Christmas Cakes The Merry Family

1. Make sourdough. Mix 60 ml of warm yogurt (you can substitute milk) with the yeast, sugar and flour. Cover the bowl with the starter and put it in a warm place until a foamy cap is formed.

2. Let's prepare the dough. Melt butter in the microwave.

3. Add the remaining yoghurt (100 ml) to the bowl with the cooled butter. Then add the starter, egg white (beaten with a fork) and salt.

4. Add sieved flour gradually (1 tablespoon at a time) to the liquid mixture and knead into a soft, smooth dough that doesn't stick to your hands. Grease a bowl with oil, roll out the dough and cover it with clingfilm. Put the bowl with the dough in a warm place to rise 2-2,5 times, for 1 hour.

5. For the sweet filling. Warm up the butter. Place apples, peeled from skins, seeds and diced finely. Add sugar, stir and stew until the juice appears, about 2 minutes. Then sprinkle the apple slices with the starch and stir quickly until the liquid is reduced, remove from the stove. Mix apples and cottage cheese. The sweet filling is ready!

6. For the unsweetened stuffing. Boil the buckwheat according to the instructions. Finely chop peeled onion and fry in butter (2 tablespoon) until transparent. Add peeled and finely chopped carrots and stew, stirring occasionally.

7. Finely chop the peeled mushrooms and add to the stew. Add cloves of pressed garlic and mushroom seasoning. Braise under cover until the mushrooms are tender.

8. Put ready buckwheat porridge into a bowl and mix with mushroom stuffing. Unsweetened stuffing is ready!

9. Knead finished dough and let it rise under the foil for about 20-30 minutes.

10. Divide the dough into 9 parts, roll into balls. Keep the dough under clingfilm or a transparent sheet to prevent it from getting flaky.

11. Roll out eight tortillas into a circle. Put two tablespoonfuls of filling on each one. I give you two choices of fillings. The dough is versatile, sweet and unsweetened fillings will work.

12. Gather dough and cover filling, flip and sprinkle a little on the flip side. Shape the pie.

13. Line a baking tray with baking paper. If you have special baking paper, like I do, you don't need to grease it. Put the patties on the baking sheet and line it with cling film.

14. Roll out the rest of the dough (9-th piece) into a layer ~ 3 mm thick, cut out the ears, the pigtails. Roll rounds from the remaining dough to form piglet tails.

15. Shape piglets. Glue ears with egg yolk. The eyes are peppercorns. To make the ears and Piglets stick better, I used matches (without sulfur) and toothpicks.

16. While I was cutting out and gluing on the ears and snout, the patties got bigger and the little piggies got better. To make the pigs' cheeks pretty, I sprinkled ketchup on them (a little), if you like.

17. Bake the patties at 180°C for ~30 minutes until golden brown. Take out and brush the patties with egg yolk diluted with water 5 minutes before they are done and put them on to brown. Bon appetit! Happy New Year!