Cheese Pogatschen – Sajtos pogácsa

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 100 ml milk
• 1 tsp, heaped sugar
• 1 cube of fresh yeast
• 500 g wheat flour
• 200 g sour cream
• 250 g butter or margarine, not reduced-fat
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 egg(s)
• 1 tbsp, heaped lard
• 150 g Gouda, grated
• 1 egg yolk for brushing
• 50 g Gouda, grated, for sprinkling
• Caraway seeds

Instructions

Working time approx. 2 hours; Rest time approx. 1 hour 40 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 25 minutes; Total time approx. 4 hours 5 minutes

from Hungarian cuisine

For the yeast dough to turn out well, all ingredients must be at room temperature. Warm the milk slightly in the microwave; it should only be lukewarm! Stir in the sugar and crumble in the yeast. Cover the mixture with a saucer and let it swell. Sift the flour, add softened butter piece by piece, and mix until everything is slightly crumbly, similar to butter crumbles. Add the egg, salt, lard, sour cream, Gouda cheese, and yeast milk. Use your hands or a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook to make a very smooth dough. Preheat the oven to 50°C (top/bottom heat). Knead the dough thoroughly with your hands again, dust with a very small amount of flour, and cover with a clean cloth. Let it rise in the oven for 40 minutes. Turn off the oven and close the door before placing it in the oven to retain the heat. Line a baking sheet with baking paper. Dust a pastry board with a little flour and roll out the dough with a rolling pin to about 1cm thick. Dust with a little flour every now and then to prevent it from sticking. Mentally divide the dough into three parts and fold the first third lengthwise, then place the third third over the first third. Now repeat the process from the short side. Cover the dough and let it rest for about 20 minutes. Then repeat the process of rolling out, folding, and letting it rest two more times. After the third time, roll out the dough again to a thickness of about 1 cm and use a round cutter (a small glass with a diameter of about 2-4 cm will also work) to cut out the pogaschen and place them next to each other on the baking sheet, making sure they don’t touch. Knead the remaining dough again, roll it out, and cut it out until there is no more dough left. Beat the egg yolk and brush the surface of all the pogaschen with it. Spread the grated cheese on top and finally sprinkle with caraway seeds. Bake the pogaschen at 190°C (top/bottom heat, please do not use fan-assisted oven) for about 25 minutes. I let the pastries rest on the baking sheet for a while before baking, then they rise a little more. I always preheat the oven only after I’ve got the first batch on the baking sheet. Depending on the size of the cutters, you can make 30-40 pogachen from this amount of dough. They taste great as tea cakes or with a hearty stew instead of bread or rolls.