Tootmanik s Gotovo Testo

This a Bulgarian yeasted bake made with a milk and butter dough, which is then layered with lovely white crumbled feta cheese, with egg to bind, and a sprinkling of fresh herbs and topped with paprika.  These days I am favouring Sainsbury's  oak barrel aged feta cheese, bought loose from the deli counter.

This was the bake from 1 August from The Book of Buns Facebook group, but since it would need more than just two people to do it justice, I was saving baking this for a visit from the Wastells today....Veronica has some friends from Bulgaria visiting this coming week, so it will interesting to hear back as to how close this is to the buns enjoyed out there.

As I wanted this to be baked and out of the oven, warm for lunch, I knew I would have problems, but with starting the first part: kneading and rising overnight, I had plenty of time for the rolling out of the layers, filling and allowing to rise.  I feel that there may be an errata in my book, and I shall consult with others and then post here.  The initial shaping involves preparing 9 small squares, then interleaving with butter, but then rolling to the shape of the tin...and with a tin of 12cm x 12cm, the dough amount would have risen many inches.

I used my Brownie tin with a clever pull out section.  I put the dough on the flat tray then slipped into into place.  I bought this some time ago from Bakery Bits, and for this bake it works beautifully.  It is 9 inches by 9 inches, 23cm by 23cm.

The two cheese layers were topped with freshly chopped sage and thyme from the garden.  Within about a hour, the bun was well risen.  I brushed the top with butter, but decided to wait till it was out of the oven to sprinkle the paprika, as I did not want it to burn on the top.  I used some lovely smoked paprika and topped with some more fresh herbs.

It was really easy to remove it from the pan, by sliding the base out then sliding the the bun off the parchment onto the cooling rack.  The bun was the 'centre piece' of our lunch with lots of salad, cold chicken, smoked salmon, prawns, and lots of salady things.  The bread was really delicious, really soft tender, light and tasty.

When Matthew realised there were the Chelsea Buns for tea...he wanted one with a cup of tea for 'pudding'...well you have to indulge your son from time to time!

What did we all end up enjoying?  Izzi had brought a lovely white chocolate baked in her own smaller cake tins about 4 inches I would say, layered with chocolate butter icing, topped with with glace icing, and caramac buttons and other glitter stuff...all made completely on her own, (with a big mess which Veronica cleared up)...aged 5 1/2, in class 1, about to take her first ballet exam, in the choir, etc etc...so pleased to catch up with all her news.  I'm buying Book of Buns for Veronica and Izzi now.