Russian Sweet Rolls With Cottage or Farmer's Cheese

Farmer's cheese is a type of pressed cottage cheese that is widely used in Eastern European cooking. It's known as tvorog in Russian, twarog in Polish, turo in Hungarian, and syr in Ukrainian. There are many different ways of making your own home-made farmer's cheese, but I usually buy it at the local Eastern European stores. Standard American grocery stores don't normally carry it... but they should! You can use farmer's cheese in baking or eat it with fruit, honey and jam for breakfast. It is delicious.

Since farmer's cheese is not very popular in America, I've changed the recipe and used cottage cheese instead of farmer's cheese. The rolls come out slightly different, but they are still delicious, flavorful, and filling. I've included two variations of the recipe with cottage cheese and with farmer's cheese.

Cottage Cheese Rolls 

• 2 16-oz tubs of cottage cheese
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 2/3 cups flour (possibly a little more depending how moist your cottage cheese is) 
• 1-2 tbsp milk
• brown sugar for sprinkling 

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. You will first need to squeeze a much liquid from the cottage cheese as possible. Put the cheese cloth over a bowl. In the middle of the cheese cloth pour in the cottage cheese. Bring the ends of the cheese cloth together and use your hands to squeeze the liquid out. You should end up with approximately 2 cups of dry cottage cheese.

2. In a mixing bowl combine cottage cheese, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and salt. Beat with an electric mixer until the mixture is smooth.

3. Combine flour with baking powder. Gradually pour in the flour into the mixture. Knead the dough with your hands. The dough will be sticky. It the dough appears too runny, add a little bit more flour, but don't overdo it because the rolls will come out hard. Everything depends on how much liquid you'll be able to squeeze out in step 1.

4. Spray a cookie sheet covered with tin foil with cooking spray. With wet hands form small round rolls and place them on the cookie sheet. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Pull them out of the oven. Brush each roll with a little bit of milk and sprinkle with sugar. Put them back into the oven for 5-10 minutes or until they are golden brown.

Farmers Cheese Rolls (Творожные булочки)

• 1 1/2 cup farmers cheese
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1-2 tbsp milk
• brown sugar for sprinkling 

1. In a mixing bowl combine farmer's cheese, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and salt. Beat with an electric mixer until the mixture is smooth.

2. Combine flour with baking powder. Gradually pour in the flour into the mixture. Knead the dough with your hands. The dough will be sticky. 

3. Spray a cookie sheet covered with tin foil with cooking spray. With wet hands form small round rolls and place them on the cookie sheet. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Pull them out of the oven. Brush each roll with a little bit of milk and sprinkle with sugar. Put them back into the oven for 5-10 minutes or until they are golden brown.