Fruit Dumplings (Ovocne kynute knedliky)

So, are you curious how to make a typical Czech fruit dumplings. Well. This recipe is quite simple and the final product looks good on the plate. Anyway, I guess some people think it is a sweet dessert but we eat it as an ordinary common main meal.

Ingredients:

500g/1.1lb Plain Flour (I prefer Strong white bread flour because of the similar to czech semi-strong white flour)

1 tablespoon sugar

30g/1.1oz  fresh yeast

1 egg

300ml+75ml (0.53+0.13pint) milk

0.5 teaspoon salt

30g/1.1oz veg. oil or melted butter

some fresh fruit like blueberries, strawberries, plums and so on. You can use frozen as well.

Ingredients for top decoration:

white yoghurt,curd cheese,  icing sugar, melted butter

Preparation time: 30 – 60minutes                                                            Servings: 6 (cca. 23 -25 dumplings)

Cook time:  4×10 minutes (depends on the size of the pot)     Total Time: around  1.5hour depends on your skills

Instructions:

• We have to prepare the fresh yeast. Get a small bowl with 75ml warm (not hot) milk, add crumbled yeast, 1 tablespoon of sugar and 3 – 4 tablespoon of flour. Mix together to make a slurry. Then leave it around 15 minutes to get live.
• Prepare a bigger bowl, add flour, egg, salt, melted butter or oil, milk, the leaven yeast and mix together to make a non-sticky dough. When we finished sprinkle the dough with flour lightly and let it rest for about 40 minutes.

• Then put the dough on the work desk and roll it out and cut it to small square pieces.
• Now take your chosen fruit, put it on middle piece of the dough, wrap it up and let it rest another 20 minutes to make better result. If you use a frozen fruit it better if you will cook it immediately. Fruit must be  coated on all sides, no hole or it will ruin your dumpling in during the cooking.
• Get a pot (bigger is better) fill it with water, add 1 teaspoon of salt and boil it.

• When the water is starting boiling add carefully dumplings to the pot and boil them around 4-5 minutes (it is up to size of dumplings).
• After 4 -5 minutes turn them over and boil it another 4 – 5 minutes.
• Ok. And this is an important part. When you take them off the pot you have to make a hole in them (by fork or skewer) immediately to let the steam get out of the dumplings. If you will forget dumplings get stiff.
• You could rub the finished dumplings with melted butter for better taste.
• So that is all. Now we have to put them on a plate a do some decoration… Some people use a curd cheese, icing sugar and melted butter on the top. I prefer white yoghurt instead the curd cheese.

Ok. Thank you for reading and enjoy your fruit dumplings.