Cherry dumplings (varenyky)

Ingredients

• plain flour – 2 glasses
• sunflower oil – 1 tbsp
• salt – 0.5 tsp
• boiling water – 1 glass
• pitted cherries – 400 g
• sugar – 150 g

Method

1. Step 1

   Sift the flour into a deep bowl and make a well in the middle. Sprinkle salt, pour in a spoonful of sunflower oil and a glass of boiling water. Mix quickly with a spoon (never use your hands - you can get burned). When all the ingredients are mixed, you need to knead the dough with your hands, roll it into a ball, put it in a bag and leave for 15 minutes.

   
2. Step 2

   In the meantime, let's take care of the cherries. You need to wash the cherries and remove the seeds from them - I do this with a pin. It is better to place pitted cherries on a sieve - this way the excess juice will drain and will not interfere with sculpting.

   
3. Step 3

   Knead the rested dough with your hands, divide it into 3 parts and roll each part into a sausage with a diameter of about 1.5 cm. Cut each sausage into circles of about 1 cm and dip in flour.

   
4. Step 4

   Or you can divide the dough into 4 balls, roll each one out and cut out even circles with a glass - this way you will get dumplings of the same size. But I like the first method better - the dumplings are not perfectly identical, but it’s much faster and you don’t need to roll out the remaining dough.

   
5. Step 5

   Roll out the dough to approximately 2-3 mm thick. When rolling out the dough, you don’t need to add a lot of flour, usually the one on the circle is enough, but if the dough sticks to the table, add a little flour. Take a circle in your hand, sprinkle a little less than half a teaspoon of sugar on top, put 2-3 cherries on top and pinch the edges of the dumpling well.

   
6. Step 6

   Place the dumplings on a surface previously sprinkled with flour.

   
7. Step 7

   While you are making the last batch of dumplings, set the water to boil. It’s better to take a large saucepan and fill 2/3 with water. Place the dumplings in boiling water and stir gently so that they do not stick to the bottom. After boiling, cook for 3-4 minutes. No need to cover with a lid!