Ethnic Cuisine At Home-Russian Vatrushka Buns! #Recipe #Russian

Recently M and I decided that we're going to start trying out various ethnic meals once a week. Yesterday was my first attempt at a true ethnic meal (sure, I've made Chinese and Mexican before, but who hasn't?), and I opted for Russian. Most of our family loves the Mexican style stuffed peppers, so I thought Russian Stuffed Peppers would be an easy start. This is basically a meal in itself, so we didn't need a side dish. I also found a recipe for dessert, a sweet roll filled with fruit, called Vatrushka buns. Let me just say first that if all the meals turn out as well as this one did, I'll be super happy!

Rising after being filled

Egg wash and crumb mixture

I started the Vatrushka buns earlier in the day, because you're back and forth working with the dough over a span of several hours. The actual time you're working with it isn't long, but altogether there's about 4 hours of rising and bake time. The recipe I had called for fresh cherries, but those are nowhere to be found around here right now, so I used a bag of frozen dark sweet cherries with no sugar added. Unfortunately I failed to take pictures during the process of making the dessert until the end, but I did get pictures of the finished product. Believe me, they look amazing, and they taste even better! I had requests to try them with various fruits next time (blackberry, apple, raspberry), and add some cream cheese filling (to make it more like a danish) or drizzle some icing on top.

Ready to bake...

All done and ready to eat!

So, if you too would like to try some amazing Vatrushki, then here's a basic recipe. Remember, you can swap out the cherries for basically any fruit of your choice. Next week I'll share the Russian Stuffed Pepper recipe as well, so you can have a complete Russian meal!

Vatrushka Ingredients:
1 cup Warm Milk (about 100 degrees)
1/2 tablespoon Yeast
4 tablespoons Sugar, divided
3 1/4 cups Flour, divided
1 Egg
1 tablespoon Butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1 Egg, beaten for egg wash

1 bag Frozen Sweet Cherries
1/4 cup Sugar

4 tablespoon Butter, diced or grated
1 tablespoon Sugar
1/2 cup Flour

Instructions:
Pour warm milk into a bowl, sprinkle yeast on top and let sit 7 minutes. Stir in 1/2 cup flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, and whisk until blended. Let sit in a warm oven (no more than 100 degrees) for 20 minutes. Whisk in egg, remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, melted butter, and salt. Use the dough hooks on an electric mixer and mix in flour, 1 cup at a time. Make sure it is fully mixed in before adding more. Dough is done when it pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Cover bowl and let rise in a warm oven (100 degrees) for one hour, or until tripled in size. Remove from bowl, cut in half, repeat  with each piece, until you have a total of 16 pieces. Roll into balls with your hands, and place in a buttered ban (9x13 or 10x15 should work just right). Use a small glass to create a "well" in the center of each ball, place 3-4 cherries in each well. Sprinkle each one with 1/2 teaspoon sugar. Let rise in a warm oven for 20 minutes. While rising, create your crumb/streusel mixture by combining diced butter, tablespoon of sugar, and 1/2 cup of flour until crumbs form. Brush buns with egg wash, then sprinkle crumb  mixture over the rolls. Bake at 360 for 20 minutes or until tops are a nice golden brown. You can serve hot out of the oven (the best!), room temperature, or reheat in the microwave for 20-30 seconds.