Childhood recipes: plushki or sweet buns

I feel like I’ve achieved something close to the holy grail and that means that I have finally, after 25 years, acquired my aunt’s famous recipe for her sweet buns filled with meringue. These have always been and will always be my favorite non-cake baked dessert. I remember, on my tenth birthday, my aunt brought me a whole bagful of these and I thought ‘I’m doing a very bad thing’ but still hid them in my room so no one else could have any. They are that good! She’s often misplaced the recipe over the years, which meant that we had to go through some ‘drought’ periods in terms of consumption of sweet buns but oh, it just made them taste that much better the next time.

Aren’t they beautiful?

I thought I would also share this recipe with all of you. The crust is buttery and light and will require some cooling/freezing time so factor that in.

You will need the following ingredients:

For the dough:

– 1/2 liter jar of flour (so aprox 500g)
– 1 stick of butter or margarine
– 3 eggs, separated
– 200 g sour cream

1. Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry cutter.

2. Once combined, add 3 yolks and the sour cream. Mix until combined and until the dough starts coming together.

3. Freeze or refrigerate for about 30 mins (otherwise you will not be able to handle the very buttery dough).

For the filling:

– 3 egg whites
– 200 g sugar
– walnuts, chopped roughly (if you like them)

1. Beat the egg white with the sugar until light and foamy and very soft peaks form.

2. Add in the nuts, if you’re using them.

3. Take the dough out of the fridge and divide in approx 30 little balls. Roll (my aunt sometimes even stretches it out by hand) each out to fit in the palm of an average-sized hand!

4. Basically what you are going to do is form a round biscuit shape out of each piece of dough. Then, put a teaspoonful of the meringue in the middle and fold in half. Put down another teaspoon of meringue and fold over again – you end up with two folds over and a fourth of the original circle.

I’ll try to do a diagram – if it is confusing – when I get to my computer.

5. Bake on a buttered baking sheet at 190-200 C for 25-30 minutes until puffy and golden.