My college friend Zrinka was visiting me last week. Since I haven’t seen her for a while I have decided to make something special like this Poppy Seed Roulade. This is one of my favorite childhood pastry that I didn’t have a chance to eat very often due to tedious process of preparing poppy seed filling. Luckily, I found a pre-made poppy seed paste in my local Russian store. The paste makes everything easy without the sacrificing the taste. To keep the pastry moist and light I use farmer cheese dough instead of traditional yeast one.
Makes 2 loaves
Ingredients:
- 300 grams flour
- 200 grams soften margarine
- 250 grams farmer cheese
- ¼ tsp. salt
- ½ tsp. sugar
- ½ tsp. baking powder
- 8 Tbs. prepared poppy seed paste
Directions
Make the dough
Using a fork combine together soften
margarine and farmer cheese in a big bowl. In a separate bowl mix dry ingredients such as flour, salt,
sugar and baking powder. Add vanilla extract. Incorporate the dry mixture into
the first bowl using the mixer. Finish the dough by knitting on a lightly
floured surface. The dough come out soft , slightly sticky but easy to work
with. Divide it 2 pieces, wrap in a plastic wrap and keep in a fridge for at
least an hour. It could be done in advance as well.
Heat the oven to 375°.
Take the dough out of the fridge. Working on each half at a
time flatten each into a 10” x 15” rectangle. Spread half of the poppy seed
filling over each rectangle. Start rolling from the long side. Fasten the edges
to keep the filling inside tightly.
Transfer
loaves, seam side down, to a buttered parchment paper. Bake until golden brown,
about 40 minutes.
After it is done let it cool and dust with sugar powder.
Slice before serving. Floss after.
