Russian sweet sour cream flatbread
Fluffy, soft and incredibly aromatic is this oven sweet sour cream flatbread. It dates back to the Soviet era and was part of the assortment of many Soviet bakeries. In the meantime, you won't find this pastry anywhere in Russia anymore. According to this GOST recipe – the original Soviet recipe -, you can make the sour cream flatbread yourself, which tastes and looks just like it did back in the Soviet Union.
Servings 9 pieces
Ingredients
for the pre-dough
- 140 ml water (lukewarm)
- approx. 200 g flour
- 21 g fresh yeast
for the dough
- pre-dough
- 100 g sour cream (room temperature)
- 75 g butter (room temperature)
- 75 g sugar
- approx. 300 g flour
- 5 g salt
for coating
- 1 egg yolk (room temperature)
- 1 tsp water (room temperature)
Instructions
Making the pre-dough
- Pour lukewarm water into a large mixing bowl and dissolve fresh yeast in it.
- Add flour in portions and knead into a very sticky dough. Cover the dough with a towel and let it rise in a warm place for 1 hour.
Making the dough
- Mix flour, sugar and salt.
- Add sour cream and butter and crumble everything finely with your hands.
- Add the sour cream crumbs to the pre-dough and knead it into a firm dough. If the dough is too sticky, add some more flour. If it is too dry, add a small amount of lukewarm water. Cover the dough with a towel and let it rise in a warm place for 20 minutes.
- Knead the dough for about 10 minutes, cover it again and let it rise in a warm place for another 1 hour.
- Divide the dough into 9 equal pieces, form each piece into a ball, spread the balls on the work surface, leaving plenty of space between them, cover them with a towel or cling film and let them rise for 1 hour.
- Roll each ball of dough into a round patty about 1 inch thick, spread the patties on two baking sheets lined with parchment paper, cover them with a towel or plastic wrap, and let them rise for 40 minutes.
- Carefully poke many small holes in each patty with a wooden skewer.
- Mix egg yolk with 1 tsp of water.
- Brush the sour cream flatbread with the egg yolk mixture, let them dry for 5 minutes and bake the flatbread first on one baking sheet, then on the other in a preheated oven at 180 °C top and bottom heat for about 15 minutes each, until they get a golden brown color.
Notes
- Instead of fresh yeast, you can also use dry yeast. For the recipe you then need 7 g of it.
- It is important that all ingredients for the pre-dough and the dough are lukewarm or room-warm, so that the yeast dough can rise faster. The ingredients for coating the flatbread must also be room-warm.
- Do not roll out the sour cream flatbread too thinly, or it may taste dry after baking.
- When brushing the sour cream flatbread with the egg yolk mixture, make sure that it does not flow into the holes. If it did, the flatbread would look prettier.
- Use a toothpick to check if the flatbread with sour cream is done baking.
- Note the detailed tips and tricks for making the sweet sour cream flatbread at the top of the post.