Book 12 - Chapter 14 - Vatrushki and Even Patriots Have to Eat

"In historic events the rule forbidding us to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is specially applicable. Only unconscious action bears fruit, and he who plays a part in an historic event never understands its significance. If he tries to realize it his efforts are fruitless."

Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Recipes: Culinaria: Russia by Marian Trutter

Vatrushki

(Curd Cheese Danish)

For the pastry: 

Russian Yeast Dough (the same that was used for the piroshki)

For the filling: 
2 1/4 cups of soft curd cheese (you can make this by squeezing cottage cheese through a cheese cloth)
9 tbsp sugar
1 egg
1 tbsp buckwheat flour
Vanilla extract (to taste - I used a capful)
1 pinch salt
Raisins (optional - you can mix them into the cheese, I just pressed them into the tops of some of my Vatrushki)
Butter for spreading on before eating (optional)

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and use an electric mixer until it gets to a creamy consistency and the cheese curds become very small.

Putting it all together: 

Roll your dough out to a log and slice it into 20 equal sized portions.  Roll each portion into a ball.  

Press indentations into the dough balls and fill with the cheese mixture.  

Bake at 420 degrees for about 20 minutes, but watch them carefully, the recipe only said to bake until they were golden brown and I nearly overcooked mine (the bottoms only just escaped burning and I would have been much happier had they been a little softer).  Also, some of the filling escaped from the dough.

I really think I'm not meant to work with yeast.  Well, at least not after 5 PM.  I always end up putting it off until too late, leaving it in the fridge overnight, and then it gets a slightly bitter taste to it.  It's not bad, it just wasn't the best option for a sweet danish.  Here are some variations I would make to the recipe for next time:  I would follow the piroshki advice and glaze the dough with beaten egg before baking, that gives it a nice shine and makes it perfectly clear when it turns "golden brown."  The cookbook also stated that you could fill your vatruski with fruit or jam.  I made some that were half jam-half cheese, some that were all jam, some that had raisins, and some that just had the cheese mixture.  I had a half cherry jam-half cheese vatrushka with my coffee this morning, and given the bitter dough and even the slight overbaking, it was pretty good.   

About the book:

Tolstoy makes very bold statements about the results of blind patriotism, "Those who tried to understand the general course of events and to take part in it by self-sacrifice and heroism were the most useless members of society, they saw everything upside down, and all they did for the common good turned out to be useless and foolish—like Pierre's and Mamonov's regiments which looted Russian villages, and the lint the young ladies prepared and that never reached the wounded, and so on."  Tolstoy is not trying to say that the feelings which prompt these acts of self-sacrifice are stupid, or useless; rather, that the actions themselves are not well thought out, not regulated, and that nobody follows up on them.  Pierre does a marvelous, generous thing by arming a whole regiment from his own money, but he never looks after that regiment, or even appears to think of it again.  He is not motivated by self-interest; if he had truly wanted to make his generosity redound back on his name, then he would have made sure that his regiment distinguished itself.  He would not leave the men to their own devices.  Tolstoy also says, "most of the people at that time paid no attention to the general progress of events but were guided only by their private interests, and they were the very people whose activities at that period were most useful."  In other words, even patriots have to eat.  If every man who loved Russia at this time had left his fields and sacrificed his family, the whole country would have starved.  It is important to remember that even in war, that which motivates man the most is his own survival; if he lets go of that, his actions risk becoming erratic and inconsequential.