Khachapuri - Russian bread filled with cheese

Khachapuri is a Russian bread, typically filled with cheese, but you can also fill it with meat or eggs too. There is not one shape for the khachapuri, but several. The idea is to stuff the dough with the filling, and you can make one big one or lots of small ones. I decided to go with one loaf.

Ingredients: 500 g strong white flour, 5 g dry yeast, 250 ml water, 50 g melted butter, plus extra to glaze, 1 tbsp sea salt. For the filling: 2 eggs, 250 g non-oily cheese (mixture of feta and cottage cheese, or goat cheese and mozzarella) - I used 250 g mozzarella, 2 tbsp strong white flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp smoked paprika.


For the filling, mix the eggs, cheese, flour, salt and paprika and set aside.


Put the flour in a large bowl and make a hole in the middle. Put the dry yeast in the well and add 100 ml water on top. Cover and let it rest for 15 min. This allows the yeast to be dissolved.


After 15 min, add the rest of the ingredients and mix. Tip out onto the counter and knead well for 10 min.


Put back in the the bowl, cover and rest for 1 - 2 hours, until doubled in volume.


Flour the surface. Roll the dough into a large circle - 1 cm thick.


Spoon the filling in the middle and water the edges of the dough.


Start folding the edges to the middle to cover the filling completely.


Move the dough to a baking tray. Glaze with the melted butter. Cover and allow to rest for another hour.


Preheat the oven at 200° C.
Bake for 45 min until golden brown.


Let it rest for 20 -25 min before cutting it.