White Cheese Pastries

White cheese pastries or Fatayer Jebneh in Arabic are widely known and loved by adults and kids alike in the Arab countries. These pastries are great to be served as appetisers, weekend brunch, or picnic snacks.

I baked mine using feta cheese, but any salty cheese you like would do! You can also use different flavourings, for example add cilantro, parsley, mint leaves, nigella seeds...

White cheese pastries Recipe
"Fatayer Jebneh"

Ingredients

• Dough:
• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup warm water
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon active dry yeast mixed with a little bit of warm water and 1 teaspoon of sugar
• a pinch of salt
• sesame seeds (optional)
• 
  
• Filling:
• 1 1/2 cups feta cheese or any other salty cheese
• 1/4 cup minced parsley (If you don't like parsley substitute with nigella seeds/black cumin)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 200°.
2. Gently mix instant yeast with warm water and sugar in a cup (yeast should become bubbly, if it doesn't it means that it has gone bad and you should replace it with another package).
3. In a medium sized bowl mix feta cheese with the minced parsley and/or nigella seeds. Put aside.
4. In another bowl mix the dough ingredients and blend well. Leave the dough for 30 minutes to rest in a warm place and cover with a clean towel or plastic wrap (it should double in size).
5. Cut the dough into egg sized balls and cover again with a clean towel or plastic wrap and let them rest for 10 minutes.
6. Roll each dough ball into oval shape then add filling to the centre.
7. Fold the dough to cover the filling and press the edges to seal it.
8. You can brush the pasties with some olive oil or an egg to give them a golden colour when they bake. Sprinkle the tops with sesame seeds (optional)
9. Bake in the oven until the tops are golden.

Serve with sweet mint or green tea!