Polish Sweet Cheese Rolls {Drożdżówki z Serem}
A Polish bakery may just be the most beautiful place on the planet, in my opinion. I love bread THAT much!! The variety of sweet cakes, bread rolls, layered cakes, breads, cookies and sweet rolls can leave a hungry dessert lover quite loopy. Unless you can have one of each, you’ll be in big trouble, as it is impossible to pick just one!
One of my favorite baked sweets is the star of today’s show, a sweet (yeast) roll filled with farmer’s cheese mixture. This Polish sweet yeast roll is called drożdżówka z serem [droh-dgoovka z seh-rem] and comes in many shapes and sizes. You can find round versions with the filling just on top middle, oblong (like mine) with filling on the inside, with crumble or without, glazed or plain. They vary by size and shape but they share the same sweet and cheesy filling.
Sweet cheese rolls are a bit time consuming to make but they are not difficult. I hope these step-by-step instructions will help you.
Polish Sweet Cheese Rolls {Drożdżówki z Serem}
Ingredients
- Dough:
- 2 1/4 tsp of active dry yeast or 40 g of fresh yeast
- 3 cups / 375 g of all purpose flour
- 1/3 c / 65 g of granulated sugar
- 1 cup / 250 ml of milk
- 2 tbsp of melted butter
- 1 tsp of vanilla extract
- 2 whole eggs
- Pinch of salt
- Filling:
- 1 lb / 500 g of farmer's cheese*
- 2.5 tbsp of granulated sugar
- 2 egg yolks
- 1/4 cup raisins
- Additionally:
- 1 egg
- 1-2 tbsp of sour cream
Instructions
Place yeast, 2 tbs of sugar, 4 tbs of flour and 1/2 cup of warm milk in a small mixing bowl and mix to combine. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and set aside to activate for 30 minutes in a warm spot.
In the mean time, melt butter set aside to cool a bit.
When yeast mixture is ready place the rest of the flour, sugar, eggs, milk, butter, vanilla and salt in a mixing bowl of your stand up mixer, add yeast mixture and with the hook attachment knead until a dough ball forms, and additional 4-5 minutes. Dough should resemble pizza dough. If it's too loose, add a bit more flour.
When dough is ready, sprinkle with flour, cover with a kitchen towel and set aside to rise for about 1 hour in a warm spot. Dough should double in size.
In the mean time prepare filling by combining all ingredients. If your farmer's cheese seems too dry, add a tablespoon or two of sour cream. Break up farmer's cheese with a fork add the rest of the ingredients and mix until well combined. Set aside.
When dough is ready transfer onto floured surface, knead a few times to help get the air out. Divide it in half. Roll out first half into a rectangle. You want the dough to be pretty thin, about 1/8 inch thick (see photos above).
Place half of the filling on the whole surface of the dough and fold the dough as shown on the photos above.
With a sharp knife or a pizza cutter cut into 7-8 even slices. Twist each slice once or twice.
Place rolls on a cookie sheet and brush with a whipped egg. Set aside for at least 30 minutes to rise. Repeat the process with the other half of the dough and filling.
Preheat oven to 350℉ / 180℃.
Place in hot oven and bake for about 15-18 minutes, until golden brown.
Notes
These sweet buns are also delicious when filled with poppyseed filling.
Cool your rolls before serving (if you can 😉)
Happy baking and smacznego!
Love,
Anna
* if you can’t find farmer’s cheese in your area, you can easily make your own, my recipe here.
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I just pulled these out of the oven and…wow, they turned out beautifully! I used cream cheese in place of the Farmer’s cheese today but I am planning on trying your cheese recipe in my Instant Pot soon (so I can make these again and the pierogi z serem). Dzięki!
Oh sure! Cream cheese would work beautifully in these!! Good job!!
I made these today and they were delicious! My dough came out a bit tacky but instead of adding more flour I left it that way and set aside to rise. And for my filling I mixed farmers cheese with cream cheese since my grocer only had a small pack of farmers cheese and I added a bit more raisins. This was such a simple recipe and I will attempt to make the dough again and do a poppy seed filling for Christmas Eve. Dziękuję za przepis.
Good job Kasia!!👏🏻
I made these for Easter and they were delicous. I too had a problem with the dough being tacky and had to add an additional cup of flour before the dough would come together. I always hesitate to do that because sometimes the bread will come out too dry. What is the best solution for tacky dough? I seem to have this problem with most bread recipes I make. Could it possibly be the flour?
Delicious! I love farmers cheese or any cheese. I’ve made bread, cakes and cookies but this is the first time for anything like this. Thank you for the pictures they are so helpful. The dough seemed a little sticky at first but I just put more flour on the bottom to roll it out and sprinkled some on the top. I did not want to add more to the recipe. It was an adventure for sure, but next time I know what to expect. The worst part was waiting for them to cool.
Good job!! Smacznego!
Thank you Anna for your comment “Smacznego”. I always tried to figure out what you said. We have been watching your You Tube channels faithfully and have tried out many of your recipes. We also enjoy your Kitchen Closed editions. We have talked often of visiting Poland at some time and your touring has been very encouraging. Now all we need is to get rid of “Covid” and then it will be “Hello Poland”. Keep the shows coming!
If you wanted to freeze these, would you do it before or after baking? Or maybe I should just bake them all and eat them! Thanks.
the recipe calls for one cup of milk..does that include half cup of milk for yeast mixture…I made it with one and half cup milk and dough came out very wet, had to add extra flour
1 cup total. Sorry for the confusion.
Made these today and they came out terrific – light and fluffy! Being New Year’s Eve, I soak dried cherries in rum and used these in place of the raisins.🥳