Yeast cakes – it`s all about the dough (and the fillings…)

Making a yeast cake isn’t the thing that you make when you don’t have time and nerves. But, it’s the thing to make when you want your house to be filled with outrageously angelical smell, and you want to bake something that tastes like home.

This dough is so good, it comes out full of flavors but not too heavy. It is very comfortable dough to work with, even in the hot summer days.

The fillings that I wrote down here are just suggestions; you can fill the cakes with almost anything. These kinds of cakes are the right place to get creative.

Sweet yeast dough/ Ex New-Yorker from the Ynet food forum (makes 4 cakes)

5-6 cups flour
1/2 cup lukewarm water
3/4 cup lukewarm milk
2 tablespoons active dry yeast
150 gr. melted/soft butter
Zest from half a lemon
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs

1 egg, beaten

Put all the dough ingredients in a bowl, combine to make dough, and knead for about 5 minutes, until the dough is soft and elastic. Wrap the bowl in a cling film or a bag, and let sit for an hour and a half, until the dough doubled its volume.

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees c.

Divide the dough to 4 equal pieces, shape to desire shape with filling.

Let the cakes rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes. Brush with egg.

Bake for about 30-40 minutes.

If you don’t want to egg wash the cakes, 5-10 before the baking ends, brush the cakes with syrup that was made from 1:1 amounts of sugar and water.

All the filling quantities are for one cake.

Cinnamon filling:
2 tablespoons soft butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 cinnamon

Spread soft butter on top of the rolled dough, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon, shape cake as you desire.

White chocolate- praline filling:
100 gr. White chocolate
3 tablespoons praline powder

Put on top of the rolled dough the white chocolate and the praline powder, shape into desired shape.

Chocolate filling:
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons half and half

Melt all the ingredients together (can be done in the microwave or in a bowel on top of a pot with boiling water).
Spread on top of the rolled dough and shape into the desired shape.

Nutella filling:

1/2 cup Nutella spread

Spread the Nutella on top the rolled dough and shape into the desired shape. You can make the Nutella more easy to work by heating it a little bit in the microwave.

Naama