Cooking with Toti
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Bulgarian Feta Bread (Pitka Tutmanik)
Soft, fluffy pull-apart bread layered with butter and salty feta.
Serves
8
Time
2 hr 30 min
This soft, fluffy feta bread is smeared with butter and filled with salty feta — the kind of homemade comfort that melts in your mouth. A classic Bulgarian pitka tutmanik, golden on top with buttery, cheesy layers inside.
Instructions
Activate the yeast
- 1
In a deep bowl, combine warm milk (lukewarm — shouldn’t burn your finger), crumbled fresh yeast (or instant), honey, and olive oil.
- 2
Mix and let sit until bubbly and activated.
Make the dough
- 1
Sift the flour and mix in the salt.
- 2
Add the activated yeast mixture, eggs, and room-temperature yogurt to the flour.
- 3
Mix until a dough forms, then knead until soft — by hand, with a stand mixer (dough hook), or in a bread machine.
First rise
- 1
Place the dough in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel, and let it rise until doubled.
Shape & fill
- 1
Use room-temperature feta and very soft (not melted) butter.
- 2
Layer, fold, and shape the dough — spreading butter and crumbling feta between the layers.
Bake
- 1
Bake until golden brown on top.
Toti’s Tips
- ✓Use lukewarm milk, never hot, because heat above body temperature kills the yeast and the dough won't rise at all.
- ✓Bring the eggs, yogurt, feta, and butter to room temperature before using them, since cold ingredients slow the yeast down and make the dough harder to mix evenly.
- ✓Keep the butter very soft but not melted, because melted butter soaks into the dough instead of forming the separate buttery layers that make this bread pull apart.
- ✓Let the feta sit at room temperature so it crumbles and spreads easily instead of clumping in cold, hard pieces.
- ✓Fresh yeast gives a slightly deeper rise, but instant yeast works just as well if that's what you have on hand.
- ✓When speeding up the rise in a warm oven, keep it just barely warm and set the bowl on a wooden board instead of the metal rack, since direct metal heat can start cooking the dough before it finishes rising.
- ✓Bake until the top is golden brown, since a pale top usually means the inside is still doughy in the buttery layers.
More photos
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