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Hungarian vatrushka – recipe for aromatic lemon cheese buns
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Hungarian vatrushka (lemon cheese buns)

Heavenly fluffy yeast dough and incredibly airy quark filling with aromatic lemon make these sweet buns uniquely delicious. They taste so soft and light that they practically melt in your mouth after each bite. What's more, you can make the lemon cheese buns with the recipe yourself without much effort with a few ordinary ingredients. Hungarian vatrushka is perfect for dessert or breakfast.
Course Dessert
Cuisine Hungarian
Prep Time 45 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Time to rise the dough 1 hour 20 minutes
Servings 16 pieces

Ingredients

for the dough

  • 220 ml milk (lukewarm)
  • 100 g sugar
  • 1 egg + egg yolk (room warm)
  • 30 g butter (melted and cooled to lukewarm or room warm)
  • approx. 480 g flour
  • 20 g fresh yeast
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • flour for the work surface

for the filling

  • 600 g tvorog (room warm)
  • 80 g sour cream (room warm)
  • 2 egg whites (room warm)
  • 100 g sugar
  • 30 g wheat semolina
  • 50 ml lemon juice (freshly squeezed)
  • zest of 1 organic lemon
  • vanilla

for coating

  • 1 egg yolk (room warm)
  • 1 tbsp milk (room warm)

for dusting

  • powdered sugar

Instructions

Making the dough

  • Dissolve fresh yeast and sugar in lukewarm milk.
  • Add egg, egg yolk, melted and cooled butter and salt and mix.
  • Add flour in batches and knead into a soft, somewhat sticky dough. Then knead the yeast dough for 8 - 10 minutes and let it rise covered in a warm place for 1 hour.

Making the filling

  • Put tvorog, sour cream, wheat semolina, lemon juice, lemon zest and vanilla in a mixing bowl and blend everything into a homogeneous creamy mass.
  • Beat egg whites with sugar to soft peaks and fold into the tvorog mixture.

Making the cheese buns

  • Dust the work surface with flour. Roll out the dough to a large square about 3 - 4 mm thick and cut the large square into 16 small squares.
  • Spread the filling over the center of each of the 16 dough squares.
  • Fold the four corners of each square to the center and glue them in the center.
  • Spread the cheese buns on two baking sheets lined with baking paper, leaving enough space between them, and let them rise, covered, in a warm place for about 20 minutes (then a little longer on the second baking sheet).
  • Mix egg yolk with 1 tablespoon of milk.
  • First coat the cheese buns on the first baking sheet with the egg yolk-milk mixture and bake them in a preheated oven at 180 °C top and bottom heat for about 15 minutes. Repeat the same with the cheese buns on the second baking tray.
  • Let the lemon cheese buns cool down and dust them with powdered sugar.

Notes

  • You can adjust the amount of sugar for both the dough and the filling according to your taste.
  • Instead of fresh yeast you can use dry yeast for the dough. For the recipe you need 7 g of it.
  • The amount of flour given may vary. Therefore, add the flour in portions until the dough gets the right consistency. It should be very soft, not mushy and not too firm.
  • Instead of tvorog, you can use curd for the filling. In this case, omit sour cream.
  • You can reduce the amount of lemon juice for the filling to your liking.
  • Note the detailed tips and tricks for making Hungarian vatrushka above in the post.