Tayglach is a traditional Ashkenazi dessert, whose name loosely translates to “little dough” in Yiddish. Made of enriched, eggy dough balls boiled in a honey syrup, tayglach is often served during Rosh Hashanah. While the recipe is time consuming (and often messy), it is a deceptively simple dish to make. It also happens to be insanely delicious.
The trick to tayglach is to cook them slowly in the syrup, to prevent the sugar in the honey from burning. This recipe uses chopped pecans, though walnuts and dried fruit are also often added to the syrup. Serve them as is, or add them to muffin liners, for an easy grab-and-go dessert. These tayglach are shaped by cutting the dough into small pieces, but some people prefer to tie small pieces of dough into knots before boiling. Whichever way suits you to serve them, these tayglach will be a hit this sweet new year.
Tayglach
These honey-drenched doughy egg balls are the perfect dessert for Rosh Hashanah.
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: serves 8–10 1x
Ingredients
- 3 large eggs
- 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- 1 Tbsp whiskey or rum
- ½ tsp baking powder
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ tsp sea salt
- 2 cups honey
- ¼ cup sugar
- ½ cup water
- 2 Tbsp lemon juice
- ½ cup pecans, chopped
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, combine the eggs, oil, vanilla, cinnamon and whiskey.
- Add the baking powder, flour and sea salt, mixing with a wooden spoon until a dough forms.
- Knead on a lightly floured surface for about 2-3 minutes until it becomes a workable dough.
- Divide into 4 pieces, and roll each piece into a 9-10-inch rope, about ½ inch wide. Use a small knife to cut ½ inch pieces, transferring to a baking tray in a single layer. Repeat with remaining dough.
- Over medium heat, bring the honey and sugar to a boil in a medium pot.
- Reduce the heat to a low simmer, and add the dough balls, a few at a time, shaking in between each addition (this helps reduce sticking).
- Cover, simmer and shake occasionally, cooking for 30 minutes, or until amber in color.
- Use a slotted spoon to remove the tayglach and place onto a lined baking tray.
- Bring the syrup to a boil, then add the water and lemon juice, mixing until thickened slightly. Stir in the pecans.
- Drizzle the syrup over the tayglach and serve warm. If making in advance, add the tayglach to a container, then pour the syrup and nuts over top.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Holiday
Can I leave out the nuts or is there something I can substitute?
Wow, I want some, now. Lol all the way to the cooling tray.
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Am i remembering correctly that the sticky tayglach were molded into a mound or pyramid …. And perhaps sliced with a serrated knife into individual portions? I don’t remember the name tayglach..but I think this was served at my friend’s Rosh Hashanah meal. ??????
Yes, it is often served in a mound!
Can’t wait to try this for the Holiday. My Mother always sent me to the bakery for Tayglach for me and Grandpa. I will always remember those wonderful days!
Terry Levine Pesca
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A hack to make EASY tayglach— use soup nuts instead of making the dough. They come out incredibly light, and you can also find GF soup nuts!!
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Beyond back so many memories from my childhood. My Bubbe (great grandmother) would make a bunch of these for the holiday.
If you used the soup nuts instead of making the dough how do you get the same flavor which calls for vanilla, cinnamon, rum or whiskey? Is the combo of honey, sugar, and pecans enough to give the same flavor?
There are no soup nuts in this recipe.
I remember helping my grandmother make tayglach every year. She always made enough to mail some to her daughter in California and family in New York.
There is a custom not to eat nuts (particularly walnuts and probably pecans which are basically a variety of walnuts) on Rosh Hashanah so I am surprised that you suggest adding pecans to the syrup.
As a small child I remember there were two kinds of tayglach. One was the”dry” kind and the other was the “wet” kind. My grandmother in Chicago always sent me the dryer kind in a large cookie tin all the way to Montreal. My other grandmother lived
in Montreal and always brought me the wet kind. I loved them both. Those were the best part of the holidays..
if you use soup nuts, do you follow the directions to boil in honey, etc.
There are no soup nuts in this recipe.
When I was a little girl, I got to pick whatever I wanted for my “birthday cake”. One Bubbe made strawberry shortcake, and the other Bubbe made tayglach! The best!!!
This brings back memories of my Bubbie making a plateful for the holidays. It rose like a pyramid and looked so fancy and beautiful. As a little girl, though, I found it too sweet to eat very much. And, it wasn’t chocolate! Thank you for the recipe. I have t seen another one. I may just try it!
My favorite! For some reason my grandmother made this at Chanukah???? She would make a giant bowl of it. By the end of a week, the honey had hardened and we would attack the bowl with a sharp knife. Didn’t matter, it still tasted great. I put powdered ginger in dough and syrup in my version. And whatever syrup is left after I take out balls, I use to make tzimmus with carrots.
I serve them in individual foil cupcake liners. I place them in a tiered, cupcake holder.
My aunt Sally made the best taylach during my childhood she always said it was so difficult. But somehow always made some for me. God how I miss those days.
What steps should be added if you want to make this in a mound?
Auntie Hettie was the Tayglach maker in our family. Absolutely delicious. We can buy commercially produced ones here (Cape Town), but they aren’t a patch on Auntie Hettie’s.
My grandmother added chopped maraschino cherries. The bright red bits always added to the joy of tayglach!
I have never heard of the no walnuts on Rosh Hashanah. Here’s where it comes from: The Rama (Orach Chaim 583:2) writes that some avoid eating egozim (walnuts) on Rosh Hashanah. This is because the gematria (numerical value) of the Hebrew word “egoz” is the same as the numerical value of the word cheit (sin). Additionally, nuts cause an increase in phlegm which can disturb one’s prayers.
My great Tante Sarah (72 years ago) made each taygle by hand. She would envelope each piece of dough around a nut. She would make a TOTALLY separate batch, though, for my brother, AJ, obm. As Tante’s ainakel (little boy) had a nasty nut allergy, he would receive 3 raisins in each of his taygel.
I can see and smell it NOW! What magnificent memories!
Now it is my turn to build memories for MY ainakel (grandson, Elias).
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My great aunt made it with some shredded coconut also. She put individual portions into cupcake wraps to make it easier to serve and less sticky to handle. What a joy tagluch was.
I’m the grandmother who has not made these for years, since coming to the USA from SA!
I’d love to try Blanche F’s version using soup nuts and introduce a “new” tradition to my great grand children.
Any possibility of getting the recipe and especially the method she uses?
thank you
My grandmother used to wrap a raisin in the dough, no nuts. She also used to bake the pieces of dough before adding them to the honey. Made the pieces crunchy. Thanks for sharing.
My grandaunt Sylvia was the families’ tayglach maker. She was famous for them. About 2 weeks before the holiday, she would prepare them, little dough balls, and some chopped nuts. She would put them in pint-sized or quart-sized, jar with dark honey which would soak into the outside layers for those two weeks. Oh so good. No one ever got the rescipe. Have missed that treat for years!
I’ve made the soup nuts version. Don’t bother, it’s terrible.
Mrs. Rosenberg (what we called my cousins’s step-grandma) made the most wonderful taiglach-individual balls, although they stuck together of dense dough, filled with walnuts and flavored with a very spicy honey plus ginger. I have never had anything like them since and her recipe has been lost. Maybe this one could be a start? add a little powdered ginger? They were the best!!!
My beloved Grandma Fanny made her Tayglach with Hazelnuts as the decorative addition.
Decades ago I taught cooking classes at a residential treatment center in Nyack NY and all the kids there loved making Tayglach. And eating it! Happy New Year.
My step-grandmother made taiglach for Chanukah. She gave it to us in plastic containers with small chunks of cooked dough in a thin honey syrup. I think there were several types of nuts, like filbert and pecan. It was definitely not in mounds