Jagodzianki: Polish blueberry yeast buns with lemon icing, seaside-bakery style
The bun of July and August: a soft yeast dough on milk and butter, filled generously with blueberries tossed with sugar and a little potato starch so the juice stays in the bun and not on the tray. Lemon icing after baking. Ten buns, each with a full spoon of berries, not the three you get in a shop.
Your own work in that: 45 min.
- Kneading 25 min
- Rising 60 min
- Filling 20 min
- Rising 30 min
- Baking 20 min
- Icing 15 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneKnead the dough
Cream the yeast with a tablespoon of the sugar and 3 tbsp of the lukewarm milk, leave 10 minutes until frothy. Add to the flour with the salt, remaining sugar and vanilla sugar, pour in the rest of the milk and one egg. Knead 8 minutes, add the butter and knead another 4 minutes, until smooth, elastic and pulling away from the bowl.
Ingredients: 500 g plain flour · 250 ml milk · 25 g fresh yeast · 70 g sugar · 2 pcs eggs · 80 g butter · 1 tsp salt · 1 tbsp vanilla sugar
TipButter goes in at the end, not the start: fat in the flour from the beginning slows gluten development and the buns come out dense.
Butter last, dough smooth and glossyFirst rise
Cover the dough with a cloth and leave somewhere warm and draught-free for 60 minutes, until doubled in size. In a cool kitchen it will take longer — go by the volume, not the clock.
Doubled under a clothPrepare the berries
Pick over the berries, rinse and dry thoroughly. Just before filling, toss with the sugar and potato starch. Not earlier: sugar draws out juice and in a quarter of an hour you have a bowl of purple soup.
Ingredients: 300 g blueberries or bilberries · 3 tbsp sugar · 1 tbsp potato starch
TipPotato starch turns the berry juice into a thick jam inside the bun. Without it, the juice leaks through every seam and burns on the tray.
Sugar and starch just before fillingFill
Knock back the dough and divide into 10 pieces of about 100 g. Flatten each with your palm into a 12 × 9 cm oval, put a heaped spoon of berries in the centre, fold the long edges together and pinch very thoroughly, then pinch the ends. Lay seam down on a lined tray, 5 cm apart.
A heaped spoon, sealed thoroughly, seam downSecond rise and egg wash
Cover and leave 30 minutes. Heat the oven to 180 °C. Brush the risen buns with the second egg, beaten.
Thirty minutes, then egg on topBake
Bake 18–20 minutes, until golden. Juice escaping from one or two is normal; if it leaks from all of them, seal harder next time. Cool on a rack 15 minutes.
Golden in 20 minutesIce
Beat the icing sugar with the lemon juice into a thick, pourable icing; if too thick, add a few drops of water. Drizzle over the lukewarm buns. Best the same day; refresh the next day 5 minutes at 160 °C.
Ingredients: 100 g icing sugar · ½ pcs lemon, juice
Lemon icing on lukewarm buns
Before you start
With streusel
Instead of icing, a streusel of 50 g butter, 80 g flour and 40 g sugar scattered over the egg-washed buns before baking. Just as popular a version as the iced one.
From frozen berries
Don't thaw: toss frozen berries with the sugar and 1½ tbsp potato starch and fill at once. Bake 3 minutes longer.
Buns burst in the oven
Too much filling or poorly sealed. Seal twice: the long edges first, then the ends, and roll the whole bun between your palms so the seam disappears.
