Basic Sweet Dough aka "Testo Sdobnoe"

The dough presented in this recipe is your basic sweet bread dough aka "sdobnoe testo" used not only for pies but for a variety of other pastries. If you're not up for pies use it for cinnamon and butter rolls, or anything else that comes to mind.

A piece of advice - sift the flour! I cannot stress enough how good a thing it is for your dough! So sift it! Twice!

The Recipe

2 cups milk

2 tbsp yeast

2 eggs
2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp vanilla sugar (or vanilla extract)
9 cups flour depending on consistency + extra for kneading and rolling

2 sticks butter + 1/2 stick butter for greasing the pan and prepping the crust

1. Dissolve yeast in warm milk.

2. Add eggs, salt, sugar, vanilla and melted butter. Mix well.

3. Gradually add flour and knead the dough until it's nice and smooth.

4. Cover the bowl with the dough with a towel and put it in a warm place. Let sit for 30-45 minutes.

One trick that I learned from my sister-in-law is to preheat the oven to 170-200F. Turn it off. Put the bowl with the dough in. And here's a perfectly warm place. Plus, this is exactly why it only takes 30 minutes for it to be ready to use.

Once the dough is ready, knead it one more time. Then go ahead and shape your rolls or pies.

This dough bakes fast.

For smaller sized rolls and pies preheat the oven to 385F and bake 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Larger sized pies and breads will take longer. Try it at 350F for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

Make sure it doesn't burn on the bottom! Good luck!

Commentaries welcome.