Owl’s eyes

Ingredients:

• 25g fresh yeast, 50ml milk, 1 tbsp granulated sugar, 350g flour, a pinch of salt, 200g butter or block margarine, 3 egg yolks
• for the walnut mousse: 3 egg whites, 150g granulated sugar, 150g ground walnut
• to roll the dough: wheat flour 
• for filling: 1 jar (300 g) Kecskeméti sour cherry jam, 1 small jar of pitted sour cherry compote
• for glazing: 1 egg

1. Crumble the yeast in a bowl and add the hand warm milk. Add the sugar and allow 10-15 mins for the yeast to rise to the surface. Mix the flour with the salt, crumble in the margarine, then knead in the egg yolks and the milk-yeast mixture. Warning! The dough should look like shortbread pastry and not like leavened dough, despite the yeast in it. Split it into two equal halves and let it rest in a warm place under cover for 15-20 mins.

2. Whip a hard foam from the egg whites, and start adding small amounts of the sugar and then the walnut shortly before it is done.

3. Roll one of the dough balls into a 22x35 cm rectangle on baking paper strewn with flour. Spoon a stripe of jam along both longer sides, a finger width away from the edge, and add the sour cherries on top of the jam. Fold a finger width of the dough back on the left and the right edge to prevent the jam from spilling in the oven. Now fold the dough over the filling and start rolling it inwards, leaving a good finger width of dough open in the middle (the two rolls should not touch in the middle). Lift it gently from the baking paper to the baking tray lined with another baking paper, or simply lift the pastry to the tray together with the first baking paper. Fill the opening in the middle with a third of the walnut mousse, then brush the dough with beaten egg. Proceed the same way with the other part of the dough.

4. Bake it in a pre-heated oven at medium heat (180 °C; or 165 °C in a fan-assisted oven) for 22-25 minutes. Cut finger wide slices and serve them hand warm or cold.