Cheese puffs recipe: a must-have snack at your house party

Croatian cheese puffs are a home baker’s best friend. You will love them for so many things.

First, pogačice sa sirom are easy peasy to make. The dough is so simple, you can even enlist your teenagers to make it.

It’s quite likely that you have all the ingredients in your fridge on any given day. So, they make a great last-minute snack. Psst, keep that a secret. Otherwise, you’ll be asked to produce them every time someone has a late-night craving.

Your guests will adore them. Everyone will ask you for a recipe and your party will be the most talked about social event.

With very little effort, you’ll impress your friends with a homemade savoury snack. Serve them next to crisps (chips) or other store-bought munchies and see which tray takes the prize. Hint: it will always be the home-baked stuff.

The original recipe for cheese puffs uses Croatian cottage cheese, but you can use any soft and creamy type. The rest of the ingredients, butter, flour and egg, are all household staples.

When it comes to the choice of toppings, caraway seeds are the pogačice’s signature flavour. But this dough is easygoing and will let you be as creative as you wish.

Now, before getting down to baking pogačice, keep one thing in mind. Most guests won’t stop until they’ve gobbled up at least 10, so a big party might require baking in batches.

Croatian cheese puffs recipe

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Cheese Puffs

Croatian soft cheese puffs are an ideal snack for a house party

Course Snack

Cuisine Croatian

Keyword finger-food, oven

Prep Time 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 34 minutes minutes

Rest Time 2 hours hours

Total Time 3 hours hours 4 minutes minutes

Servings 8 people

Calories 230 kcal

Ingredients 

For the dough:

• 350 g all-purpose flour (3 cups)
• 7 g salt (1 tsp)
• 250 g unsalted butter, cold, cubed (1 cup)
• 350 g cottage cheese (1 ½ cups)

For the topping:

• 2 egg yolks (whisked)
• 5 g sour cream (1 tsp)
• 1 small pinch of salt
• 15 g caraway seeds/sesame seeds/coarse salt (1 ½ tbsp)

Instructions

• Sift the flour into a mixing bowl. Add the salt and whisk to blend evenly.
• Rub the cubed butter into the flour until the dough looks crumbly. Add the cottage cheese and mix it in with your hands. The dough will be quite wet.
  
• Transfer the dough to the work surface and shape it into a ball. Use a few sprinkles of flour if you need to. Divide the dough in half and flatten the pieces into disks.
  
• Wrap each piece with cling film and leave them in the fridge for about 2 hours.
• Before rolling out the dough, preheat the oven to 200 °C (400 °F). Line 2 baking sheets with baking paper.
• Lightly flour the work surface. Unwrap the first dough disk and thin it out with a rolling pin. Leave the other piece of the dough in the fridge. Flip the dough several times until it is about 1 cm (0.3 in) thick.
  
• Use a round 5-cm-(2-in-) wide cookie cutter to shape the puffs. Make the cuts as close to each other as possible so you don't have too many dough scraps.
  
• Collect the dough scraps and knead them back into a ball. Roll it out to the same thickness and repeat the shaping process. Do this only once; kneading the dough too many times will make it too tough.
• Arrange the puffs on the baking sheet. Whisk together the egg yolks, cream and salt. Brush a thin layer on each patty.
  
• Sprinkle some caraway seeds on each one. Experiment with other toppings, such as sesame seeds, coarse salt or crushed pepper.
  
• Bake the puffs for 16-17 minutes until they turn golden. Do the same with the other dough disk. Let the puffs cool slightly before serving them.

Nutrition

Calories: 230kcal