Jahodové knedlíky – scrumptious dumplings packed with strawberries, coated in butter and mouthwatering strawberry sauce. Arguably, the best that can happen to this fruit. Making these might be considered a bit complicated - the dough is very sticky and the fruits need to be sheltered firmly, but the result is worth all the fiddling and cursing. I promise, it’ll get easier with every fruit you wrap. Strawberries aren’t your thing or out of season? Try plums and ground poppy seeds, apricots and curd or even chocolate melted in cream. You will love them all!

Ingredients (about 16 little dumplings):

Prep time: ~30 minutes, cooking: 12 min.

Dumplings:

250g curd
25g soft butter
2 egg yolks (medium)
a tbsp of vanilla sugar
12 tbsp fine semolina flour (you might need more depending on the curd used)
1 tsp zest of a lemon
a pinch of salt
a pinch of baking powder

Filling:

strawberries

Sauce:

200g strawberries
150g sour cream
confectioners' sugar (amount depends on your taste)

and

butter

Preparation

Put the curd in a fine sieve for at least 15 minutes.
Heat up a large pot of water so it's almost at a very light boil, and keep it at that temperature. Wash the strawberries and pat them dry, then remove their pits and coat them in sugar.
Beat together the strained curd cheese, melted butter and egg yolks in a big bowl. Wash the lemon and rub it dry, then zest it and add the zest into the mixture. Add vanilla sugar, salt, baking powder and mix them all together using a wooden spoon.
Finally, add the fine semolina and combine until you can form the dough into balls (if the dough is still sticky, you can add more semolina, but your dumplings will turn out firmer in the end).
Form the mixture into two logs and cut each into 8 equally sized pieces. Slightly flour your hands and shape little circles, then place a strawberry in the middle of each and wrap it firmly with the dough. Make a little dumpling and flour it lightly if necessary.
Carefully slide the dumplings into the lightly boiling water, stir gently every now and then to make sure no dumpling got stuck to the bottom of the pot, and let them simmer at low heat for 12 minutes.
Meanwhile mash strawberries, confectioners' sugar and sour cream with the back of your fork and melt some butter in a pan over medium heat. Take the dumplings out with a skimmer, let them dry a bit and coat them in the pan with the melted butter. Put little bit of strawberry sauce to a bowl and add hot dumplings. Finish it with powdered sugar and curd or with the remaining sauce.

Enjoy!