Three-jacket brioche buns

A recipe from Danube, my new book

In my new book, Danube, I follow the river as it flows into the Black Sea along the borders of Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria. I celebrate the people of the riverlands, whose recipes and stories came to form the regional cuisine.

This recipe for brioche buns reflects an unexpected ethnic diversity of this part of Eastern Europe: the Czech community.

Photo credit Issy Crocker for ‘Danube, Recipes from Eastern Europe’

As it enters Romania, the river carves a dramatic gorge, steep and blanketed in dense forest.

In this area, you will discover several Czech villages where people maintain their language, traditions and cuisine just as they did a hundred years ago. Sometimes, the winding road that takes you there resembles a tree tunnel, and only occasionally can you catch a glimpse of the river below. Other times, the road is wider, allowing you to stop the car and take in the panoramic view.

It is a mini-Czech world, where a few ‘returned sons of the villages’ opened a guesthouse many years ago, then a brewery to make the fantastic Czech beer, then a place to eat, and—why not, they thought—a music festival.

Hundreds of people come to these villages every August for something that looks like Oktoberfest crossed with Glastonbury. There is even a direct train, 18 carriages leaving Prague and passing through Brno, clickety-clack over 1,000 km to Orșova station in Romania, bringing tourists to stay with the locals, eat, drink and sing.

Photos from 'Eibenthal - Czech Village in Romania' Facebook Page

You can read the story of this merry Czech community in my book, Danube, and cook a few recipes from their cuisine.

This is one of them: 'Bucte cu trei haine', brioche buns with 'three jackets', named for their three different fillings: curd cheese, poppyseeds, and jam.

Ingredients:

Make 12 medium size buns

For the Dough

275 g (10 oz/2⁄4 cups) plain (all-purpose) flour, plus extra for dusting

40 g (11⁄2 oz/3 tablespoons) caster (superfine) sugar

7 g (1 sachet) fast-action dried yeast

a pinch of salt
1 medium egg
25 ml (scant 2 tablespoons) sunflower oil
110 ml (33⁄4 fl oz/scant 1⁄2 cup) full-fat milk

For the Filling

120 g (4 oz) curd cheese, thick cottage cheese or ricotta
1 medium egg yolk
20 g (3⁄4 oz/11⁄2 tablespoons) caster (superfine) sugar

zest of 1 small lemon
10 g (1⁄2 oz/1 tablespoon) poppy seeds, plus extra to decorate
120 g (4 oz/generous ⁄3 cup) strawberry jam

To Glaze

1 medium egg yolk mixed with 1 tablespoon water

Method:

First, make the dough. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl, then knead for a few seconds until the dough is smooth. Cover the bowl and leave to prove for 45 minutes in a warm place. Make the filling by mixing the cottage cheese with the egg yolk, sugar, lemon zest and poppy seeds. Set aside.

Divide the dough into 12 equal balls, around 40 g (11⁄2 oz) each. Sprinkle your work surface with flour if necessary. Place on a large baking sheet, cover and leave for 15 minutes in a warm place. Preheat the oven to 170°C fan (325°F/gas 3).

Dip a teaspoon in flour and make a well in the middle of each ball, pressing all the way down, then around to form a disc with raised edges, 5.5 cm (2⁄4 in) in diameter. You can use the base of a small glass to make the initial well larger. Dip it in flour, so it doesn’t stick, then stamp it into each dough ball. Brush with the egg wash all over, especially around the edges. Place 1 teaspoon of the cheese mixture in the middle of each bun, followed by 1 teaspoon of jam and sprinkle some extra poppy seeds on top.

Bake on a lower shelf of the oven for 12–14 minutes until the edges are beautifully golden. Transfer to a cooling rack, then serve warm.

Danube recent successes: Channel 4 and BBC Radio

Dorie Greenspan's review of Danube, read it and get two free recipes from Danube.

Dorie Greenspan's 10 cookbooks have won a total of six James Beard and IACP awards, including Cookbook of the Year. So, it is an honour to read her kind words and review:

‘Irina is a beautiful writer and even before you make anything from her books, there’s the pleasure of reading her, of being her companion as she returns to her homeland, to the countries she knows well and to the cooks she loves. If you don’t know the food of this part of the world, you can’t do better than to learn about it from Irina.’ - Dorie Greenspan