Sweet yeast dough: filled buns, kugelhopf, kolache

Why

Besides flour, sweet yeast dough contains plenty of sugar, butter and eggs, and these hold the yeast back: dissolved sugar draws water away from it, and fat coats the gluten and slows its development, so the dough takes longer to knead and rises noticeably more slowly than bread dough. That is why Czech recipes start with a kvásek, a starter of yeast stirred into lukewarm milk with a little sugar and flour, which gets going before it ends up in the sweet dough. Cold milk, eggs or butter from the fridge chill the dough and slow the rise further, while hot melted butter damages the yeast. Bakeries use osmotolerant yeast for very sweet doughs, a strain that copes better with concentrated sugar; at home, giving the dough more time is usually enough. Eggs and butter make the crumb soft and tender, but sugar speeds up browning, so buns and kugelhopf turn golden outside before they are baked through, and the bottom burns easily.

How to do it

• Take the eggs and milk out of the fridge in advance, warm the milk only until lukewarm and let melted butter cool to lukewarm.
• Let the starter work until it foams and grows; if it doesn't, the yeast is old and you shouldn't make the dough with it.
• Work the dough until smooth and it comes away from the bowl; sweet dough may stay soft and slightly sticky, so add extra flour sparingly.
• Judge the rise by volume, not by the timer, and let shaped buns prove until they look visibly puffy.
• Bake at a moderate temperature of about 170–180 °C and cover a top that darkens too early with baking paper or foil.
• Brush the buns with melted butter and once baked, let them cool under a tea towel so they don't dry out.

If it goes wrong

Move dough that still won't rise after a long wait to a warmer spot of about 30 °C, not directly on a radiator, and give it time. If that doesn't help, the yeast was dead; work a new starter made with fresh yeast into the dough and let it rise again. Heavy, under-proved buns can't be made fluffy any more, but sliced, they can be baked with milk and eggs. Cut off a burnt bottom and bake one shelf higher next time.