Quark Cheese and Pineapple Buns

(Makes 20 buns)

Ingredients: (Dough)

• 7 g – Dried active yeast ( 1 package)
• 250 ml – Milk ( lukewarm)
• 1 – Egg ( lightly beaten)
• 85 g – Sugar
• 2 teaspoons – Cardamom or Cinnamon
• 500 g – Flour ( all-purpose)
• 100 g – Butter ( unsalted) melted
• 1 Egg – Egg wash ( for brushing)

Ingredients: (Filling)

• 2 – Eggs
• 170 g – Quark Cheese
• 130 g – Greek yogurt
• 220 g – Pineapple ( canned or fresh) cut in small dice
• 2 tablespoons – Honey
• 4 tablespoons – Sugar
• 1 teaspoon – Vanilla extract
• 2 baking trays – lined with non-stick baking paper

Procedure: (Dough)

• Heat the milk until it’s warm to the touch. If you can’t hold your finger in the milk and count to 20 without pulling it out because of the heat, then the milk is too warm.
• To the warmed milk add the yeast. Mix well until the yeast had dissolved
• Let proof in a warm place in you kitchen for 10-15 minutes or, until bubbles form slightly on the surface of the milk.
• In a mixing bowl large enough to hold all the ingredients, add the egg, sugar, cardamom or cinnamon along with two-thirds of the flour.  Mix to form a soft dough.
• Once the soft dough is made, add the remaining flour and the melted butter.
• Knead for 10 minutes to form a smooth non-sticky dough.

Place dough in a slightly greased bowl and cover with a kitchen towel.  Place in a warm place and allow to rise.  This should take 30-60 minutes or, until the dough has doubled in size.  In the meantime, make the filling.

Procedure: (Filling)

• Mix all the filling ingredients together, folding in the diced pineapple at the end.
• Make sure all is thoroughly mixed. Cover and set in the refrigerator until ready to fill the buns.
• You can reserve some diced pineapple to the side to garnish the tops of the buns once they are filled with the cheese.  This is optional.

Buns – (Second Rise)

• Once the dough has doubled in size, punch it down and transfer it to a lightly floured work surface.
• Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces.  Use a scale if you’re unsure of your accuracy.
• Now divide each fourth into 5 equal pieces.
• Roll these small pieces of dough into uniform balls and arrange evenly spaced on the prepared baking trays.
• Press your finger into the center of each bun and wiggle it around to create a nice indentation in the bun
• Cover the tray with a kitchen towel and allow to rise in a warm place for and additional 30-45 minutes.

Once the second proof is complete, you might need to re-form the indentations.  This is normal!  Simply place your finger in the now closed indentations and rework them.  The larger the indentation the more the bun will be able to hold the delicious quark-pineapple filling.

So take you time and carefully recreate the holes for the filling, being careful not to knock down the air in the entire bun.  The bun should look like a mini doughnut – puffed up on the sides and a doughnut-sized hole in the middle to fill. 

Also, be careful not to make a complete hole through to the bottom of the bun.  We want the filling to stay in the bun and not fall out once picked up.

 Preheat your oven to 350 F ( 180 c)

Filling & Baking:

•  Now fill the holes of the bun with the pineapple-cheese mixture.  Fill them to form a slight mound, somewhat higher than the bun itself.
• At this stage, you can garnish the tops with the reserved pineapple, if you choose to.
• Now egg wash the buns.  This is an important step for appearance.  Egg wash the buns completely and thoroughly.  If you run out of egg wash make some more and proceed until all buns are complete.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or, until the buns are uniformly golden brown and the bottoms of the buns are cooked as well.
• If you do not have a convection oven, you will definitely have to rotate the trays in your oven approximately halfway through the cooking time.