Czech Švestkové Buchty – Sweet rolls stuffed with fresh prunes

Purple prunes are hanging from trees.  Prunes are held in high regard by all in the Czech Republic.  Men love to make alcohol from the fruit and women make Buchty.  That is if the women can pinch a few off the tree before their husband sees them.

Czech Švestkové Buchty – Sweet rolls stuffed with fresh prunes

Ingredients:

 4 cups – 1000 gr. All purpose flour

1/4 cups – 75 gr. Sugar

½ teaspoon salt

¼ cup butter and ¼ cup vegetable oil (125 ml.)

1/2 cup – 125 ml. warm water

2 Eggs

Dry yeast (for 1000 gr. Flour)

25 Fresh prunes

Instructions:

Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl. In another small bowl melt butter in microwave oven or in a pot on your cooker. Add 75 ml. warm water and eggs; stir together well. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well, cover and let rise in a warm place for an hour.

Cut the prunes down the center and remove the pit. Fill the cavity with sugar, press the sides together and set in a bowl. When it is time to wrap them in dough, fill the cavity with more sugar.

After an hour, stir the dough with a fork and let rise again. After another 30 minutes, turn the well leavened dough out on a board or wax paper. The dough will be quite wet. Add only enough flour to handle it. Cut into golf ball size pieces. Spread each piece flat with your fingers like a pancake. Place one prune filled with sugar in the center. Pick up the edges of the dough and enclose the prune giving the dough a little twist like a Chinese dumpling. Place the buns in a baking dish which has been coated with oil. Put all the buns in the pan side by side and brush them with milk. Let the buns rise again for 30 minutes. Bake in a preheated oven at 350F (175C) for 30 minutes. After baking brush with butter and let cool slightly. Makes 20 to 25 buns.

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