Georgian Khachapuri - Cheese Filled Buns/Rolls

This recipe comes from my recipe book "World Encyclopedia of Bread Making". The picture shows a bun sliced open with lots of melted/gooey cheese pouring out.

The book says, "These savory buns are sold from street stalls as warm snacks. The sealed bread parcels envelop a meltingly delicious cheese filling; goat cheese is typically used in Georgia."

It looks wonderful and sounds wonderful, so I decided to give it a go.

The cheese mixture is a combination of cheeses (cheddar, and Munster or Taleggio), plus a beaten egg, some butter and salt/pepper. I did not have the required cheeses of Munster or Taleggio so I threw in some feta and Havarti (?) with the cheddar.

Adding the cheese filling

The dough is rolled out into flat disks and placed into Yorkshire pudding tins (I used an XL muffin tin) and a scoop of the cheesy goodness is placed in each one.

I know it's not probably true to the real "Georgian Khachapuri" but I used a combo of whole wheat flour and white, and did not use as much cheese as called for, in an effort to make these a bit less fat-ful.

I could not get the knack of "gather the overhanging dough into the center and twist to form a topknot," so my tops didn't look as good as in the picture.

Baked and looking lumpy

I could barely wait for them to cool before I tried one! They were wonderful! I'm sure it was due to using less cheese and the wrong cheese that caused all the cheese to just clump down at the bottom and was not oozy gooey. I didn't care - they were still great.

The kids did not like them! Of course dd LOVES cheese and these were all cheeses she liked. The boy did not want any of the cheesy part - so they happily ate the tops off of the buns - which was fine with me, b/c I got more of the good part.

Sliced in half - you can see the cheese mix clumped at the bottom

If you understand Japanese - here is a demonstration of an alternative way of making the Georgian Khachapuri in a frying pan.