure the filling is distributed as evenly as possible and that it soaks better.

We immediately place the finished chak-chak in a pile on a plate.