Preheat oven to 375°F. Grate the butter into a large mixing bowl.
Separate the eggs, adding the yolks to the grated butter. The whites aren't needed for this recipe, so save them for making meringue kisses, or something.
Put the yeast in the lukewarm water, and feed it the sugar. Leave it for ten minutes, or until it gets nice and bubbly like this.
Add the yeast mixture, flour, salt, and sour cream to the butter and egg yolks, and bring it together by hand.
Add more sour cream as needed, to bring the dough into a nice sticky-elastic ball.
Divide into three balls of equal size.
Cover the dough with a clean dishcloth and set it aside to rest in a cool place for 35-40 minutes.
This is what goes in the filling. ^_^
It's best to use "golden raisins," as they're softer. I didn't have any, so I used regular raisins, but soaked them first to make them juicy and tender.
Flour a pastry board or table, preparatory to rolling out the dough.
The dough should not be paper-thin. This is a roughly 9x14 rectangle, around 1/4 inch thick. The size may vary.
For each pastry, spread one can of poppy seed filling evenly on the dough. It should go all the way to one side, but leave space on all the other sides.
I like to squeeze a bit of fresh lemon juice over it.
I love raisins in my pastry. No one else does. >)
Starting from the edge that the filling is spread all the way to, roll up the pastry. Make sure that it's firmly rolled, but don't crush it. Tuck under the short ends. The long unspread edge makes sure that none of the filling escapes.
Place seam-side down on an ungreased baking sheet, and gently poke holes in the top and along the sides with a fork. Just go a little ways in; don't spear through the entire pastry. Note how the edges got neatly tucked in.
Separate another egg for each pastry. Note how the ends are tucked under.
Paint the top and sides generously with egg yolk. This gives it a nice rich color when it's baked.
Here they are, going into the oven. They need 25-35 minutes to bake, but keep an eye on them when it gets close to half an hour.
They always end up splitting open on top, like that. In an ideal world, they wouldn't. I know of multiple reasons that this could be happening... but it doesn't affect the taste (while changing things to make it look more perfect might).
Here's a close-up of the rich flaky sticky goodness.
Cut it up and serve with powdered sugar. See how it's all swirly inside from having been rolled up? For some reason, I always roll them counter-clockwise. It's not even like I'm from the southern hemisphere, or anything.
Nagyon finom.
