Traditional Recipe of Ballakume
March 14, 2016 2022-10-04 10:27Traditional Recipe of Ballakume

Traditional Recipe of Ballakume
“Summer Day” (“Dita e Veres”) on March 14th it’s a traditional holiday of my birth-town Elbasan; even though lately it’s been celebrated all over Albania. This day welcomes the entering of Spring. Ballakume is it’s traditional dessert and we couldn’t miss this chance. I’m posting the traditional family recipe inherited from generations. Hope you enjoy and take your time to cook such great recipe. Sorry I couldn’t take pictures as usual, but I hope the instructions will be helpful to you.
Ingredients :
1 kg sugar
1 kg without a fist corn flour (that fist will be replaced with a fist of wheat flour) plus have some extra corn flour in hands
7 normal eggs (or 8 small ones)
500 gram old cow/ship butter (matured)
fire ash (finjë)
Method:
Preheat oven to 180°C
Line few baking sheets with parchment paper
Melt the butter and filter it through a sieve
In a large bowl whisk together the lukewarm melted butter with sugar for 20-30 minutes
Add the eggs one at a time, beating each for 5 minutes
Add the flour fist by fist while you’re whisking
Mix it until you have a homogeneous batter
Add 2 table spoons of fire ash (finje) to a glass of water and wait for the ash to precipitate at the end of it
Fill the half of an empty egg shell with water from what’s left on top of glass
Add it to the batter
Keep blending until a homogeneous mass it’s created
How to : Take some batter and put on the hot stove to see if it’s ready. If it melts, it’s not ready yet so add more flour to it. Try the same, until the batter it’s ready (until the batter wont melt into the hot stove)
Divide the batter into balls
Make sure to put them apart from each-other
Bake Ballakume for about 45 minutes or until golden brown
Let them cool completely
Photography by Eranda Janku, unless otherwise statedÂ