Poppy Seed Buns with Soft Enriched Yeast Dough
When I was little, before holidays my grandmother baked homemade bread, pirozhki and buns with poppy seeds, apples, farmer's cheese and all sorts of other fillings. The coziness of home, a well-stoked stove in the kitchen and mesmerizing burning logs. Fresh homemade baking with milk still warm from the cow completed the happy chaos of early childhood.
We usually don't stop to tell poppy seed buns and poppy seed pirozhki apart. And it hardly matters, especially when you're a kid. I always thought a pirozhok is when there's lots of tasty filling, at least half the volume, like in cottage cheese vatrushki. Poppy seed buns, on the other hand, are very soft enriched dough with just a little filling.
The tastiest poppy seed buns are made from enriched dough. Enrichment means various additions to the dough that greatly improve the flavor and nutritional value of the baking: dairy, fats, sweeteners, eggs and all kinds of dried fruit, raisins, dried apricots, nuts and so on. Enriched dough can be leavened with yeast or unleavened.
To bake poppy seed buns, you need poppy seeds. Long ago my grandmother grew poppies in the garden, and nobody minded, until a certain widespread social problem appeared. At first the poppies simply disappeared overnight, and then growing them was banned altogether. Still, you could buy poppy seeds cheaply, sold “by the glass,” as they used to say.
Sweet poppy seed buns are soft yeast dough, a little poppy seed filling and a short bake. It looks tricky, but the dough is simple, and the buns bake as quickly as kefir muffins.
Most homemade baking uses wheat flour. The dough can vary, from unleavened, as for sesame buns, to flaky, as for apple strudel, but you always need high-quality flour. We bake our poppy seed buns and sweet buns from a well-risen yeast dough with a fairly generous amount of enrichment; that way they taste better.
Ingredients
6-10 buns
- Wheat flour up to 4 cups
- Poppy seeds 100 g
- Instant dry yeast (mixed into flour) 5 g
- Milk 250 ml
- Eggs 2
- Butter 150 g
- Sugar 3 tbsp
- Salt, vanillin to taste
Step-by-step recipe
- Before making the buns, take the eggs, butter and milk out of the fridge ahead of time so they come to room temperature. It's best to sift the flour beforehand to get rid of lumps, bits of bran and other debris. Sifting also aerates the flour, which is good for the dough.
- Put 2-2 1/2 cups of flour into a large bowl, keeping some back for kneading and shaping the buns. Add 1 tbsp sugar, a pinch of vanillin, 1/2 tsp fine “extra” salt and the instant dry yeast. Instant yeast is usually sold in 11 g sachets, so you'll need half a sachet. Note that you need the kind of yeast that's mixed straight into dry flour, not the kind for a sponge starter. Mix the flour thoroughly with a fork so all the dry ingredients are combined.
- Pinch off a small piece of butter, literally 1 tsp, for greasing the pan or baking sheet for the buns. You'll also need a piece of about 30-35 g for the poppy seed filling. Melt the rest of the butter, but don't let it get hot. Warm the milk slightly in the microwave for 30-45 seconds. Add one egg, the melted butter and 1 cup of milk to the flour mixture.
- Knead the dough for the poppy seed buns. Add flour in small portions until the dough is elastic, soft and doesn't stick to your hands at all. Knead the dough very thoroughly by hand on the counter. It's important that the dough is very smooth, without lumps, and stretches well under its own weight.
- Shape the dough into a ball. Dust a deep bowl with a little flour and put the dough in it. Cover the bowl with a cloth and leave in a warm place for 1 1/2 hours. Then knead the dough by hand again and leave it in a warm place for 30 minutes. Yeast dough rises very well, and it may seem like there's too much of it.
- There are many opinions on how to make poppy seed filling. When my grandmother baked poppy seed pies, she steeped the poppy seeds in boiling water. Also, to avoid ending up with an omelet, she didn't add eggs to the filling. It's all very simple. Toast the poppy seeds a little in a dry frying pan until you get a light, pleasant aroma. Then pour boiling water over them for 6-8 minutes. Longer is fine, but not less: the poppy seeds need to swell.
- Drain the water from the steeped poppy seeds or, even better, strain it through a cloth. Grind the poppy seeds any way you like: in a mortar, with a blender or even a meat grinder. Since there aren't many poppy seeds, I used an immersion blender. Add 2 tbsp sugar to the ground poppy seeds, or to taste.
- Mix the poppy seed filling well until the sugar dissolves. Taste the filling. If it doesn't seem sweet enough, go ahead and add more. The buns should have a sweet poppy seed filling. Then add the piece of softened butter, that 30-35 g, and grind again. To make the filling easier to spread on the dough, you can add a little milk, literally 1-2 tbsp.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured linen cloth; the dough won't stick to it while rolling. Knead the ball of dough a little by hand. Then roll it out with a rolling pin into a sheet 6-7 mm thick. Try to make the rolled dough as close to a rectangle as possible.
- Spread the poppy seed filling evenly over the dough. Don't try to spread a thick, even layer: we're making buns, not filled pirozhki. Leave a 1-1.5 cm strip without filling along the long edges, as the ends will be cut off.
- Carefully lifting the linen cloth at the short end of the dough, roll the filled sheet up into a log. You can press the dough a little with your hands to give it an even cylindrical shape.
- Even out the rolled log with your hands and trim the ends with a very sharp knife to get a neat cylinder. Then grease a baking sheet or glass ovenproof dish with a little butter. Figure out how many pieces to cut the log into. Usually the buns are as long as they are wide.
- Lay the buns in the greased pan on their sides, not cut side up the way cinnamon rolls are laid. You can leave gaps between them or pack them tightly, as the baked buns separate easily with a knife. Cover the pan or baking sheet with a cloth and leave in a warm place for 30 minutes. In that time the buns will grow a little and get fluffier.
- Crack the second egg into a cup and beat it with a fork. Brush the top of each bun with egg. Preheat the oven to 190-200°C and put the pan in.
- The buns bake for 30-40 minutes. In that time the dough will definitely bake through and the tops will brown. If needed, the poppy seed buns can stay in the oven longer. You can get them as golden as you like without worrying about burning. To check doneness, use a toothpick: the classic skewer test.
- Take the golden buns out of the oven and separate them with a knife. Put the sweet poppy seed buns on a plate or in a wicker basket and cover with a cloth napkin or towel. Let the buns cool.
- And now the long-awaited moment: time for tea. Besides tea, poppy seed buns are lovely with warm cherry kissel or fresh warm milk. Don't cover the buns with plastic or make them ahead; they should only be eaten fresh.
| Serves: | 6-10 buns |
| Calories: | 310 |
| Prep: | 2 h |
| Cook: | 1 h |
| Total: | 3 h |
| Category: | Baking |
| Cuisine: | European |
| Rating: |
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