Plăcintă (Romanian Filled Pastry)
Also called placinta, placinta cu branza, plăcintă cu brânză, sweet cheese pastry, plăcintă cu mere, placinta cu mere
Paper-thin stretched dough rolled around a filling of sweet cheese, apple or pumpkin, then baked or fried.
- Makes
- 1 large coiled pastry
Ingredients
Pan sizes, times and temperatures in the method are not scaled.
Stretched dough
Sweet cheese filling
Topping
Method
Dough
Mix the all-purpose flour (300 g2½ cups), salt (½ tsp), egg (1), warm water (150 ml½ cup + 2 tbsp), sunflower oil (27 g2 tbsp) and vinegar (5 g1 tsp). Knead 10 minutes, until very smooth, soft and elastic but not sticky.
Oil the surface of the dough, cover, and rest at least 30 minutes, 1 hour if you can. The gluten needs to relax before it will stretch.
Filling. Mix the brânză dulce (500 g), eggs (2), sugar (100 g½ cup), vanilla (1 tsp), lemon zest, raisins (50 g⅓ cup) and semolina (50 g5 tbsp).
Stretch. Cover a table with a large clean cloth and flour it. Set the dough in the middle. With your fists under it, knuckles up, stretch the dough outward in all directions until paper-thin, thin enough to read through, and hanging slightly over the edges. Trim the thick edges.
Assemble and bake
Heat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Brush the stretched dough with melted butter or oil.
Spread the filling over two thirds of the dough. Roll it up loosely from the filled edge. Coil it into a buttered round pan, or lay it as a long roll in a rectangular pan.
Brush the top with the beaten egg.
Bake 35 to 40 minutes, until golden and crisp. For the last 10 minutes, pour the sour cream (100 ml7 tbsp) mixed with the egg (1) over the pastry.
Notes
- Tears. Stretching takes practice. Patch any tears; a few holes don't matter.
- Apple filling (cu mere). 1 kg tart apples, peeled and grated, 100 g sugar, 2 tsp cinnamon, 50 g breadcrumbs and 50 g melted butter. Skip the sour cream topping.
- Pumpkin filling (cu dovleac). 500 g pumpkin, grated and squeezed dry, 100 g sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon and 50 g semolina. Skip the sour cream topping.
- Fried version (plăcintă la tigaie). Cut the stretched dough into 15 × 20 cm (6 × 8 inch) rectangles, put filling on one half, fold over and press the edges. Fry in sunflower oil over medium heat until golden on both sides, drain, and dust with powdered sugar while hot.
- Quicker dough. A sour cream pastry (flour, sour cream, butter and baking powder) can replace the stretched dough.
- Closer to brânză dulce. Mix ricotta half and half with cream cheese.