In this post:

Recipe of Heart Cookies with Poppy Seeds
List of Ingredients
Instruction
How to work with poppy seeds

I guess this recipe is one of the oldest in this blog, not in just The Cookie Calendar. I personally love these cookies also for the supposed discrepancy between the yeast dough and the cookie form factor.

This is another recipe I adapted from my mom’s story about how she once tried these cookies and loved them. She claims mine turned out very similar.

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Heart Cookies with Poppy Seeds

cookie calendar, day 17

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Ingredients

Ingredients for Dough

850 g all purpose flour
180 g sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp yeast
450 g milk
120 g sunflower oil
1 egg

Ingredients for Filling

100 g butter of room temperature
100 g sugar
50 g poppy seeds

Ingredients for Greasing

1 yolk
30 g water

Method

1. In one bowl, mix all the bulk ingredients of the dough: flour, sugar, salt, yeast.
2. And in the other mix all the wet ingredients: milk, egg and butter.
3. Combine the contents of both bowls and knead the dough. At this stage it is convenient to use a dough kneader or mixer. I generally use a bread maker.
4. Now let’s let the yeast work: leave the dough for 40 minutes until it doubles in volume.

And don’t forget to cover the bowl with a towel.
5. Preheat oven into 220 °С.
6. Roll out the dough into a plane 0.5 cm thick.

7. Grease with butter, sprinkle the dough with prepared poppy seeds (see my notes below) and sugar,

roll into a tight roll, carefully pinching the seam.

8. Take a sharp knife and cut the roll into slices about 2 cm thick.

9. Now let’s make magic! Cut each slice to the middle

10. and unfold the cookies like a book.

11. Place the cookies on a baking sheet lined with baking paper at a distance of 3 cm from each other and greas with a mixture of yolk and water.

12. Bake for about 12 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.

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How to work with poppy seeds

1. Check the expiration date of poppy seeds. Even in airtight packaging, they quickly become rancid if they’re past their expiration date.

2. For filling take fresh poppy seeds and grind them a little in a mortar with a little sugar. This will make the cookies more flavorful.

This remark is universal; you can prepare poppy seeds in this way for your other recipes as well.