Overview
These sweet little pastries are another Latvian staple. They can be made in several different shapes – rolled up (what I do), bear claws or pretty much anything else. The dough is the same one I use for my pīragi (or, to be more accurate, I use this dough for the pīragi! That dough should have the extra 1/4 cup of sugar removed… but it’s tasty!). I have no idea if these freeze well, they’ve never made it to the freezer.

Time
Preparation and dough rising – approximately 2 hours
Baking time 15-20 minutes

Ingredients:
¼ cup warm water
1 ts sugar
2 ts yeast

1/2 cup milk
90g butter
90g fat (goose or duck)
¼ cup plus 1 TB sugar
1 ts salt

1 egg, slightly beaten
¼ cup sour cream

4 – 5 cups plain flour

Melted butter
Granulated sugar
Poppy seeds (or ground cinnamon)

Egg wash

Method
1 – Combine water, sugar and yeast. Set aside.

2 – Scald milk. Add butter, fat, sugar and salt. In a large bowl, set aside until only warm.

3 – Combine egg with sour cream. Add to milk mixture.

4 – Add yeast to milk mixture.

5 – Slowly add flour to the milk mixture to form a dough. Let rise in a greased bowl.

6 – Preheat oven to 200° C.

7 – Punch down and roll out dough into a large rectangle on a floured benchtop.

8 – Brush generously with butter, leaving 2cm along one of the long edges.

9 – Sprinkle the butter with the sugar and poppy seeds. Don’t be stingy!

10 – Roll up as tightly as you can, pinching along the edge when done.

11 – Cut into 1 1/2 cm slices and arrange on Glad Bake covered trays, tucking the tail underneath. Alternatively, snip twice almost the whole way through close together and once all the way through, fanning them out on trays with the bottom round becoming the middle ‘petal. Cover with egg wash.

12 – Bake 15-20 minutes until golden brown. Cool on racks.

Store in air-tight containers or freeze when cold.