Armenian sweet butter bread (Gata)

1. For the dough, activate the yeast with the sugar and 3 tablespoons of lukewarm water; put the flour and salt in a bowl, add the yeast mixture, egg, sour cream and melted, cooled butter and knead into a smooth, soft dough; cover and leave to rise for 1 hour.

2. For the khoriz filling, mix the scraped seeds of the vanilla pod with the sugar, add the flour and soft butter and rub together with your fingertips into a sandy crumb.

3. Divide the dough into 3, roll each into a rectangle of about 30 × 20 cm and sprinkle evenly with a third of the filling, leaving 1 cm free at the edges.

4. Roll up tightly from the long side, press slightly flat and cut into 4 cm diamonds; place on a lined baking tray and leave to rise for another 20 minutes.

5. Brush the tops with beaten egg, draw a pattern with a fork and bake in an oven preheated to 180 °C for 25-30 minutes until golden.

6. Serve cooled with tea or coffee – the traditional sweet of Armenian holidays, especially Tyarnyndarach (Candlemas in February).

Tip: Gata comes in many shapes: in Garni it's baked as a large, round pie with an ornate pattern. If you bake a coin into it, whoever finds it can look forward to a lucky year.